There was a guy I knew named Phil and he used to say “To the first one of the day” even when it wasn’t the first one of the day. He was with ASA in Augsburg and when I was there with the field artillery. Phil is now Madison following his gender reassignment surgery. I haven’t talked to Phil/Madison in 30 years. But I think of Phil/Madison when I read something like this.
When word got out that Mr. McBeth, a popular substitute teacher at two southern New Jersey school districts, was about to come back to class as Miss McBeth, it caused an uproar. The former William McBeth had undergone sex-reassignment surgery and was now Lily McBeth. 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.
At first read, the story seems to be that the people of New Jersey are intolerant. But then, later in the piece,
McBeth, 75, sent a letter Wednesday to the Eagleswood Board of Education saying she would not return as a substitute this fall, and she plans to give similar notice soon to the Pinelands district.
75? I don’t know. I think there may be more to this story than we are getting.
I’m not down with gender reassignment surgery. Gay? Okay. But live your life inside your space and don’t dribble into my space and expect me to like it.