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Biography: Rupe, Carmen Tione

Carmen’s first photo in drag

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Carmen’s first photo in drag

This is the first photo of Carmen Rupe in drag, taken at a time when she had started to regularly dress in women’s clothes in public. Carmen stated she enjoyed playing the ‘beautiful Trevor Rupe, well-dressed man about the city’, but Auckland’s dark back streets beckoned. It was there that ‘Carmen’ began to permanently emerge.

Using this item

Alexander Turnbull Library

Reference: PA1-q-1051-054-162

Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

How to cite this page

Lynette Townsend. 'Rupe, Carmen Tione', Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, first published in 2020. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/carmens-first-photo-in-drag (accessed 20 June 2026).