Carmen Rupe

Carmen Rupe, born Trevor Rupe and often simply known as Carmen (10 October 1936 – 14 December 2011) was a New Zealand-Australian drag performer, brothel keeper, anti-discrimination activist, would-be politician, and HIV/AIDS activist. She was a transgender woman.

Born in the small rural town of Taumarunui in the central North Island of New Zealand, Rupe had twelve siblings. She relocated to the urban centres of Auckland and Wellington. After doing drag performances while doing compulsory military training and periods working as a nurse and waiter, Rupe moved to Sydney's Kings Cross in the late 1950s.

Taking the name of Dorothy Dandridge's role in Carmen Jones, Rupe became Australia's first Māori drag performer and from that time on lived as a woman. A whole range of work followed, including snake-work, hula dancing and prostitution. Carmen never formally worked at Les Girls but over the years did some extremely exciting, well received guest spots. She described how local police treated her: I was locked up in Long Bay about a dozen times. But it made me a stronger person today. An arrest in New Zealand failed to produce a conviction, because drag was legal there, unlike in Australia.

In 1988 an autobiography was published, outlining her escapades "from school boy to successful business woman"."Having A Ball: My Life" was written with Paul Martin and published by Benton Ross.

In Wellington Carmen ran Carmen's International Coffee Lounge and the Balcony strip club. Despite the fact that the law criminialised homosexual acts, Carmen challenged the overt discrimination and prejudice against people in the gay and transgender communities. She was not afraid to speak to the press and was summoned to appear before the Privileges Committee by Prime Minister Robert Muldoon for suggesting some MPs were gay or bisexual.

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