TRANSGENDER FARMER IS A HIT ON THE RADIO
SINCE TELLING JOE DUFFY HER STORY, ERICA COATES HAS RECEIVED A FLOOD OF POSITIVE FEEDBACK IN HER LOCAL COMMUNITY
A 65-YEAR-OLD North Cork farmer has spoken of the hugely positive response she has received after going on RTE’s Liveline to tell the country how she has started to transition from male to female, and how accepting and supportive her neighbours and local community have been.
Erica Coates, who was born Eric, said she has received a fantastic response since telling her story to Joe Duffy, after hearing how a young man was having difficulty transitioning to female due to appointments with his endocrinologist being cancelled due to COVID-19.
“I was surprised at the response I’ve got – to be honest I was surprised that Liveline wanted me on in the first place – I would be a very private, shy kind of person and I was as nervous as hell, but Joe Duffy is very professional, and it was just like having a chat, one to one, with someone,” she said.
“I decided to ring in after hearing about that other person, and it would be bred in me from my ancestors that if somebody has a problem, you help them out, and the way I looked at it, if you could save one life by putting out a positive message, it would be worth it.
“But since I came off the radio that afternoon, the phone didn’t stop between calls and texts and emails – all these people ringing up to say ‘Fair play’ and ‘Well done’ and ‘Congratulations’ – it’s all been positive so I’m delighted,,” said Erica.
Erica, who lives with her three dogs – Sydney, Jacob and Kirstie – at the family farm at Kildinan, midway between Rathcormac, Watergrasshill, Glenville and Ballyhooly, told how she only realised she was trans-gender when she saw a trans-gender person on the Late Late Show some years ago.
“All my life since I was a child I knew there was something a bit different about me – I always wanted to leave my hair long and loved the idea of having earrings and jewellery, but I never knew anything about transgender,” said Erica, who is involved in tillage and rears beef cattle on her farm.
“Growing up a boy in a rural area, these things weren’t talked about that time. Years afterwards I heard about gays and lesbians and I knew I wasn’t going down that road – I had heard of men becoming women and women becoming men, but I didn’t think about the whys or the reasons.
“It’s a good few years ago now, but I was watching the Late Late one night, and there was a person came on and told their story about making the change – I was in my 50s at the time and listening to them, that ticked all my boxes – I had just kept it to myself totally for years and years.”
Erica took the plunge in July 2019 when she went into Debenhams in Cork city and met an assistant on the Lancome counter to ask about make-up, and the woman
was so friendly and helpful that she announced to her that she was transgender.
“She was the first person in the world that I said it to – a complete stranger – I was getting that way, slowly but surely, more feminine, bit by bit, but that was the day the gate opened, and from then on, I was just going across that bridge, and I wasn’t going to go back and that was it.
“It was like a sentence over me, my body was free but my mind was inside in solitary confinement, sentenced for life, and the sentence came off and the gate was opened that day,” said Erica, who now wears dresses and skirts in female colours and pink wellies around her 65-acre holding.
Erica, who has one brother and one sister, admitted to Joe Duffy that she would have found it difficult to come out as a trans-gender person while her late father, George, was alive, but he died in 2017 and it was only after he passed away that she felt comfortable in coming out.
“I’ve been a farmer all my life – it is probably easier for me to do it since my father died three years ago, he was a very conservative-type person – may be if I came out and said it, I might have been able to go that road years ago but I couldn’t really do it.
“I just told my brother one day, ‘I don’t know whether you suspect or not but I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m transgender and I’m going with it, no ifs or buts about it’ – the mind was in such a state, I just had to do it in the end.”
Erica, who has been diagnosed as having gender dysphoria or the distress a person feels due to a mismatch between their gender and sex assigned at birth, has not undergone any surgery or taken any hormones but does take natural products rich in oestrogen so her body has begun to change.
With support from her GP, psychologist and the Cork Transgender Peer Support Group, Erica has continued on her journey to become her true self, and she is full of praise for her neighbours in Kildinan for the support that they have given her.
“I thought it was my dark secret but I’m the same person I always was – one of the neighbours said ‘We knew that for years, but we couldn’t say it to you’.
He said to me ‘You are probably the most honest person I’ve ever dealt with in my life and to be true to yourself, you had to go with it.”
“Some of them came around and hugged me – another person sent me a voucher for €100 for a beauty treatment – I thought it was a very kind thing. Even down at the mart and dressed that way, I felt so right and no embarrassment at all, people were looking at me, it made no difference.
“All the neighbours know I am dressing totally female now, jewellery and nails are done all the time now – I have my name changed officially on my driving licence, insurance, bank – everything is changed now so the old me is left behind.
“A lot of people have said to me that from the time I came out and crossed that bridge:‘You’ve totally changed completely – you’re always happy now’.
“I wake in the morning and see my nails done, and I wear a dress or a skirt or something and I can’t explain it, but it just feels so right.”