Trumpet

In 1989, a decade prior to the release of Trumpet, the retired jazz pianist Billy Tipton collapsed in his Spokane, Washington home. When paramedics responded to the emergency phone call of Tipton’s son William, they were surprised to discover that Billy was assigned female at birth. Tipton’s well-documented story, which has served as the source of plays, books, a movie, and even an opera, is remarkable in numerous respects. Tipton kept his assigned gender secret from his bandmates, fans, three adoptive sons, and even the five women who claimed to have married him. His reason for beginning the masquerade was simple: In mid-20th Century America, women could not get work as jazz musicians.

Tipton’s success at keeping his assigned gender a secret for 50 years prompted author Jackie Kay to develop a realistic narrative about a transgender trumpet player who makes the same decision in the face of similar prejudice in Great Britain. Kay relocates this narrative to her native Scotland, makes Joss and Colman—Joss’s adoptive son—biracial, and gives Joss a lifelong, intimate marriage to his beloved Millie. She also illuminates additional forms of bias that Joss and other characters face, such as racial and same-sex relationship prejudice.