Popular substitute teacher received fewer teaching assignments after transitioning from from male to female

Few teaching assignments and an alleged prejudice from members of a New Jersey school district's board were sources of frustration substitute teacher Lily McBeth cited that led to her resignation.

Lily B. McBeth is an American transgender teacher from Tuckerton, New Jersey. She was born William B. McBeth and as part of her transition underwent sex reassignment surgery in 2005. She is a retired medical sales & marketing executive. As a soldier, she served in the U.S. Army as a Senior Medical Corpsman with a tour duty in Alaska. She worked as a substitute teacher at Little Egg Harbor Township School District, Pinelands Regional School District and Eagleswood Elementary School District for five years prior to her transition and returned after completing surgery to resume her teaching career.

The schools' 2006 decisions to keep her on as a substitute were hailed around the nation as a model of tolerance and acceptance of transgender Americans. But the storybook ending never happened: She got only a handful of assignments since then and is resigning in frustration.

"When I got the news from the school board that I would be retained, I was thrilled," she said. "I thought, `They consider me a person of worth, and that I could still be a valuable asset.' But it didn't happen."

"I was a very active teacher," McBeth, 75, told Advocate on Thursday. "I got very few calls, compared to when I was someone else. By the same token I noticed that the frequency disappeared."

Before her transition from male to female in 2005, McBeth said she averaged 15 to 18 assignments a year as a substitute teacher for elementary students in the Eagleswood school district, and an additional 16 to 20 a year in the Pinelands Regional School District, teaching high school students.

Afterward, she said, she only got two assignments per year at both districts.

"All they did was put me in a closet again," she said. "They boxed me in and kept me there."

Jillian Todd Weiss, an assistant professor of law and society at Ramapo College in New Jersey transitioned in 1998, about five years before she began teaching. She says she's not surprised at how things worked out for McBeth.

"There's a difference between talking the talk and walking the walk," said Weiss, who holds seminars for businesses on how to deal with transgender employees in the workplace. "This often does happen in employment situations where there's an outward display of tolerance and acceptance."

Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, said McBeth's experience is a common one for transgender employees. A survey her group helped to conduct this year of 6,500 transgender Americans found 91 percent had faced bias at work because of their transgender status.

Jennifer Boylan, an English professor at Colby College in Maine and author of the best-selling autobiographical novel, "She's Not There: A Life In Two Genders," said transgender people continue to suffer discrimination.

"It seems like a good teacher is being judged for something other than her talent, and we should all be able to agree that's not fair," said Boylan, who transitioned in 2000. "My heart goes out to Lily and all people who have to fight prejudice as a result of who they are."

In 2003, McBeth started her transition process, and in 2005 she legally changed her name on her birth certificate as well as official identity cards. Some in the community did not think she should have been allowed to return to teaching. One parent took out a full page advertisement in a local newspaper alerting parents to what had happened. Parents expressed fear that some of her students would not understand transgenderism.

While some parents objected at public meetings to McBeth continuing to teach after becoming a woman, many students were supportive.

"I can see where some people might have concerns, but people just need to get over it," one Pinelands high school student said in 2006.

After listening to dozens of parents and citizens, the school district board decided to uphold their previous 4 to 1 vote for her reinstatement. This decision was hailed and criticized by politicians, journalists, and activists around the world. While she continued working as a substitute in Eagleswood School District she reapplied and was put on the substitute teachers list in the Pinelands Regional School in Little Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey in the fall of 2006. The School Board appointed her to this position after a meeting at which they heard no negative comments.

Her case attracted considerable media attention. She appeared in interviews on ABC's Good Morning America, The Lynne Doyle Show in addition to being the subject of many articles and stories published in regional, national and international publications. Considered by some[who?] as the "Rosa Parks" of the transgender movement in New Jersey, the Associated Press reported her as saying: "Look at me as a person: Am I qualified to teach? Yes. Do I have experience? Yes. Do I have a good report card from the schools? Yes. I have nothing to hide, and I'm proud of who I am."

"Make no mistake: Lily McBeth is one of the most important figures in New Jersey civil rights history over the past two decades," said Steven Goldstein, president of Garden State Equality, a gay and transgender rights group.

McBeth sent a letter Wednesday to the Eagleswood Board of Education saying she would not return as a substitute this fall, and plans to give similar notice soon to the Pinelands district.

Deborah Snyder, the Eagleswood schools superintendent, said the district wanted McBeth to return this fall. She denied bias was involved, adding the district has hired a permanent substitute to report to work each day and fill in as needed.

For other classroom vacancies, the district turns to its list of certified teachers. Only after that is exhausted does it call subs from the local hiring list that included McBeth.

"We wanted to see her back on our sub list," Snyder said. "If she makes the decision not to return to our district, we wish her all the best in the future."

McBeth said that her decision to retire is only one facet of her life. With a free schedule at her disposal, she plans to stay busy with hobbies, which include work to help re-establish clam colonies in Barnegat Bay. "I could sue them over the violation of my medical privacy rights, but what would that accomplish?" she said. "I'm not in this for the money, and I have to be able to sleep peacefully at night. I'm just going to enjoy the rest of my life." McBeth also acts in local theater productions and sings in a church choir.