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Wendy
02-21-03, 11:37 AM
All,

I just finished reading the book, Suits Me: The Bouble Life of Billy Tipton, by Diane Wood Middlebrook, published by Houghton Mifflin Company.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0395957893/qid=1045798880/prophecyspirit-20
Billy's birth name was Dorothy. She was a pretty, feminine girl with musical-instrument and singing talent. She had a high-end Alto voice, whcih she later defined as high Tenor.

In her day in the 1930s very few women were in popular music groups (bands). So in Oklahoma she diecided to wear male clothes to perform. She bound her breasts up tight so as to hide them. And wore something to make it appear she had male plumbing. Dressed thus when young, she looked like a boy. Later she passed as a man. And decided to life full time thus.

A few people, particularly females, could "read" her as a crossdresser, but most others not. And those in the music biz who could kept quiet about it. So she lived her adult life till death posing as a man. Althoug she never IDed as one. Her popular music performances meant more to her than living as female.

She had five "wives" she loved, so must have been lesbian, but didn't ID as one. She considered herself a normal female, and not a transsexual, intersexual, nor hermy. All her wives accepted her as male. None ever saw her naked. It was a very interesting story, which I think both transsexuals, intersexuals, and lesbians might like to read.