#132 Pauley and Coral

It’s not every day that a dairy farmer comes out as transgender, but that’s what I did early in 2016 with the support of my wife Coral.

We were warned that perhaps we should move to a large regional town before coming out publicly, as maybe our small community in the heart of the South West Victoria dairy region, might not be ready to accept a trans person. We were concerned for the well-being of our three young children who all attend the local primary school with 80 other local children. It is one thing for myself to not be accepted, but it is altogether another thing for my children to receive hostile treatment at school because they have a trans parent.
The support for Coral and I and our children has been over whelming!

A local parent said she was glad to have a trans person in the community as it’s only a matter of time before a young person in the community realises, they are LGBTI. That could lead to the young person being afraid of persecution leading to them leaving the community or worse they could take their life. But now, that young person can see the support the community has given me and would feel safe to come out and seek support in their own community.

Dairy regions are full of families who work extremely long hours, and these families still find time in their lives to consider the right for people to live true to their sexuality and or gender. I have confidence that people from all walks of life realise that LGBTI people are just like everyone else, we are just trying to find our way through life. Politicians have so much more access to resources and information than families in a dairy region. They really have no excuse for not understanding and supporting LGBTI people. Politicians could be educating the Australian public on the need to give marriage equality to all, not trying to block it.