aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Friday, March 03, 2006

Miss McBeth speaks

Lily McBeth, the 71 year old NJ substitute teacher who the school board said could return to the classroom after gender-reassignment surgery, is on GMA right now. She’s making good points; the show is doing a great job of a sensitive portrayal. I’ll post from the transcript later.

In the meantime, here’s my take from the other day.

LATER, from the transcript:

ROBIN ROBERTS (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) And, and the fact that they’re elementary school age, roughly five years old to 12 year olds, you’re, you’re a parent yourself. Can you understand at all their concern? Because many of these young people, kids saw you as a man and now they’re going to see you as a woman. Can you understand at all the parents’ point of view?

LILY MCBETH (HAD SEX CHANGE OPERATION)

I can understand the parents’ fear and they’re trying to project that fear onto the children because the children don’t have that fear. Okay? They learn that from adults. And if we teach children intolerance, that’s what they’re going to do.

I note the transcriber feels the need to qualify Lily’s name.

ROBIN ROBERTS (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) Have you prepared, because, you know, that, that age are very inquisitive. You notice everything. You notice if your teacher changes his or her hairstyle or color. Are you prepared in what you’re going to say if indeed a young child says to you, what did you do?

LILY MCBETH (HAD SEX CHANGE OPERATION)

You don’t discuss those things with a child in the classroom under any circumstances. No matter what it is. If somebody came in to you in a classroom and asked a question, nothing to do with anything of your personal life, you put that aside until some appropriate time. But you don’t deny the child the curiosity. But I’m not there to teach anything about gender shift or anything like that.

ROBIN ROBERTS (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) So you say, you say nothing to them?

LILY MCBETH (HAD SEX CHANGE OPERATION)

Well, you simply say, I could discuss that with you another time out of the classroom, and you put it off and pretty soon they forget it, they go back to doing what they’re doing and they’re happy. But you don’t discuss that with little children. But you don’t lie to them either.

ROBIN ROBERTS (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) True. How about with your own, your own children? They’re adults now.

LILY MCBETH (HAD SEX CHANGE OPERATION)

They’re adults and they’re free to make any decision they want.

ROBIN ROBERTS (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) Have they been accepting? Has it been difficult?

LILY MCBETH (HAD SEX CHANGE OPERATION)

At times. It’s difficult. You have to remember, they’re going through the same process everybody else has to, and I respect their, their right to believe what they want to believe.

ROBIN ROBERTS (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) So now you, you wait for the call. You’re a substitute, so what that means is, you’re on a list, and then you wait for that call?

LILY MCBETH (HAD SEX CHANGE OPERATION)

Wait for that call, 6:30, 7:00 in the morning.

ROBIN ROBERTS (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) Do you think you’ll get the call? I mean, the school board has approved, but.

LILY MCBETH (HAD SEX CHANGE OPERATION)

I am not in charge of that. I have to leave it up to what goes on there. They do have a protocol they follow and I, I live by that. I’ve lived by it for years.

ROBIN ROBERTS (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) I’m curious, with all the attention that Felicity Huffman is getting as the best actress nominee for ‘Transamerica” and the, the attention this movie is getting, does that help with, with awareness?

LILY MCBETH (HAD SEX CHANGE OPERATION)

I think the movie gives a very fair presentation of the agony that people like me go through. If you go throughout the movie, you’ll see various scenes where she just can’t come up to the point of getting out of the denial of saying something to this young man, who she truly is. And then at the end of the movie, you see a scene where she literally breaks down and, you know, feels that she’s failed everything.

LILY MCBETH (HAD SEX CHANGE OPERATION)

And I can’t say it on the camera and I don’t want to give it away, but the idea is it’s a scene of the tragedy -people like us go through in our lives because you’ve been carrying a secret burden all your life that you could never discuss with anybody. So it’s nice to be rid of that burden. Because I’m proud of who I am today and I don’t hide. Many girls that go through this process, they’ll go, assign a whole new identity. I’m proud of my identity. I didn’t want to run and hide.

ROBIN ROBERTS (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) Well, think you for coming and sharing that.

LILY MCBETH (HAD SEX CHANGE OPERATION)

Thank you for inviting me. It’s a pleasure.

ROBIN ROBERTS (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) Wish you all the best.

LILY MCBETH (HAD SEX CHANGE OPERATION)

Thank you.