by Dot

When Billy Tipton first dressed as a
man to be taken more seriously as a jazz
artist she probably had no idea it would
guide the rest of her life to a prison of
secrecy. It worked. She was respected and
admired as a jazzman extraordinaire and a
gifted pianist and saxophonist. As a man
she enjoyed a musical career rich in oppor-
tunities.

She died last month at the age of 69 of
,« bleeding ulcers. She was living in a mobile
home in Spokane, Washington where she
‘ had settled down. Bursitis and arthritis had
ended her musical career in 1979 and her
income as a booking agent was meager.

She had three adopted sons who still
think he was the greatest Dad they could
have had and who don’t quite understand
why she never told them the truth. Some of
her male colleagues don’t understand why
she thought she had had to pose as a man to
make it in the music world of the 30’s and
40’s, where they say maybe there weren’t a
. lot of women, “but there were plenty and
they were highly respected.”

As a woman I understand what her

colleagues didn’t I can imagine Billy Tip-
ton, a scared young musician, unsure of her
musical talent, aware of the barrier of her
gender and with no inside connections to
smooth her way. I can imagine her trying a
stunt like posing as a man if it would give
her an opportunity to do what she wanted
most, to play her music.

As a gay person I can understand what
her children didn’t. I know why she hid for
40 years, not revealing her identity, espe-
cially to those closest to her, because their
rejection could hurt her the worst. Billy
Tipton may not have been gay, but she was
different; she was hiding from a world that
would not let her be herself, terrified of the
loathing and anger that people feel toward
people who are different. The price she paid
of living on the fringe of life and denying
herself is the same price we pay as gay
people in a homophobic world.

Along the way she wanted to have
family in her life, so she cultivated a rela-
tionship and adopted children and'by all
reports spent 20 years as a devoted father. I
can imagine some people thinking that
carrying her charade this far was bizzarre or

on IS the Crime

April 1989

sordid, butlcan imagine that she was trying
to add some of the fullness and happiness to
her life that other people take for granted.

I read the tragic story of Billy Tipton
and imagined how different her life could
have been if she had developed her musical
talent and love in a time and place where
gender does not predetermine success. I
know that that time and place is not here and
now. We have made our small steps to
combat sexism since Billy Tipton’s time,
but every child that grows up in this society
still feels the pressures for conformity of
gender roles, sexual identity, economic
status, ethnic identity, political ideology,
and religious beliefs that contributed to
Billy’s choice to hide and that drive the
majority of gays and lesbians deep into
their closets publicly if not privately.

We are all losers in this story, not just
Billy. What could she have been with that
burden lifted from her shoulders, free to
joyfully express all of her creative self?
What has the world missed because of the
suppression of her musical voice and the
suppression of the s irits of the millions of

( ontinued on page 13)

 

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