Gemmah’s transgender story: From Carmen and sex work to the Big Gay Out

TransGenerations, an eight-part web series, tells the stories of transgender Kiwis from their late 70s to early 20s, documenting the history of trans experience in New Zealand and dispelling stereotypes about who trans people are. In episode three, host Brady Peeti meets Gemmah, the 62-year-old co-leader of a kapa haka group.

Seeing Gemmah on stage at the Big Gay Out festival, standing with her guitar and surrounded by the kapa haka group, it’s hard to imagine the turbulent journey that got her there.

Life as a trans woman wasn’t easy in the 1960s and 70s. Arguably, the struggle was greater if you weren’t Pakeha. Yet, not only did Gemmah survive, she helped her fellow trans sisters — her whakawahine — along the way.

Gemmah was born in 1961 and brought up on a farm near Gisborne where her dad was a shepherd. To escape the stark existence, her family joined the Second Great Migration, when Māori families left ancestral lands for urban centres.

A family tragedy eventually led Gemmah to live with whānau in Wellington. It put her in the right place at the right time for a pivotal moment: she saw Carmen Rupe, a New Zealand celebrity drag queen and trans woman, walking down the street.

Carmen Rupe. Photo / Alexander Turnbull Library

“The lights went on. I want to be like that,” recalled Gemmah.

She was 16 and a few months later she began to transition socially. But, shifts at the factory where she worked dried up.

Gemmah turned to sex work for income and found a community of women like her. They shared everything, including wigs and hormones. But at the time, sex work was illegal in New Zealand. Police arrested Gemmah and she served a three-year prison sentence.

It led to another pivotal life moment: experiencing and witnessing the hardship of her imprisoned trans sisters. After her release, she went back to prison as a volunteer to support those sisters on the inside and on the outside as they reintegrated into the community

In 2014, she co-founded Ahakoa Te Aha, the kapa haka group, in memory of trans veteran Natasha Allen. Days before the group’s Big Gay Out performance this year, Gemmah lost another trans friend, Georgina Beyer, the world’s first openly trans mayor and trans politician. Through grief, the kapa haka group pushed on with their performance to honour her memory.

• TransGenerations is made with the support of NZ On Air. To follow the series, go to nzherald.co.nz/transgenerations