Date: Sat, 23 Aug 1997 10:18:20 -0700 From: Eros Publishing Subject: Press Release We're organizing a protest, along with T-People, of the performance of the Billy Tipton Memorial Quartet, Saturday night, 8 p.m. at Dixon's furniture store, corner of 12th and Pine in Seattle. We'll be passing out flyers with the following information. As you likely know already, Billy Tipton was a jazz musician who was born female and lived his life as a man. His birth sex was "discovered" upon his death. Many lesbian organizations have hailed Mr. Tipton as a "lesbian". However, his life makes it clear that he was simply a man with a female history. The Billy Tipton Memorial Quartet is a band made up of all women playing jazz music who took on Mr. Tipton's name after his death apparently believing him to be a woman and a lesbian and wishing to martyr him on behalf of women musicians. However, we challenge you to answer the following questions about his life. If Billy was only impersonating a man in order to be a musician, why keep the secret from everyone after his career ended? Why, for that matter, keep it secret from closest friends and family at all? (At the very least, making his secret known to others would have been an interesting inside joke.) Why did Billy marry a woman? Why did he lie about his ability to have sex with her? Why lie about his genitals being crushed in an accident? Why did Billy "always wear a t-shirt and belt with an [athletic] cup on the outside of his underwear? (People Magazine, Feb. 20, 1989). Why did Billy adopt three children and be their father? Why do his adopted sons continue to insist that Billy was a man and their father? One of his sons has said, "He did a helluva job with us. He was my dad" (People Magazine, Feb. 20, 1989). Billy did not have surgery to alter his sex and he certainly lived during a time when it was available. However, this is true for many FTMs because the results are not very good and quite costly. Billy left no written explanation for the actions of his life. He left us instead with a life lived for over fifty years as a man. Does his life as a man have no meaning? Billy Tipton's life speaks for itself. You don't spend fifty years of your life living in fear, not telling folks you love and live with, you don't go to extreme measures to make sure that no one knows what your body is or looks like, you don't die from a treatable medical condition, IF you are simply a woman living as a man so you can take advantage of male privileges. He was not posing. He was not masquerading. He was not living a charade. He was a man. For more information about trans-people, you can contact: T-People, a Washington State Trans-activist group at: WWPSEA@aol.com or call Ellie at 206/720-6963 or Kaz at 206/322-0421 FTMCEP, a Washington State based FTM group, at FTMCEP@aol.com; 1122 E. Pike #1070, Seattle WA 98122 or 206/949-7469