Being an artist, queer and Māori has been "triple-hard", Ramon Te Wake tells Anika Moa, but confidence in her own creative powers helped with resilience.
Born in Dargaville and raised in Wellington, Te Wake says her childhood was filled with "incredible pain and incredible beauty".
Although there was a lot of love at home - "we would dance around while making dinner" - her parents didn't understand what trans was at the time and didn't have access to any resources.
"I don't have any anger or weirdness to my towards my parents. I have tremendous love and aroha because we were all trying to navigate this hard space, you know, and I was a lot, trust me."
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Making her way through a childhood in which she recalls being beaten up, bullied and even tortured, Te Wake felt forced to grow up quickly.
"I'd listen to Prince or Sybil or Kylie Minogue on my record player and I would cry like a biatch and then I'd open up my door and go out to the world again."
"That sense of like, 'there's so much more to this and I need to be around for something' was so present in my life."
Maybe that "something" was being part of the change in how queer and trans people are portrayed on our screens and played by people from the LBGTQI+ community.
"Fifteen years ago, those sorts of roles weren't really in our grasp, but now they're in our grasp and I think to have that as possibility, we've come a long way.
"Don't get me wrong, it's still really chaotic out there, but we're moving."
Ramon Te Wake joins Anika Moa in studio for season 2 of It's Personal. Photo: RNZ / Cole Eastham-Farrelly
Te Wake's first gig in the "very binary, masculine" TV industry - was as a presenter on Māori TV's groundbreaking queer show Takatāpui in 2004.
This year, after two decades working in documentary television, she directed her first-ever drama series The Boy, The Queen, and Everything in Between hit TVNZ+.
The Boy, The Queen, and Everything in Between, which Te Wake also wrote and produced is a story of father-son healing, she says, and also a love letter to the "beautiful queen community" of mid-90s K Road.
Her dream of selling it to an American production company for a US version would be a helpful step towards creating the life she craves - with more travel and more creative freedom.
"That's my goal, to be a lot more independent, a lot more creatively fulfilled and do stories that I love. I want to tap into my imagination more and tell stories that aren't necessarily queer-focused or indigenous-focused. I'm excited about that era."
And Te Wake's advice for people wanting to be trans allies is to not be afraid to make mistakes.
She says misgendering and dead naming can be harrowing for trans people, but the key to being an ally is listening.
"There's nothing wrong with f***ing up, f***ing up is totally fine. But when you do it two, three, four, five times, you realise somebody's not listening, someone's being disrespectful and that there is a much bigger thing happening."
Anika Moa and Ramon Te Wake at RNZ's Auckland studio. Photo: RNZ / Cole Eastham-Farrelly
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