Flashlight met Scott Turner Schofield before any of this got going, on a visit to Out North Theatre, where Schofield has been serving a six-week term as artistic director. This is what Flashlight remembers Schofield as: Pleasant. Gender ambiguous, yes, but mostly, just very pleasant. Schofield unlocked the gallery Flashlight had come to see, and that was that. Until six days ago, that is.

Six days ago, Flashlight discovered three things. The first was that ABC recently premiered a new reality TV special called Conveyor Belt of Love. On the show, 30 men are given 30 seconds each to make a good impression on—and earn a follow-up date with—five women. The second thing Flashlight learned was this: On Monday, January 4, Schofield made an appearance on Conveyor Belt. And the third, most shit-stirring piece of information Flashlight learned was this: Back before 2004, when he began his legal, medical and social transformation, Scott Schofield was first Katie Kilbourne, a debutante and homecoming queen hopeful, and then later, KT Kilbourn, a lesbian. And just recently, that last part might have become news to the folks at ABC, as well.

News to the network or no, bloggers and comment-posters all over the web have started up a lively back-and-forth. One group of responders—such as the warminglow.com writer whose article “Surprise! We Gave You a Tranny!” questions the honesty of grouping a transman with biological men—holds ABC accountable for not doing more thorough background checks while casting for reality TV shows. The second response—Camp B, which has, as Schofield told Flashlight, dominated—asserts that Schofield had every right to be there, and praises him for having the guts to be on TV as an out transman.

Photo by Abby Gaskins

Schofield, who in an interview told Flashlight that he’s happy with the representation ABC gave him, seems to place the show's casting crew in Camp B. According to Schofield, the casters did exactly what people should do when dealing with a transgendered person. They saw him and decided, “That's a man, he's straight, he goes on the show.” But Schofield also told Flashlight that in 2008, when he responded to Conveyor Belt's open casting call, he submitted his résumé and website, both of which reveal him as a transgendered performer and activist. And on a show like Conveyor Belt, whose cast boasts, according to realityblurred.com writer Andy Dehnart, a gay porn star (Kekoa Nalu), a magician, an impressionist, and a virgin who makes balloon animals, it seems unlikely that Schofield's presence—and the publicity it generated—was anything but calculated.

Camp A and Camp B seem unlikely to agree about ABC's moral obligations anytime soon, or about the role transgendered people should play in American society. But one thing is certain: Schofield generated some excellent publicity—both for Conveyor Belt and for himself. As of Friday, the server of Schofield's website, www.undergroundtransit.com, had crashed from too many visits, and nationally news sources and blogs like popeater.com and gawker.com have covered his appearance on the show. And with his one-man show about growing up trans in the Deep South, Debutante Balls, about to open at Out North Theatre, the timing couldn't be better for Schofield.