"The film centers on the life of acclaimed jazz bassist Jennifer Leitham, a transgender woman who first established her musical career as John Leitham, and performed with Mel Tormé, Doc Severinsen, and many other jazz luminaries in the ’80s and ’90s. She also recorded several well-regarded CDs such as The Southpaw. But throughout those years, her gender identification as a female was kept hidden from the public. After Leitham’s sex reassignment surgery in the early 2000s, she came out as a woman. She has received support from many musicians, particularly Doc Severinsen, who appears in I Stand Corrected. She has also had to deal with intolerance. As she noted in an April 2009 interview with JazzTimes: “There are a lot of people who are uncomfortable being in a room with me… I just wish it were possible for the jazz community to be as creative about social issues as it is about music.”
As I said about the the rock musicians who have publicly outed themselves as their true gender - All of this is positively huge for the transgender transsexual community.
Truthfully, I have not been big jazz fan but now I will be listening for Jennifer's work!
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