Directed by Aisling Chin-Yee and Chase Joynt • 2020 • Canada
Starring Billy Tipton, Susan Stryker, Kate Bornstein
American jazz musician Billy Tipton developed a reputable touring and recording career in the mid-twentieth century, along with his band the Billy Tipton Trio. After his death in the late 1980s, it was revealed that Tipton had been assigned female at birth, and his life was swiftly reframed as the story of an ambitious woman passing as a man in pursuit of a music career. The genre-defying documentary NO ORDINARY MAN seeks to correct that misrepresentation by collaborating with trans artists. As they collectively celebrate Tipton’s story as a musician living his life on his own terms, they paint a vivid portrait of a trans culture hero. NO ORDINARY MAN features leading voices and breakout stars in the trans community, including Marquise Vilsón, Scott Turner Schofield, Susan Stryker, C. Riley Snorton, and Thomas Page McBee.
Up Next in Documentaries
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Greetings from Washington, D.C.
Directed by Lucy Winer • 1981 • United States
Starring Rob Epstein, Jan Oxenberg, Terry LawlerOn October 14, 1979, LGBTQ+ history was made when tens of thousands of people converged on America’s capital for the first ever National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. This empowering ...
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Shinjuku Boys
Directed by Kim Longinotto and Jano Williams • 1995 • United Kingdom
Starring Gaish, Tatsu, KazukiThis remarkable documentary offers rich insight into gender and sexuality in Japan via a candid portrait of Kazuki, Tatsu, and Gaish, three trans masc hosts working at the New Marilyn Club in Tokyo...
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ocularis
Directed by Tran T. Kim-Trang • 1997 • United States
This video highlights several narratives concerning video surveillance—not to reiterate the conventional privacy argument but rather to engage the desire to watch surveillance materials and society’s insatiable voyeurism. A variety of subjects...
