Canada 2020, 83 min Directors AISLING CHIN-YEE and CHASE JOYNT
Directors Aisling Chin-Yee and Chase Joynt take a thoughtful and fascinating approach to uncovering the truth about late American jazz legend Billy Tipton, whose life became a tabloid sensation in the late 1980s when, upon his death, his family discovered he was in fact a trans man in an era where transgender understanding and visibility was almost nonexistent in popular media. No Ordinary Man seeks to reintroduce the world to Tipton outside of the sensationalist headlines and through the voices of such trans scholars and media figures as Susan Stryker, Kate Bornstein, Zackary Drucker, and C. Riley Snorton as well as a casting call of trans-masculine actors to play Tipton. Using our 21st century vocabulary and understanding, this extraordinary doc-portrait reframes the acclaimed pianist and saxophonist as a pioneering trans figure that a generation of individuals longing for transgender role models can look up to and whose courageous gender expression unknowingly paved the way for so many people.