Lady McBeth

CNN.com had a story today of a substitute teacher who got a sex change and is returning to teaching as Ms. McBeth when she used to be Mr. McBeth. The interesting thing to me about this story is not the controversy about whether elementary school children should be exposed to the issue of gender reassignment, or even this being a shining example of “diversity in action.” Nope. To me the interesting thing about this story is that McBeth is 71 years old. I just can’t understand why someone would decide that at the ripe old age of 71 that they are done being a man and ready to be a woman—and then to actually have gender reassignment surgery to make it happen. And since she has lived as a man for 70 years, gender reassignment can only do so much—it can’t reverse the fact that for years she’s had plenty of masculinizing testosterone coursing through her veins. The article notes that she has a “deep voice and masculine features but otherwise looks like a woman.” (Does that mean that you'd mistake her for a man if not for the dresses, long hair, and nail polish?) Anyway, it just struck me as interesting.