Dot-Marie Jones

Dot-Marie Jones is an American actress and former champion athlete known for playing Coach Shannon Beiste on Glee (2010), a role that earned her three consecutive Emmy nominations before she was promoted to the main cast for the show's sixth and final season. She has been openly lesbian throughout her career and married her partner, Bridgett Casteen, in 2013. Glee later wrote her character as transgender, transitioning to Sheldon Beiste — making the character one of the more prominent trans storylines in US network television drama, though the choice to have a cisgender actress play a trans character was noted by critics.