Billy Lee Tipton (born as Dorothy Lucille Tipton; December 29, 1914 – January 21, 1989) was an American jazz musician and bandleader who lived as a man for nearly 50 years. Tipton found modest success as a professional musician, but until his dying moments, the fact that Tipton had been born biologically female was known only to two female cousins and perhaps some of his paramours as well.
Dorothy Tipton was born in Oklahoma City but grew up in K...
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Billy Lee Tipton (born as Dorothy Lucille Tipton; December 29, 1914 – January 21, 1989) was an American jazz musician and bandleader who lived as a man for nearly 50 years. Tipton found modest success as a professional musician, but until his dying moments, the fact that Tipton had been born biologically female was known only to two female cousins and perhaps some of his paramours as well.
Dorothy Tipton was born in Oklahoma City but grew up in Kansas City, Missouri, where she was raised by an aunt after her parents' divorce. After the divorce, she rarely saw her father, G.W. Tipton, a pilot who sometimes took her for airplane rides. As a high school student, she went by the nickname "Tippy" and became interested in music, especially jazz. She studied piano and saxophone, but her school had a policy forbidding girls to play in the school band. She returned to Oklahoma for her final year of high school and joined the school band there.
In 1933, Tipton began dressing as a man, which...
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