| |
| | HistoryLink Essay: Tipton, Billy (1914-1989): Spokane's Secretive Jazzman |
 | | The discovery that Tipton had successfully masqueraded as a man for more than 50 years was initially a local “human interest” news item, but one with enough lurid mystery that it subsequently sparked international headlines, TV news coverage, magazine essays, a biography, and countless academic and bar-room gender identity debates. |
 | | Dorothy Lucille Tipton was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, but when her parents divorced at age four, she was sent to live with an aunt in the great jazz town of Kansas City, Missouri. |
 | | After rejoining her mother in Oklahoma, Tipton began courses to complete her senior year in September 1932, and while attending Connors State College High School she was finally allowed to join the boys in a school band. |
| www.historylink.org /essays/output.cfm?file_id=7456 (1363 words) |
|