Tertiary Education Union (TEU) IDAHOBIT Day Hui 2022
Lexie was a keynote speaker at the TEU IDAHOBIT (International Day against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia) Hui at AUT where the TEU and TIASA reaffirmed its commitment to respect, protect and fulfil the full and equal enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) persons. She shared the stage with Dr Ciara Cremin and Dr Tof Eklund, noted queer writers and academics.
Voluntary. Unpaid
Membership & Governance in the Union Movement
Lexie has been a unionist all her life and has served on and off, as an official for 57 years (since 1964) with the following organisations:
- NZEI (1962 – 1984)
- Student Rep, Branch Secretary (Paid and Voluntary), committee
- Waterside Worker’s Union (1964 – 1965)
- Member
- Actor’s Equity (intermittently 1975 – today)
- Auckland Deputy Chair (1976 – 79), still a member today
- Southern Local Government Officer’s Association (1986 – 1996)
- Treasurer, member
- PPTA (1997 – 1998)
- Member
- TIASA (1998 – 2006)
- Member
- TEU (2006 – today)
- National AGM Representative x4, Branch committee, member
- TEU Te Kahukura (2006 – today)
- National LGBTQI+ committee; branch LGBTQI representative
Lexie tells this story:
‘My Dad’s Story
When I was little my Dad was deeply involved with the union movement following his return from five years on the frontline during World War II. He was a working-class boy from Port Chalmers who had grown up during the depression of the 1930’s and who could remember the violence of the Great Strike of 2013.
In 1951 I was six and my Dad, having been an active member of the Rubber Workers Union, had joined with the Waterside Worker’s Union in support of a consortium of unions involved in the 151 day waterfront strike. Leading up to the denouement of this strike I became aware, as a kid and through listening to my Mum and Dad, of the horror, the violence and the confrontation that was happening down on the waterfront in Lyttelton.
I was at home with Mum one lunchtime when Dad came home, his face covered in blood, with a blackeye and badly broken nose.
He sat at the kitchen table and talked about what he had experienced while my mother cleaned him up. I remember him saying, when I expressed concern at how badly bashed up he was, that there were others far worse off than him.
This was the start of a journey for me as he took me through the history of the union movement and the reason for its existence. From that moment I guess you could say I was radicalised but it’s actually in my DNA to want to create a better world for people who struggle for equality and a decent way of living. I guess you could say that the seeds were sewn way back then when I was six.
I’ve been to many protests, marched down the main streets of Christchurch, Wellington, Auckland, New Plymouth, even Oslo, Norway, and have worked as an activist in the area of human rights and human decency all my life. I have met some amazing people. I’ve been part of some extraordinary change. Perhaps the most moving experience I have had in recent times was, as chairperson of Auckland Pride, to host the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern when, pregnant with Neve and in her slippers, the Prime Minister marched the full length of Ponsonby Road in support of full human rights for all queer people. Amazing. It was an honour to work with her on that project as I know we share similar values and similar goals, and while she works at the highest level, I am still active on the street with people from my own community who are disadvantaged, discriminated against, often homeless, and who need all the help that people like me can give them. When I get down and a bit depressed about how slowly things are moving, I have to remember the words of Prime Minister Norman Kirk who said ‘there are four things that matter to people: they have to have somewhere to live, they have to have food to eat, they have to have clothing to wear, and they have to have something to hope for.’
I would add that, we, as individuals, need to do everything we can to do no harm to each other. My life has been driven by a desire to be part of creating a world where no one else has to sit at their kitchen table, bleeding, having had to relentlessly fight a dysfunctional system to gain any real sense of actual equality.
We’re not there yet, not by a long way.’
This commitment to action and positive change was nurtured by Lexie’s father, a disabled war pensioner, for years an activist with the Rubber Workers, Waterside Workers and PSA unions, who embedded, from when she was a child and throughout her working-class upbringing, an unassailable commitment to a life of serving others.
As a result, Lexie has been involved in supportive, voluntary union roles since she began her working life as a Waterside Worker’s Union junior member while working a part time job on the wharves of Lyttelton during school holiday breaks and, later, during Teacher’s College holidays, from 1962 to 1965.
In 1970 she was elected to the committee of the King Country Branch of the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) and served on that branch committee for two years.
When promoted to a leadership role in the special education service, Lexie moved to New Plymouth in 1972 where she was elected to the secretary’s role with the New Plymouth NZEI Branch, a position she held until 1975. During these years she represented the New Plymouth NZEI Branch at the NZEI Annual Conference held in each of those years.
On moving to Mangonui, Northland in 1975, Lexie was elected to the committee of the Mangonui NZEI branch where she remained active until leaving the teaching profession in 1976 to pursue a career in the performing arts.
Lexie began her performing arts career at Theatre Corporate, Auckland in 1976 and joined Actor’s Equity (Inc) and became the Deputy Chairperson of the Theatre Corporate Actor’s Equity sub-branch, a role she retained until she transferred to Dunedin’s Fortune Theatre in 1979.
Lexie remained an active member of Actor’s Equity even when Equity merged with the Northern Driver’s Union in the late 1970s.
In 1983 Lexie returned to Christchurch and, along with establishing her own theatre company, she took on the paid role of secretary of the North Canterbury Branch of the NZEI, a position she held for two years.
In 1986 Lexie moved from the performing arts sector into local government working as a festival manager for Christchurch City Council from 1986 to 1989. On beginning work with Christchurch City Council, Lexie joined the Southern Local Government Officer’s Association and was elected treasurer at that year’s AGM, a position she held for the following eight years. SLGOU had 23,000 members and, in those days, a budget of approximately $7m. From 1989 to 1995 Lexie worked as Executive Officer to the Mayor of Christchurch and maintained her active links to the union movement.
In late 1995, Lexie moved from local government back to the performing arts being appointed to the role of Director as the Linwood Performing Arts Centre which was based at Linwood College and thus back into the education sector where she became a member of the Post Primary Teachers Association (PPTA).
In 1995 Lexie was anonymously nominated for a Westpac Arts Excellence Award which she, along with three others, received. The award provided a significant sum to be used to study Shakespeare production in the UK, Europe, the US and Canada. Lexie left to undertake this study in 1997 returning in early 1998 and, subsequently, moved to Tamaki Makaurau Auckland to take up a Business Manager position with The University of Auckland.
Lexie finally came out as transgender in 1998 and, while employed by the University of Auckland, became a member of the Tertiary Institutes Allied Staff Association (TIASA Te Hononga) from 1998 to 2006 and, on moving to AUT in 2006, she joined the Tertiary Education Union (Te Hautū Kahurangi o Aotearoa) where she is an active member.
Lexie has served on AUT Branch committees for 8 years and has represented the branch at four annual conferences and three TEU Te Kahukura national queer network conferences. Lexie has twice featured as a keynote speaker at Te Kahukura events and at TEU Annual National Conference women’s breakfasts.
Lexie continues to be a member of Actor’s Equity and remains active in TEU affairs at branch level.
‘Selfless Service’ are Lexie’s middle names.
Voluntary. Self-funded.
dykiegirl 