Teacher Returns To Classroom After Sex Change Operation

EAGLESWOOD TOWNSHIP, NEW JERSEY - To the students at Eagleswood Elementary School, she used to be Mr. McBeth.
Now, after undergoing a sex change, 71-year-old Lily McBeth is ready to return to teaching. But not everyone in this rural Ocean County community wants her teaching children.
"It's just bigotry," said Leslie Farber, McBeth's attorney, referring to community opposition.
McBeth, a retired sales executive who was married for 33 years and had three children, underwent gender reassignment surgery last year and applied for permission to resume teaching at the school, where she had worked as a substitute for five years.
"Why not?" McBeth said. "What's so difficult about me being a teacher? If I was so good before, what's the difference now? Just because I had a gender change?"
She said she always wanted to be a woman but put off the sex change for her family's sake.
"It's never to late to be yourself. Keep in mind one thing: To my way of thinking, when you're on your death bed, you won't regret the things you did, you'll regret the things you didn't do."
Earlier this month, the Eagleswood Elementary School District's board voted 4-1 to accept her application to return to the classroom. But once word of the move got out, one parent took out a full-page advertisement in the Tuckerton Beacon newspaper urging people to attend a school board meeting Monday night.
"Attention Residents, Parents and Taxpayers," it read. "The agenda of this meeting should not be missed. Anyone concerned about the rights of our children does not want to miss this very important meeting ... Come and see what's going on. You won't believe it."
Mark Schnepp, who paid for the ad, declined comment on it Monday, saying "Come to the meeting, and you'll hear what I have to say."
People who have undergone a sex change operation and are often described as transgender, are protected under the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination, according to McBeth's lawyer.
School board members plan to meet privately with McBeth and Farber to address concerns among board members about McBeth's hiring, according to board attorney Paul Carr.
"The public is upset and concerned, and they have questions, understandably," said Carr. "So they'll come and express themselves at the meeting," said Carr.
Carr said McBeth was a good teacher who had received favorable evaluations during her tenure as a substitute. He wouldn't say what concerns the school board wanted to talk to McBeth about.
Farber said there was no reason McBeth shouldn't be allowed to return to teaching, a thought echoed by Steven Goldstein, chairman of Garden State Equality, a gay rights advocacy group supporting McBeth's bid to resume teaching.
"A great teacher is a great teacher, period," said Goldstein.
from Newsday

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