'Glee' Season 6 Cast: Dot-Marie Jones Talks 'Mind-Blowing' Twist & Increase In Transgender Characters On TV [VIDEO]
Dot-Marie Jones, who plays Coach Beiste on Fox's Glee, recently spoke about her character coming out as transgender and how she felt about the recent increase in trans characters on television.
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Beiste made a big announcement on the third episode of the final season of Glee last Friday, revealing to Sam (Chord Overstreet) and Sue (Jane Lynch) that she was going to transition into becoming a man. Jones spoke with TVGuide.com this week about the storyline, admitting she did not know what was to come after hearing that Ryan Murphy and company had big plans for her character.
"I trust Ryan, so I know it's going to be amazing," Jones said. "I didn't know until I got the script and I was reading it and I was like, 'Oh my God! She has cancer, no!'"
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She said that the ultimate revelation was "mind-blowing" to her, and admitted that she felt a certain amount of pressure to tell this story with truth.
"It comes from wanting to do the best that I can do and to do it with the utmost respect, especially for the trans community and Ryan and the creators and the writers and to do everything I can to do it right," she explained.
Beiste's transition comes at a time when more and more trans characters are being included on television. Trans actress Laverne Cox has become a standout on Netflix's Orange Is the New Black while Jeffrey Tambor has found massive critical acclaim for his role as a transgender woman on Amazon's Transparent.
"I think it's a long time coming," Jones said, discussing the increase in trans characters on television. "Why not tell it? It's real life, and everybody deserves to be heard and to be witnessed. I hate the word accepted because who the hell is anybody to accept anybody else?"
Glee airs Fridays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Fox.
Watch the promo for the next episode of Glee below: