However, her opponent's negative campaign strategy backfired, and Beyer won the seat, becoming the world's first openly transgender Member of Parliament. She reluctantly resigned her position as Mayor of Carterton in 2000 in order to focus on her national duties.

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As a Member of Parliament, Beyer worked hard to represent both her rural constituents and the national and international queer community that looked to her for progressive reform. She remained as unapologetically open about her trans identity as ever, answering even questions about her sex life with frank humor, while speaking out about gay rights and working for the reform of prostitution laws.

As she told Australian journalist Steve Dow, "I get asked questions no other politician would ever have to answer . . . . Regarding the surgery, you know. 'Did it hurt?', or, 'When you have sex now as a woman, is it different to how you had sex as a man?'" To the latter question, she responded, "Well, honey, obviously."

More seriously, she has eloquently described the profound relief she felt following sex reassignment surgery, seeing it as liberating her from the "soul-destroying" feeling of "being trapped in the wrong body."

Although she was unable to achieve the passage of a gender identity protection bill, she showed remarkable political savvy in persuading both the Solicitor General and the Attorney General to sign a statement making that protection explicit under New Zealand's current human rights bill, thereby achieving the same result.

Able to speak with the authority of one who had worked in the sex industry, she was a major force in the passage of the Prostitution Law Reform in 2003. She opened her speech in Parliament on the issue by declaring: "Madam Speaker, I shall take the liberty of assuming that I am the only member of this House with first-hand knowledge of the sex industry." As journalist Kathy Marks notes laconically, "No one contradicted her."

She was also an effective proponent of the Civil Union Bill of 2004, which accorded same-sex couples the same rights and responsibilities of married heterosexual couples.

In 2007, exhausted by the long hours and demanding workload of a national representative, Beyer resigned from Parliament.

Though she had won the votes and hearts of many of her constituents, Beyer remained a political outsider, and the Labour party did not offer her the support that was often given to ex-MP's.

Beyer was not offered a job on any government commissions and was rejected for a seat on the Human Rights Commission. Discouraged and angry, she expressed regret at leaving local politics for the national arena.

A brief stint as coordinator of the community group Violence Free Wairarapa ended in 2008, and Beyer found herself looking for a job. In 2010, she was working as a sales clerk in a jewelry store when she decided to re-enter local politics by running for mayor of Masterton, the largest town in Wairarapa. Though she had considerable community support, her bid was cut short when her major donor died, leaving her short of funds to campaign.

Beyer's experiences as a groundbreaking politician, her public role as a transgender spokesperson, and her glamorous, theatrical persona make her an internationally popular speaker on issues of sexual and gender identity.

Beyer's life is the subject of an autobiography, A Change for the Better (2002), and of a documentary by Annie Goldson and Peter Wells, Georgie Girl (2003).

Transgendered individuals have published autobiographies not only to tell or to clarify the stories of their lives, but also to educate others in an effort to gain greater acceptance for transgender people.

Vermont's Civil Union law conferred all the rights, benefits, and responsibilities of marriage on same-sex couples.

Historically, cabarets and revues have been much more likely to mention or imply same-sex desire than the "legitimate" theater; and same-sex desire has been less frequently condemned in cabarets and revues than in mainstream plays.

In literature, the gay male cross-dresser and the lesbian cross-dresser are depicted quite differently.

The queer community has used documentary film to resurrect historical memory and to permit the marginalized to bear witness, as well as to build an image base that reflects our diversity and counters distorted representations.

Female impersonation need say nothing about sexual identity, but it has for a long time been almost an institutionalized aspect of gay male culture.

In the United States, glbtq candidates have achieved some significant successes at the ballot box in the last three decades, running for and winning local, state, and national elections.

Recently, New Zealand has distinguished itself for its liberal attitudes towards those of diverse genders and sexualities and its progressive anti-discrimination policies.

Gay, lesbian, and bisexual actors and actresses are among the elite of contemporary theater, but only recently have many come out publicly.

"Transgender" has become an umbrella term representing a political alliance between all gender variant people who do not conform to social norms for typical men and women and who suffer political oppression as a result.

Since the late nineteenth century, transgendered people have advocated legal and social reforms that would ameliorate the kinds of oppression and discrimination they suffer.

Despite some recent progress, people who do not conform to society's gender norms continue to experience discrimination in employment, housing, public accommodations, marriage and family litigation, medical care, prisons, schools, and hate crimes protection.