Transcript

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity

Gareth Watkins: Georgina, you’re famous and inspirational yourself, and I’m wondering do you have people in your career that you’ve met that are either famous, inspirational, or people that you just absolutely remember for, you know, other reasons that you want to talk about?

Georgina Beyer: Oh, well I can talk about some of the famous people that I’ve met, or very high profile, you know. Well, you can’t help it sometimes in the world that you move in, I mean from the entertainment industry or whether it’s in the political sphere, but The Queen, who I’ve met several times. When I was Mayor of Carterton was the first time I met The Queen in 1995 and came out with my famous quip on my remarking to Mrs Bolger, the Prime Minister’s wife of the day, who said to me, “I see you’ve just been introduced to The Queen,” and I said, “Yes, she’s the first real Queen I’ve ever met.” And that sort of ended up as a headline the next day in the newspaper or something.

And then in 2000 when I was part of a Parliamentary delegation to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association Conference which was being hosted in London and in Edinburgh that year, and I met her again there and she remembered me because on our first meeting when I’d been Mayor of Carterton she had recognized the name Carterton. And there’s a Carterton in Oxfordshire in England and nearby is an Air Force base, and she and the family fly in and out of there from time to time (laughs). So we had this sort of: Oh, yes! Well, we’re going to have our sister-city relationship with Carterton and the UK, and so on and so forth.

And then the last time I met The Queen was in 2002 on her Golden Jubilee World Tour that she was making, and she came to New Zealand and I, for whatever reason, found myself in the official receiving line out at the airport when she first arrived. And Silvia Cartwright was our Government General then. I think Jim Anderton stood in as Deputy Prime Minister that day for Helen [Clark], and I was there as not only a member of the government but because I’m tangata whenua to Wellington and I was there with a little Maori group. In fact a relative had rung up and said: Oh, uncle such-and-such can’t make it, and you’re in the government and, you know, come out to the airport. And there I was. And The Queen and I met sort of quite publicly there. In fact that photograph over there is of that meeting.

And the press pack that arrived with her that day on the plane – and Prince Philip was with her – when it got to her and I shaking hands and meeting, you know, pictures were taken and of course that news went around the world instantaneously. It was front pages of all the British newspapers the next day, with funny headlines like “By George! It’s the Queen!” and stuff like that. And it was all sort of quite lighthearted and nice.

Two days later we had a state luncheon or state dinner at Parliament at The Beehive for The Queen and Prince Philip, and Helen Clark got absolutely ridiculed because she wore evening trousers to the state dinner rather than a formal dress or whatever like that, and she got absolutely ridiculed in the British newspapers for that, and I got all this good PR for me and The Queen meeting.

And just on a slightly more serious side of that, The Queen is aware of everyone she’s going to meet in an official receiving line, especially when she first arrives in a country. And so she’s made aware by her minders and helpers, you know, who’s going to be in the receiving line as she’s being escorted down. If anyone had expressed to her that I was going to be there and the potential for some possible embarrassment, because this is the world’s first transsexual Member of Parliament who’s going to be in the receiving line, you might want to avoid in case there are some funny photos. Well, that didn’t happen and of course we were fine because we had met before, and that speaks volumes to me of someone like The Queen. I don’t know whether or not she would have made a conscious decision to sort of think: Well, so what? Half the staff at Buck House [Buckingham Palace] must be gay (laughs), and what would I be worried about necessarily? And that sort of was good.

So, The Queen. I’ve met Prince Edward and Prince Andrew and Prince Charles, so that sort of takes care of the British Royal Family. Oh, and of course yes, I did meet the Duke of Edinburgh, but I mean he’s a homophobe from way back and I must admit his hello to me at that 2002 arrival in New Zealand was brief and curt and he couldn’t get away from me quick enough, so that was that. But who cares? He’s nearly dead. (laughs)

And, gosh, who else have I met? Oh, Ruby Wax, Jerry Hall, Graham Norton – I met them on a visit to the UK in 2002 doing a TV programme with Ruby Wax.

Oh, and some of our own New Zealanders. I was always pleased to meet Howard Morrison. Ed Hillary. Sir Ed Hillary I’ve met on several occasions. A wonderful, wonderful man and always very hospitable with me. I think I met him when I was Mayor of Carterton, and certainly when I was an MP. In fact I’ve got some photos of me and him and Lady Hillary together at a function. We were all at a big showcase thing that was happening at the Westpac Stadium in Wellington a few years back. Howard Morrison, Sam Neill, Malvina Major. Oh, God, if I try to remember all of the... and they’re all fabulous people and I’m always humbled to have ever been able to be in the same room with them, you know. Politicians. I mean, gosh, you know, Jenny Shipley, Lucy Lawless - I’m just sort of looking at the cover of The Woman’s Weekly that I was in the other week.

Gareth: Then you’ve got people like John Banks.

Georgina: Oh, well, obviously I would hardly put them in “I admire” column or anything like that.

Gareth: Well how do you deal with somebody like, you know, I’m thinking like John Banks and maybe some of the conservative MPs in Parliament?

Georgina: (laughs) As any queen would expect me to behave with them. The first time I ever physically met John Banks I was Mayor of Carterton. He was a National Party Minister in the National government of the 1990s.

And it may not be widely known to many people but John Banks has a history in Carterton. His parents and family were from Carterton and indeed he lived there as a child I think for some time, and he had a school teacher called Myra Thomas who lived just down the road from me in Carterton. And one day I’m walking home from my mayoral office and I’m going home and I’m walking past Myra’s, in front of Myra’s house, and who the hell should have just pulled up in her front lawn but John Banks, and John had gone to visit her. And I walked past and said, “Huh, Mr Banks! What are you doing in my town?” I sort of said to him, ha, ha, you know, so it was all lovely and jovial.

And I say this because he also did a Radio Pacific talk-back show, and on occasions he had me on and would try to ridicule me and run me down and be mean and nasty, and that kind of thing. And on the radio I used to give as good as I got, I must admit. Now here he was face to face with me, so that was sort of a bit funny.

Otherwise I’ve had nothing to do with John Banks at all until actually this year sometime when I was visiting Parliament and was getting in a lift in Bowen House, and who should hop into the life but Peter Dunne, who I know and he’s my local MP currently at the moment, and John Banks. So it’s just the three of us in the lift and I go, “Ahh, Mr Banks! Georgina Beyer. Remember me?” And he looked at me as though - if his arse could get any tighter, you know, he thought like I was going to do something to him or whatever; he just looked absolutely perplexed and couldn’t say a word – ah, uh, oh, hello, uhm; you know, like that and couldn’t wait to get to his floor so that he could get out.

But I get comfort out of their discomfort, put it that way, because it’s their problem not mine. Get over it baby!

And I think the other thing, too, is that when you’re in Parliament and a politician and parliamentarian you’re sort of equals in lots of ways. I mean, you know, I might be who I am with my backstory and he might be who he is with his backstory but in Parliament, you know: You’re an MP. Well, I’ve been one too so that’s not so great is it? So what’s the difference there?

Who else? Brian Neeson was another MP who sort of always seemed to be offended that I breathed the same air as they did. And I can remember one day we were passing each other in the underground escalators under The Beehive, which go under The Beehive and across to Bowen House. I was going down and he was coming up, down one side. And whenever he used to come past me I’d get this grim look and he’d sort of go flushed in the cheeks a little bit, sort of outraged that I was there. And one day I just turned around and said, “Look, Brian, why don’t you get that heated roller out of your arse and lighten up a bit?” Well, he just about went apoplectic, (gasps) Oh! and everything like that, and everyone who was in earshot around me who head it just absolutely cracked up. See, I could get away with that sort of stuff and everybody would sort of like it.

And I remember once in the chamber Tony Ryall, who was wearing colorful ties and shirts, and sort of mismatched with his nicely tailored suits, and things like that, and he was one for great gesticulation in the chamber while he was giving a speech, and one day he’s giving a great impassioned speech about something, and he’s in opposition at the time, and throwing his hands around like that, and just straight out of my mouth, at one particular point, I just threw my hands in the air and went, “Oh, girlfriend!” I just heckled that across the chamber. And (gasps), you know, he’s... it just brought him... it completely interrupted his flow, and he wasn’t expecting it. And I think he was trying to analyze whether or not he could take a point of order and ask me to withdraw and apologize, but somebody saying “girlfriend” and heckling that across the chamber is an intervention. And of course if he’d said anything, if he’d actually stopped and replied to me or anything like that it would have been noted in the Hansard. (laughs) So it would have read in the Hansard that he’s talking away, talking away, talking away, and then suddenly, “Girlfriend!” comes out across the chamber and then he reacts to it. And so, I had my fun sometimes, you know, as far as that was concerned.

But I have to say generally I received respect from most people. I mean, if people had adverse feelings about me or people like me or anything like that they by and large kept it to themselves, were never foolish enough to use it as a personal attack at any time in the House or in any debates or anything like that, because it just wouldn’t be worth doing it and I’d end up looking much better than they would if they were going to do that sort of thing. And I didn’t promulgate it either. I didn’t sort of use it as some kind of mechanism, other than when you yell out... well, it was boring in the chamber that day; what else could I do? “Oh, girlfriend!” just sort of... it was like....

Pinky Agnew came to the chamber one day and she says to me, “God, I never thought I would arrive in our Parliament and see a member sitting down there wearing feathers and a bit of sequin in the chamber” because I happened to have this top that had a bit of feather and sometimes a bit of twinkle in there, because usually people dressed down and very conservative, and I thought oh no damn it, add a bit of glam to the chamber, and I could do that and get away with it I suppose, and it was within the dress code. I didn’t look like Jeanette Fitzsimons. You know, I didn’t have a bad hairdo like Sue Bradford (laughs).

Gareth: What about favorite interviews. You mentioned that you were interviewed by Ruby Wax.

Georgina: Ruby Wax, yes. I went to London to represent Parliament at the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association Conference as part of a New Zealand delegation. But that was in 2000.

But in late 1999 Ruby Wax had been in New Zealand doing a comedy concert thing, and she had a show in Wellington at the St James Theatre, and I along with Malcolm Vaughan and his partner Scotty, and one or two others, had been asked to judge a Ruby Wax lookalike competition, and the winner would be announced and the prize presented after Ruby’s first show. And that’s exactly what happened.

And we met Ruby Wax, and Ruby Wax was fascinated by me and so she gave me her telephone number. I thought yeah right, like I could just phone you up or anything! However, it’s pretty telling when I tell you that I kept the telephone number just in case, if I happened to be somewhere, and then as it turned out a few months later there I am in London as part of this delegation. And I had the phone number and so I rang it, and it was her private home phone number, so she was serious. And long story short she said, oh thank God you’re here; I’d love you to come on... she has a chat show called Ruby’s Roundtable, or she did at that time, and she wanted me to come and be a guest on it.

My conference ended its London leg of the conference and we relocated to Edinburgh, and the day after we arrived there I had to fly back down to London to go and do this interview with Ruby. And I flew back down.

Now, we had a TVNZ reporter called Maramena Roderick who was covering, you know, European news for TVNZ there, and we’d run into her at a function at the Australian Embassy and she was covering what the New Zealand delegation at the conference were doing. And I mentioned to her that I was coming back to do this interview with Ruby Wax, so she was very keen on getting a bit of that and so Maramena was there at Heathrow Airport to catch up with me when I arrived back down to go to the BBC. I was met by a minder person and then I was shown to this limousine, I was given all the red-carpet treatment. Maramena was very impressed with all of this and she jumps in the car with me and off we go to Shepherd’s Bush, the TV studios, and arrive in there and are whisked in, and then Ruby and I are sitting in the makeup room.

And Graham Norton was also on the show and he arrived. I didn’t know him then, and nor did New Zealand really; his show hadn’t started playing in New Zealand. Now of course he’s very famous here. So he was going to be part of the show.

And Jerry Hall! And I was absolutely, you know, star-struck when I realized it was Jerry Hall that was going to be there and we were sitting next to each other throughout the two hours of this thing that we were doing. And in the makeup room comparing tit jobs and all of that sort of stuff that we were doing together. And in fact, at the end of the whole record for the roundtable chatty thing Jerry Hall said to me: Oh, you know, why don’t you come out with me tonight? I’ve got this fabulous do. Ron Wood’s opening a new bar at such and such. Why don’t you come along?

And I was torn between: Oh my God, yes please, I would love to go to something like that! Torn between that and my duty to New Zealand, which was to return to the conference, of course, in Edinburgh. Unfortunately I chose the latter. I wished I’d gone to that bloody do. I mean, what was another day out of the conference? You know, the PR for New Zealand would have been much greater if I’d gone to the opening of Ron Wood’s new bar and restaurant or whatever it was, with all the glitterati no doubt that would be there; but no, it didn’t come to pass. So that was wonderful.

Oh, in stark contrast to my encounter with Rosanne Barr, where we never actually physically met but we met via technology on a video link. She wanted me to come on her show as a guest so I beamed in from New Zealand. But it turned out to be an absolute nightmare for me, and she just ridiculed me and I felt horrible after doing that and wished I’d never participated in it.

I was dreading that it was going to show in New Zealand at some time because, you know, I was newly elected to Parliament so I behaved myself and I just sort of took the insults that were flying from her, and the innuendo that was flying from her; things like: So, this is the world’s first transsexual member of Parliament. Well I don’t think it’s fair that she should be able to... because you don’t have to have periods and you don’t have to have children. And she went on and on like this, and I sort of sat there and my only retort was, well, you could become a lesbian, Rosanne, but to a live audience that she was in front of in Los Angeles or wherever she was located. I was in a Wellington building here. And like I said, we were doing a video link thing.

And I felt terrible. And we did that on a Saturday and on Monday morning I turn up at my office at Parliament and this fax arrives – remember faxes? And this fax arrives saying, oh, could I please sign this release form? Now, I had already signed a release form. What I didn’t realize was the release form I had signed was a release for still photography. This release form was for the interview and I seized my chance and I went, no way am I going to be signing this. And I wrote a fax back to her and said: I want you to remove all of my interview. I don’t want to be on your programme. Take it off. I do not release permission for me to be on it. Take it out. Take it out. And they said, well, you can’t do that; you can’t do that. And I said, well yes I can, I just have, and haven’t signed a release form and if you don’t comply with my wishes on this and just remove me entirely from your TV program I’ll sue you for millions, and left it at that.

And I think a few days later I had to go to Australia, and would you believe they followed me, they found me in Australia and rang me up: Please, would I hurry up and sign this release form and send it back; they had to get this program to air shortly, blah, blah, blah, and all of this sort of thing. And I went, no, no, no, no, no. She was furious. I won in the end and there was nothing with me on this particular programme. So, phew! Was I pleased? Yes I was. A nasty piece of work that bitch is.

Other famous people? I don’t know. I think I’ve met a few of our Governor Generals now, quite amazing people in their own particular ways. They aren’t terribly interesting, are they? (laughs) Dame Cath was probably our first Governor General and she was the one who introduced me to The Queen for the first time. And Dame Cath Tizard, Silvia Cartwright, Anand Satyanand, and Sir Michael Hardie Boys and people like that. Yeah, now I’m just name dropping (laughs); that is what it sounds like half the time.

The world’s second transsexual to be elected to a Parliament, Vladimir Luxuria, that was quite a historic meeting that her and I had at a gay conference at the Mexican Parliament a few years ago. Unfortunately she was only in Parliament for about nine months. She was in the Prodi government that did not last very long. In Italy they seemed to roll over every other day over there, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that she was the second.

A chap called Sunil Babu Pant, who was one of Nepal’s first out gay members of Parliament. After I had finished my time in Parliament he and I met up at the Outgames Conference in Copenhagen, and there he asked me if I would come to Nepal to help him because he was part of a committee that was drafting their new constitution over there, and would I come over, because they were looking at the human-rights chapter of the constitution, and would I come over to talk with that committee about, since I was elected in New Zealand, some of the other things like civil unions and other law and things like that that were done here and give them my own sort of track record and stuff. And would I go over and make a wee contribution to that?

That was remarkable. I did go there. I met their President, their Prime Minister, their whole then-government at the time, to sort of lobby, I suppose, to have human rights or some aspects of human rights that were.... Well, in fact, what they’ve included would be a first in the world over there, is rights of equality and human rights for what they call the third sex in their draft constitution over there. So I provided them with a few words, so I’ve got a little bit of an input in their new draft constitution. That was quite a remarkable trip.

And Sunil – very brave. He has an amazing sort of NGO called the Blue Diamond Society, I think, and he’s visited New Zealand as a guest here from time to time over the last few years. I haven’t been in touch with him recently and I’m not sure if he’s still in Parliament over there. But that was an interesting opportunity.

I mean, other than just people I think the opportunities I’ve had, just through being an elected member in the New Zealand Parliament, with the distinction of being transsexual, has opened up doors to other conferences of international human rights, whether it be United Nations or HIV conferences: I’ve been to Kobe; I’ve been to Montreal and Toronto; I’ve helped numerous other gay organizations around the world with fundraising things where I might have been over there to do things.

But you don’t realize until, you know, you go to these things and you’re asked to do keynote addresses and things like that, and you tell your story and you tell your experience and some of your philosophies and opinions on things like that, that it has a huge amount of significance for the audience and for the people who are listening.

And I’ve sat on panels where I’ve been amongst gay and lesbian, and I’ve been the only transgender politician sitting there on these panels. And it’s quite interesting, whether they’re gay or lesbian, or transgender I guess, but it’s interesting that our stories have similarities about how we got to be where we are and the challenges that we’ve faced in getting there, all the reactions, all the whatever, and that there’s a whole audience of LGBTI and others who are very keen and interested to pick our brains on how we might have navigated our way through, because it’s about sharing our experience so that others who are aspiring to get there, but because they might live in jurisdictions where their regimes are far more punitive or it’s far more difficult....

You know, take the United States, the so-called land of the free, and yet really until [Barack] Obama in his recent utterances has sort of enforced that gay equal rights and human rights and stuff, you’ve got this mish-mash of States that do and States that don’t. And then you’ve got this horrible juxtaposition of Russia at the moment that are creating laws to be even more punitive. I mean, for some gay communities around the world, take Iran, it’s still the death penalty. But in others they’re seeing the light or there are these debates going over same-sex marriage.

You know, we’re up to there, but in other countries they’re still just trying to get on the first rung, and so it’s incumbent upon those of us that have had the chances and opportunities – gay, lesbian, the LGBTI communities who’ve been able to politically make it somewhere – to share what value we have to offer. And so some of the most inspirational people I’ve met have been the underprivileged LGBTI community people whom I have come across and met who.... Let’s take....

I visited Madrid once in Spain. It was actually to help promote “Georgie Girl”, a documentary, and while I was there I’d arranged that I would also go and meet a delegation of Spanish politicians and MPs, but the local transgender group in Madrid, who were also part of their national organization that they have, met up with me at the screening of the “Georgie Girl” film, which was part of a gay film festival they were having in Madrid at the time. And so I spent some time with them and they were talking to me about how they just cannot make any headway with any political support or lobbying or whatever from their Parliament and their politicians, that they have never been able to get a face-to-face meeting with any MPs or engage with Parliament or anything like that at all, and they wanted to know from me how do I think they should be able to do it. And I said, “Well actually I’m going to the Parliament tomorrow, why don’t you come with me?” And they looked at me like I was mad or something. And I said, “Not all of you; get three of you. Come with me.” And so three of them came with me, they were still suspicious about what was going to happen.

I arrived at the Parliament. It was a big news thing that I was turning up at the Parliament and had to go through the paparazzi and all of this sort of thing, and then I was formally met in this corridor with these ten MPs that I was meeting with, and then met, and photos with the media and all of this sort of thing, and these queens were with me the whole way.

And then we get into this room for this meeting that we’re having, and so we’re all seated down at the table and these three Spanish queens are with me and the introductions are made, et cetera, et cetera, and I said, “Look, I’d like to forfeit five minutes of my time with you to these transgender people, and would that be okay?” And it was okay. And I said, “There’s five minutes. Go for it!” And they did. They introduced themselves, handed around their business cards, exchanged cards with the MPs that were sitting there, managed to get a commitment for them to be seen later on at some further day, to make an appointment and all of that, and that was that. And then I carried on with my meeting with them, and all of that sort of thing.

Afterwards, they all broke down and howled and cried and were in disbelief that this had just happened. They said that in one fell swoop I had achieved for them what had taken them a long – years almost – to ever get that close, even to get anywhere near the seat of power, and that I’d taken care of it for them just like that. And I said, well, no big deal. I said, what else should I do? I said, the opportunity was there; I’ve done nothing except make an introduction and used an opportunity that I had that’s no skin off my nose, but to them it meant the world.

And of course it was the beginning of establishing some relationship and rapport with some MPs in that Parliament for that particular group, which they treated like gold. They gave me a beautiful gift when I left of Swarovski jewelry, a millennium edition, a one-off millennium edition beautiful pendant. I still have it. And just they wanted to show their appreciation.

And that’s what I mean by sometimes rather than meeting people and famous this and that and movers and shakers, it’s those kinds of things that are more inspirational, and you sort of think that whatever I might have achieved and whatever I might have done, it can transfer into helping other people if you give it the opportunity, and that actually it’s a responsibility that I have even though I’m out of politics, even though nobody here in this country seems to give a shit about what I want to do or anything (laughs) like that, that out there it still matters and no one can ever take away from the fact that this country and me, on that little microcosm of life we were the first in the world, and that inspired many others of us out there that it’s possible.

And we did that – New Zealand did that – and it’s just helped to feed through, embolden, and keep active and motivated others out there who are way less fortunate than you or I. We think we have hard times and that we fight our battles – Oh, honey, it’s nothing compared to some countries around the world who will never know the justice that we know. And it’s our responsibility, actually, in a civilized country and world to make sure we can do what we can and share what we can to help uplift them so that they’re up with us. You know, our life ain’t so bad after all at the end of the day compared to others. So, that’s been an inspiration, and to think that I had that little piece that I’ve given to the world.

And the little old Wairarapa; little old, conservative, right-wing Wairarapa did that. And you see, that’s inspirational in itself. There’s me and my backstory, and there’s me and my abilities and all of that sort of thing, but none of it would have happened if it hadn’t been for a rural, conservative area. And it needed to be that, not Gay Lynn, not downtown CBD Wellington, not some beautiful, leafy middle-class liberal suburb. No. Rural, conservative New Zealand, who were able to overlook any of my mistakes of the past or whatever like that, take me at face value, and mutually honest about nothing hidden, no surprises, and all of that, who said, yeah, we think we can trust you to be a good advocate for us, a good representative for us, and give you the chance and put you into these positions. And that’s who put me there. And that’s a fantastic story.

And if you can transfer that to other areas where you think against all odds, against all the odds, well, think again, it could happen. But it comes down to... I think the other day when we were talking you talked about five things that I.... And it was funny as you read them back to me and I was going, yes I still stand by that, and yes, be upfront and honest, don’t hide anything, be out there, face the challenges and all that, yeah, I do. It’s been a reasonable mantra to live by.