It should be the paradigmatic biography of our time. Chapter One Born Naked 21 January You're born naked and the rest is drag. Tipton hadbeen very ill, too weak to leave his bed, but had resisted allattempts to get him to a doctor. His adopted teenage son, William,had been looking after him. That morning, after carrying Billy to thebathroom, William had closed the door and, out of earshot, telephonedhis mother, Kitty.
They hadn't spoken for nearly a year. Divorce haddispersed the family almost a decade earlier, and Kitty had remarried,but she could still be counted on in a crisis. She advised William todial and have Billy moved to a hospital. William made the call,then went to carry his father to the breakfast table. Billy Tiptongave a deep sigh and slumped against his son, unconscious.
That sigh was a secret escaping. The medics arrived almostimmediately, lay Tipton on the floor of the trailer, squatted overhim, and opened his pajamas to feel for a heartbeat. One of themturned to William and asked, "Son, did your father have a sex change?
What had he seen? I had no thoughts--justlooked up at the sky, thinking it was some hallucination fromdrugs. If my father had lived as a woman, she would have had bigbreasts. Billy was a veryprivate person, they explained later. He invariably locked thebathroom, where he washed and dressed. People who knew his habits knewthat he always wore binding on his chest to support the ribs that hadbeen fractured when the front end of a Buick had plowed into hisbody -- or so he said.
And many, many people knew Billy Tipton. Spokane had been one ofthe regular stops on his trio's circuit in the early s, during thebrief heyday of legal gambling in private clubs in Washington State,when a band could make a good living backing strippers, magicians,jugglers, tap dancers, any sort of variety act that would drawcustomers into the clubs to drink and play the slot machines.
