Georgie Girl (Film).

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Author: Taubin, Amy

"Madame Speaker, I will take the liberty of assuming that I am the only member of this house to have firsthand experience of the sex industry, having been a sex worker myself." The person making this speech has a warm alto voice and eyes that dance with laughter behind her trademark glasses. She is Georgina Beyer, nee George Beyer, who became the first transsexual elected to the New Zealand Parliament, or, indeed, to a national governing body anywhere in the world. Beyer's district, the largest in New Zealand, was rural, mostly white, and conservative, and, yet, the majority of its voters were unperturbed by either Beyer's sex change or her history. Born to a Europeanized Maori family, Beyer dropped out of school and worked as a transvestite cabaret performer, a prostitute, and a TV actor before entering a government-sponsored trade-skills program and moving to the small town of Carterton. Within three years, she was elected to the district council and soon after successfully campaigned to become mayor. New Zealand's Prime Minister Helen Clark encouraged her to run for Parliament. If the transformation from transvestite sex worker to transgendered parliamentarian seems surreal on the printed page, it becomes perfectly logical once you've seen Georgina, as everyone calls her, in action. Filmmakers Annie Goldson and Peter Wells open their fifty-two-minute portrait with Georgina addressing parliament and soon cut to a clip of her dancing in full Cobra Woman drag. As they continue to weave the past (fortunately Georgina was never camera-shy) and the present, we realize that the candor and generosity that defined her as a performer are the same qualities that have made her a trusted politician. "She speaks well and she means well," says one of her constituents. Georgina won her parliamentary seat by a landslide, many of the voters crossing party lines to support a person so obviously empathetic, hardworking, and sensible. Georgie Girl is a lesson in overcoming preconceptions--about Georgina, the all-in-one embodiment of a multicultural democratic society, and the conservatives who understood her desire "to be equal to everybody else" to be their own as well. (Distributed by Women Make Movies, 462 Broadway, New York, New York 10012, phone (212) 925-0606, www.wmm.com)

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By Amy Taubin