Lily B. McBeth (August 20, 1934 – September 24, 2014) was an American

transgender A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through tr ...

teacher from Tuckerton,

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

. A substitute teacher, McBeth underwent gender affirming surgery in 2005. Her actions were hailed as a model of tolerance and acceptance of transgender Americans. She had three grown children from a previous marriage of 33 years. She was a retired medical sales and marketing executive. She was an active surfer, sailor, skier and duck hunter. As a soldier, she served in the U.S. Army as a Senior Medical Corpsman with a tour duty in Alaska. She said that she had always perceived herself as female and identified with other women. She said that for many years, she was afraid to address her gender identity and felt that her first priority was keeping her family together for the sake of her children.. McBeth worked as a substitute teacher at Little Egg Harbor Township School District,

Pinelands Regional School District Pinelands Regional School District is a regional school district in Ocean County, New Jersey, United States, serving students from Eagleswood Township, Little Egg Harbor Township and Tuckerton Borough along with the Burlington County municipal ...

and Eagleswood Elementary School District for five years prior to her transition and returned after completing surgery to resume her teaching career. 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 transgender identity. After listening to parents and citizens providing public input, the

school district A school district is a special-purpose district that operates local public primary and secondary schools in various nations. North America United States In the U.S, most K–12 public schools function as units of local school districts, wh ...

board decided to uphold their previous 4 to 1 vote for her reinstatement. This decision was hailed and criticized by

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, a ...

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

s, 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 Little Egg Harbor Township is a township in Ocean County, New Jersey. As of the 2010 United States Census, the township's population was 20,065, reflecting an increase of 4,120 (+25.8%) from the 15,945 counted in the 2000 Census, which had in tur ...

, in fall 2006. The School Board appointed her to this position after a meeting at which they heard no negative comments; the vote to accept her was unanimous, with one member abstaining. In 2009, McBeth retired from substituting, claiming that she had received fewer substituting assignments, which she attributed to being a trans woman. She was involved in local theater productions, church choir, and volunteering to re-establish clam colonies in Barnegat Bay. McBeth died on September 24, 2014, at the age of 80.

References

External links

ABC news transcript and video
{{DEFAULTSORT:McBeth, Lily 1934 births American LGBT rights activists American transgender women LGBT people from New Jersey People from Little Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey 2014 deaths Schoolteachers from New Jersey American women educators