Ramon Te Wake

Who is Ramon Te Wake?

Ramon Te Wake is a documentarian, singer-songwriter and television presenter from New Zealand. She is a trans woman and her first presenting job was for Māori Television, where she was one of three people fronting Takatāpui, which is Maori Television's first ever lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender show.

Te Wake was born in Dargaville to Māori parents Ray and Tilly Te Wake. She grew up in Ascot Park, a suburb in Porirua. She moved to Wellington in the early 1990s, and then to Auckland shortly after.

She released her debut EP, The Arrival in 2002 and toured New Zealand in R&B / Funk band Pure Funk during 1995 and 1996. In June 2005 she received a grant of up to $15,000 to record a new CD from Te Waka Toi, the Màori arts board of Creative New Zealand. Her second album, Movement is Essential, came out in 2008. In 2008 Ramon started a DJ residency at Kiss bar called "Delicious Thursdays." She is also a well known model and "the first transgender girl to appear in music video clips and a Coca Cola commercial."

Her first presenting job was for Māori Television, where she was one of three people fronting Takatāpui, which is Maori Television's first ever LGBT show. The show began in 2004 and still continues today. Ramon's storytelling was noted by Scoop Independent News as "strong, creative and visual." Ramon's most celebrated work from the program was the coverage of the 2011 death of activist Carmen Rupe. She had made a documentary of Rupe's life in 2006. In 2008 she was one of several actors selected to portray Georgina Beyer, a trans woman who became the world's first openly transsexual mayor, as well as the world's first openly transsexual Member of Parliament, in a feature-length film. In 2009 The Making of Ramon was a Takatāpui-produced documentary about Ramon which was aired as part of Triangle TV's Sunday Nights Out.