Today is Transgender Parent Day, so here’s to the trans parents of today and tomorrow—and of the past, on whose shoulders they stand. Please enjoy this profile of Billy Tipton (1914-1989), a jazz bandleader, father of three sons, and a trans man.
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Born in Oklahoma City in 1914, Tipton was assigned female at birth. He learned to play piano and saxophone in high school. When he left home to pursue a career in music, it was as a young man. He played for a variety of bands during the 1930s and 40s, and formed his own Billy Tipton Trio in 1954, performing around the country through the 1970s until arthritis forced him to retire.
During this time, Tipton had relationships with several women, and adopted three sons with Kitty Kelly, a dancer whom he met in 1960. “Billy became a near-perfect father,” playing ball, taking them camping, and repairing the sons’ bikes, People reported after speaking with son Scott Miller after Tipton’s death in 1989. (People also misgenders Tipton, so use care if you click through.) Later recollections from his sons, the Seattle Times reported, included “big Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations, Scouting, church on Easter and camping trips to Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon.”
Kelly, however, had a temper and abused the boys, but Tipton tried to protect them. “My mother was abusive—physically and mentally. We couldn’t wait for dad to get home,” son Jonathan Clark later testified, per the Seattle Times. Clark and Miller left in 1979, in their mid-teens, and Tipton joined them. Shortly afterward, Kelly threw 11-year-old William out the back door and told Tipton to come pick him up. Tipton and the three boys established their new home in the Spokane Valley.
Upon Tipton’s death in 1989, his family and the world learned of his assigned sex—but despite their surprise, his sons seem to have focused on the father they knew that he was.
“He’ll always be Dad,” Clark told the Associated Press in 1989. He added to People magazine, “He was always there for me.” After a serious motorcycle accident in 1981, he said, “If it wasn’t for my dad, I wouldn’t have made it. The doctors wanted to amputate my leg, and Dad made them work to save it. He was there every day for the six months I was in the hospital.”
He did a helluva good job with us. That’s what mattered. He was my dad.
Scott Miller, son of Billy Tipton
Miller told People, “I think he probably never told us because he was afraid we might have rejected him. I could have accepted it. He did a helluva good job with us. That’s what mattered. He was my dad.”
Parts of what we know of Tipton’s family life come from when Kelly (who later remarried and took the surname Oakes) died in 2007. Because the boys were never legally adopted, they were in danger of not inheriting her estate, and had to go to court to claim it. “The Tiptons were a family,” their lawyer argued—and the judge agreed, as the Seattle Times explained.
Some other coverage of Tipton’s life says that he only dressed as a man because women couldn’t have careers as jazz musicians at the time. I think that if this were the case, he would have at least told Kelly/Oakes and his sons of his birth sex. Since he didn’t, I’m inclined to view him as transgender—with the caveat that it’s always chancy applying modern labels to people born before those labels took on their current meanings. Maybe he’d use “genderqueer” or another label instead. My sense, though, is that we’re safe viewing this talented musician and loving, protective father under the broad trans umbrella.
Wishing all trans parents a meaningful day full of love. May it renew your strength and help carry you forward throughout the year.
In Addition
Below is a short video with some photos and music of Tipton, and here’s a longer playlist of some of the pieces he performed.
You may also be interested in:
- Some of the resources by and about trans parents that I rounded up for last year’s Trans Parent Day;
- My recent piece on Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, a Stonewall veteran and trans parent, who died last month after decades of activism, motherhood, and mothering;
- And my interview with activist and mom Erin Reed at LGBTQ Nation earlier this year.
If you’re looking for books by and about trans parents, for either kids or adults, please visit my Database of LGBTQ Family Books, where you can filter by transgender women/parent, transgender men/parent, and transgender nonbinary adult/parent (and further by target age range and more).