I’ll talk when I’m ready, says RTÉ’s ‘gender-fluid’ host Jonathan Rachel
ONE of RTÉ’s most familiar news presenters shied away from an interview yesterday about his remarkable decision to begin introducing himself to the nation as a woman.
Jonathan Clynch, 44, who has worked for RTÉ in news anchor and reporter roles for 16 years, told staff at Montrose earlier this week that he was ‘gender fluid’.
He has asked colleagues to welcome him back to work as ‘Jonathan Rachel’ when he returns from annual leave in October.
In recent years Clynch has been working as a presenter, researcher and reporter on the popular News At One show on RTÉ Radio One.
The anchor, who is ‘fine with the pronoun “he”’, according to RTÉ sources, was in work last week to discuss his future at the station when many staff saw him in heels and a scarf for the first time.
The news emerged in the Irish Daily Star yesterday.
On her radio show yesterday, Marian Finucane revealed that Clynch had been due to come on her show yesterday but had changed his mind. She said that he ‘was to come in and talk to us here today’.
‘He only found out [on Friday] that this would be in the (Saturday) papers,’ Ms Finucane said, adding that Jonathan Rachel ‘didn’t want any paper to dictate when he would or wouldn’t talk about himself.’ Former Alternative Miss Ireland contestant and former Telly Bingo presenter Shirley Temple Bar expressed support for Clynch’s decision last night. An RTÉ source said he did not make any announcement and had decided that he was not going to talk publicly at the moment.
He was in the middle of a process at the moment, the source said, but would talk publicly about his decision in the future.
These feelings have been with Clynch for a while, a source said about the single news-anchor yesterday.
‘It’s not a recent thing’. He now has the freedom to dress how he feels, the source added.
‘He feels like he can bring his true self into the workplace. It’s nice people feel they can be themselves in this day and age, no matter where that may be.
‘Sometimes he feels more masculine, sometimes he feels more feminine.’
Jonathan Rachel Clynch has a very supportive family, the source said, describing him as ‘a really genuine guy’.