Georgina Beyer has been announced as a co-MC for the Auckland Pride Festival's opening event, the Gala show on Friday February 10th. Beyer, who has had a long and stand-out career ranging from being a transgender showgirl at an Auckland gay nightclub in the 1970s and 80s, thru being a film actress and eventually becoming the world's first transgender Member of Parliament, is currently in ill-health and undergoing constant sessions of kidney dialysis. "Health permitting Georgina will be on stage for our Gala," says Auckland Pride Festival director Julian Cook. "She's managed to re-schedule her dialysis and we'll provide her with every support we can possible give her to come up from Wellington." Cook says the choice of Beyer, and her co-MC Jaycee Tanuvasa, is in line with the kaupapa of the 2017 Festival, "which incorporates change, progress, voices of activism and their places at the heart of our communities." Beyer has long been a robust defender of glbti equality including the memorable occasion on which as an MP she went face to face with Destiny Church's leader Brian Tamaki on the steps of Parliament. Tanuvasa was a "standout performer" in the Teen Faggots Come To Life show at Auckland Pride 2014 and as well as being a Pacific performing artist is a youth worker. "There's something that feels so right about this pair MC-ing together," Cook says. "A great kuia and an emerging force in glbti issues, the older and the younger coming together." The Auckland Pride Gala, which was not held last year, is traditionally a sampler and showcase for the wide range of performances and events held during the two weeks of the Festival. It is being directed by Borni Te Rongopai Tukiwaho, who directed the ground-breaking People Like Us trans-musical for last year's Auckland Pride.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Friday, 23rd December 2016 - 12:33pm