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Andre Chumko05:00, Jun 07 2021
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Four dames and four knights have been appointed to the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2021. Years ago, when Mani Bruce Mitchell was talking with the late Rangimārie Te Turuki Arikirangi Rose Pere, she told them Māori have always known about intersex people. “[Kaumātua] would say: ‘this child has been sent to us to teach us something’. What a beautiful way of looking at and holding difference,” Mitchell, who uses they/them pronouns and the honorific Mx, said. In this year’s Queen’s Birthday Honours, Wellington-based Mitchell is believed to be one of the first intersex, non-binary Kiwis to be made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit. They were awarded the honour for services to intersex advocacy and education, having helped found Intersex Awareness New Zealand (also known as the Intersex Trust of Aotearoa New Zealand/ITANZ) in 1997 – the first of its kind globally.
Dr Rangimārie Te Turuki Arikirangi Rose Pere
: educator, conservationist; b July 25, 1937; d December 13, 2020 When Rose Pere was born in the remote Eastern Bay of Plenty settlement of Ruatāhuna, her mother was told that she would be a boy. But Pere’s birth on July 25, 1937, surprised them all, and her mother was taken down to the river where a tohuna tossed a branch into the water. Instead of going downstream, the branch pushed up against the current. That s how Rose Pere would be in this world – she’d stand up against the odds.
READ MORE: Known for her brightly coloured clothes, high intelligence and brilliant sense of humour, she would become Dr Rangimārie Te Turuki Arikirangi Rose Pere, an educator, conservationist, tohuna and academic.
A whanau spokesperson said the kuia died peacefully surrounded by her two daughters and mokopuna.
Educator, conservationist, tohuna and academic, Dr Rangimarie Te Turuki Arikirangi Rose Pere has died, aged 83. Pere of Ngāi Tūhoe, Ngāti Ruapani and Ngāti Kahungunu descent, died at her home in Waikaremoana on Sunday evening after a long illness. A whānau spokesperson said the kuia died peacefully surrounded by her two daughters and mokopuna. “We are still coming to terms with this loss. But we know this is not only a loss to the whānau but to the motu and the world as she’s touched the lives of thousands of people.”