FOX Network’s musical comedy-drama Glee changed directions last month when it revealed one of the show’s female characters was suffering from “gender dysphoria” and would be undergoing gender reassignment surgery.
Get ready to meet Coach Shannon Beiste under a new identity: “Sheldon” Beiste.
Greg Gayne / FOX via People Magazine
In an episode titled Transitioning, which will release Feb. 13, Coach Beiste, as portrayed by Dot-Marie Jones, will return to debut a new look and will be reintroduced as “Sheldon,” to the show’s other cast members.
Sheldon’s new look features shorter hair, a tie and button-up shirt, and a little patch of facial hair — a much different character than the one who left student Sam Evans in charge of the school’s football team just weeks ago.
In that episode, Beiste explained her condition to Evans and described it as a disorder in which, “your outsides don’t match how you feel you are on the inside.”
After the Jan. 16 episode premiered, Jones spoke to E! News about the transition:
Ryan Murphy told me he had big plans for me this season and I said, ‘Awesome, I’m ready.’ And he made me a series regular. I got the script is how I found out about it.
…And at first when I was reading the script, you know the cancer thing, I was like, ‘Oh, crap. No!’ And then I kept reading and I’m like, ‘Holy s–t! This is totally different!’ I never expected it at all.
Jones also told the Hollywood Reporter she felt it was amazing that the show was being aired on broadcast television.
Watch Coach Beiste’s revelation:
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