'Tranny Granny' Jacquie Grant

Posted in: Hall of Fame
By GayNZ.com - 16th November 2004

Jacquie Grant

West Coast-based, but with a big city view of life, Jacquie Grant, the "Tranny Granny," has joined the Human Rights Tribunal.


Who are you and what's your background?
I'm a 61-year old transgender woman, a parent to over 60 foster children and now have numerous grandchildren. I arrived in NZ in 1964 from Sydney's Kings Cross. NZ was the only place I could travel to without a passport as the Australian police were chasing me and I did not want to be put in prison yet again for the crime of dressing in female clothes.

What do you hope to achieve in your new role on the Human Rights Tribunal?
I hope I can use my life experiences constructively to make circumstances better for others.

What characterises the New Zealand GLBT community for you?
The wonderful friendships, the support, the humour, the talent.

What is the worst thing for you about being GLBT?
Sometimes I feel I am not given credibility because of my sexuality.

What is the best thing about being GLBT?
Being able to destroy that credibility myth.

Relationship status?
Widowed after 25 years

Favourite food and drink?
At 105kg probably everything.

Worst habit?
Making sure I get my point across and scratching my bum.

Most noble feature?
That's not for me to comment on.

Favourite TV programme?
Coronation Street. The world stops every Tuesday and Thursday night.

Qualities you most appreciate in a GLBT person?
Gay humour.

What are you reading at the moment?
A very technical sock knitting machine manual.

Who in the world including New Zealand would you most like to have coffee and a chat with?
My mother.

Role models?
Good people of any persuasion.

What is the most pressing issue currently facing the New Zealand GLBT community?
Complacency to the backlash that seems inevitable from the moral right crusaders.

If you could have one wish granted what would it be?
That all people could get on together regardless of race, religion, or sexuality, that we would stop hurting each other so much.