Monica Mulholland made national news last May when she was nominated as the club's president-elect, two months after coming out as a woman.
At Tuesday's changeover night in Queenstown, she thanked her former self ''for the trials and tribulations that he's been put through''.
She likened him to a booster rocket - ''his job was done and he fell away''.
Ms Mulholland also singled out her wife, Joan Kiernan, who became the club's first woman president in 2006.
She said a transgender woman, ex-president of another Rotary club, had been her pathfinder.
''Without her, I probably wouldn't have been here today.''
Also singled out for their understanding were Jan Chappell, who was local Rotary president when Ms Mulholland announced her transition, and then president-elect Keith McIntosh.
Ms Chappell had said: ''If the members do not accept you, I'll resign myself''.
Ms Mulholland said ''that was a turning point for me - thank you.''
A wealth management adviser who grew up in County Cork, the eldest of nine children, Ms Mulholland settled in Queenstown in 2001.
Her agenda for the next year is to connect and inspire.
''We will spend more time away from the traditional structure of having a meal and a lecture, and engage far more in activities which promote fellowship and friendship. We're also going to connect more with our community.''
Queenstown's accepting stance jars with that of Rotary's Avonhead club in Christchurch, which does not accept women members.
-By Philip Chandler
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Comments
Honestly, this subject is already so silly, there are no words. Undo your belt and look at your nether region -- that is your gender, and defines which bathroom you should use!
How do you know?
Well done Monica Mulholland. However, I don't know why this is news - Queenstown isn't the first club to have a transgender president
Now we know. Gender is sex and sex is biological determinism.
'Oh, we all talk about freedom, but when we see someone choose freedom, woe betide'
- a Jack Nicholson character, 1969.
I don't think it's discriminatory for private clubs to be able to make rules about their membership. The question can be how their rules might define 'man' or 'woman'. Cuts both ways. Not only traditionally all-male service clubs have not allowed women members but some feminist groups have rejected 'trans-women' because they say their membership is restricted to 'real' women, now sometimes called 'cis-women', so as not to offend others not born that way. Matters with competitive sport too because there is a question of whether trans-women are naturally stronger. I think it is news because it's an issue requiring profound re-evaluation of traditional assumptions. Some fish have always changed gender but only recently humans, openly, at least.