Georgina Beyer, world's first transgender parliamentarian, dead at 65

Georgina Beyer, the world's first openly transgender member of parliament and a tireless advocate for LGBTQ rights, has died at the age of 65.

Beyer had long battled kidney disease but statements about her death did not mention the cause.

A former sex worker, actor and drag queen, Beyer was elected to New Zealand's parliament in 1999 after four years earlier winning an election to be mayor of Carterton, a rural town on the country's North Island.

She served as a Labour MP until 2007.

Made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit by Queen Elizabeth II in 2020 for services to the rainbow community, she was known for her work in the legalization of civil unions and gay marriage as well as the decriminalization of prostitution.

Speaking before Parliament on the issue of prostitution reform in 2003, she said: "I support this bill for all the prostitutes I have ever known who have died before the age of 20 because of the inhumanity and hypocrisy of a society that would not ever give them the chance to redeem whatever circumstances made them arrive in that industry."

Of Maori descent, she ran again for Parliament for the former Mana Party in 2014, but was unsuccessful.

Beyer received a kidney transplant in 2017 after four years of end-stage renal failure that required daily dialysis.

She died in hospice care on Monday, according to a Facebook post by Scotty Kennedy, a friend.

"Georgie was surrounded by her nearest and dearest 24/7 over the past week, she accepted what was happening, was cracking jokes and had a twinkle in her eye, right until the final moment," Kennedy wrote.

'Georgina blazed a trail': PM Hipkins

Beyer previously said she began living as a transsexual in 1976 and eight years later underwent reassignment surgery.

Shetold the Independent in Britain in 2002 that seeing a drag show as a teen was a galvanizing moment.

"It was the first time I had ever clapped eyes on transgender people," she said. "I didn't even know that culture existed. It was as if I'd arrived home."

Beyer drew laughs from her new colleagues in her first speech in Parliament.

"This was the stallion that became a gelding and now she's a mare, and I suppose I do have to say that I've now found myself to be a member," she said.

Beyer's history-making achievement was followed by a documentary that tracked her experience, 2001's Georgie Girl.

She had planned on stepping down after a single term as MP, citing exhaustion, but many constituents in Carterton reacted adversely, convincing her to seek another term.

Upon leaving the chamber a few years later, she told colleagues in a speech she felt she had been able to "redeem my more lurid past."

Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said Beyer made a lasting impression on Parliament.

"I certainly think that Georgina blazed a trail that has made it much easier for others to follow."