Re: Billy Tipton

[Lori Cahan-Simon <l_cahan...>]

Not that it really pertains to this, but a numberof years ago I wrote a research
paper on 2000 years of female cross-dressing in the western world.  I found a 
lot
of interesting sociological information and came up with some conclusions.

Seth Austen wrote:

> on 2/22/01 8:11 PM, Margotlev (at) aol(dot)com at Margotlev (at) aol(dot)com 
> wrote:
>
> > Just for perspective -
> > I'm reading Billy Tipton's biography about a woman who had to cross-dress
> > and pass as a man to get any gigs at all as recently as the 50's.
>
> Margot,
>
> Although it is possible that s/he only crossed genders to get more work as a
> jazz musician, it depends on what lense we look at his/her life through. My
> perspective, having also read the book, is that Billy Tipton identified as
> male, and since she was born female, was thus transgendered, although we
> can't know for sure if that's how s/he thought of his/herself. But many
> transgendered peoples' histories are made invisible by the gender bias of
> historians, in the same way that Jewish womens' history is ignored by the
> male authors of that history.
>
> >  Every Hassidic or
> > Orthodox gig that my male colleagues get that I don't get to play on is a 
> > day
> > I have to figure out another way to make a living, it's a day away from my
> > horn, it's a lost opportunity to sharpen my skills and get a step up in my
> > career.  And I'm an instrumentalist - believe me, I sing only under duress.
>
> None of this is to take away from your very accurate comments on the
> marginalization and discrimination against women musicians in jazz or any
> other styles. A musician should be purely hired on the basis of their
> musicianship, not which gender they are, be it male, female, transgendered,
> or whatever else not yet identified. The bottom line is that you are a
> wonderful musician/clarinetist (I enjoy your recording quite alot BTW), and
> you should not be losing gigs because of your gender.
>
> Seth
>
> --
> Seth Austen
>
> http://www.sethausten.com
> emails: seth (at) sethausten(dot)com
> klezmusic (at) earthlink(dot)net
>
> "What America needs is 10 years of silence." ?Stravinsky
>
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> ---------------------+
>