Calpernia Addams describes her life as “shaped by God, Gender and Force of Will.” In her newly-published autobiography, Mark 947, she offers a glimpse into things seldom experienced by the other approximately 7000 other post-operative transsexual women in this country. Or should ever have to experience.
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In 1999 she was dragged into a national spotlight after her boyfriend was murdered in a 1999 “gay” bashing on an Army base. Pre-operative at the time, she watched helplessly as the media turned her girlfriend-boyfriend relationship with slain PFC Barry Winchell into a gay tryst, adding insult to her considerable grief. Then eight months later New York Times Magazine turned this tragedy into a cover story and criticized gay activists for erasing her transsexual identity. Yet hers was not to be Warhol’s fifteen minutes of fame; Showtime made a movie about it, Soldier’s Girl, a film that drew rave reviews at the Sundance festival in January. |
Born into a strict Fundamentalist family that stunted her socialization and her own self-awareness, the boy who grew up to be Calpernia was denied the rites of passage of so many kids: movies, dancing, rollerskating, swimming in “mixed-sex” pools or even going out on a Saturday night. Instead she was bombarded with biblical scripture from early childhood. These messages clashed horribly with a hidden gender issue, especially her inexplicable attraction to “other” boys. She worried she was destined for hell. Yet despite the intense religious atmosphere, it is clear that hers was and is a loving family.
Despite a childhood insulated from “sin” her teenage years began to reveal a life she’d missed out on, and so upon reaching adulthood, she ran away to join the Navy. The military chapters, through Desert Storm and a lonely outpost on the Aleutian isle of Adak, highlight her growing awareness of not fitting in.
The remainder of the story details an ongoing awakening into her sexuality and gender, from her first steps in “drag” to her crowning as Tennessee’s Entertainer of the Year. Sweetly yet tragically, these pages introduce and then all too quickly take away the love of her life, Army PFC Barry Winchell who loved her as his girlfriend. A true romantic will mist up at the beauty of that love, and only the most cynical will not weep at how it ended. The final chapters vividly portray her anguish, the dazed nightmare of the murder trial, and her beginning steps into acceptance.
Fittingly Mark 947 begins with a quote from the bible. The book of Mark, chapter 9, verse 47 reads “And if thine eye offends thee, pluck it out,” a dramatic metaphor for the sex change that she’d wanted for many years, and a jab at the religious fervor that robbed her of a normal childhood. Yet she remains without bitterness, managing to find an upside to her theocratic rearing.
“It kept me out of trouble,” she says. “For a lot of women in our situation, it’s so lonely and difficult that we reach out for things that can in the end almost destroy us. And my upbringing helped protect me from that.”
In a February interview, she spoke of her life journey, her book, the upcoming movie, her ambitions, and her Internet presence www.calpernia.com.
Spectator: What do you hope the average reader will take from your story?
Calpernia:The sense of me, a transgender woman, as a real, multi-layered person who has a history and a family and dreams an aspirations, and not as some two-dimensional caricature which the media usually represents us.
S: What do you hope your transgendered readers will walk away with after reading Mark 947?
C: I hope that sharing this story will add another voice to that chorus of women that says “you can do this.”
S: It must have been painful to relive the tragedy of Barry’s death. What else was difficult for you in this book?
C: It was really hard thinking back on all the love and the good times. These made me cry as much as the loss, because you don’t realize what you lost until you think about it even more.
S: Did anyone have a clue about the woman inside you before you did?
C: In school girls always treated my like one of them. I would be invited to slumber parties that boys would never get invited to, things like that. I think they picked up on it without saying it. In the Navy I met a small cadre of secretive gay people, and they could tell that was a different sexuality going on with me.
S: The lesbians on Adak?
C: Yes, I was raised by wild lesbians in Alaska. [laughs]
S: At what point did you know for certain you were transsexual?
C:I had a very strongly suppressed wish that I was a girl for most of my life, but I didn’t think it was possible so I didn’t even let myself dream. When I saw my first, real transsexual at the nightclub I realized it was possible.
S: How difficult was it to make the choice to transition?
C: It was scary. I took my first hormone shot in December of ‘97 in the dressing of a matriarchal transsexual, Robin Dupree. When my drag mother Chyna found out she threw up her hands and said “Oh, Lord! I hope you know what you’re getting into” because she knew it was a hard path. I felt great relief when I finally made that choice.
S: How about SRS? Were there any significant doubts or was that your goal all along?
C: My only fear was that I would lose sexual sensation. I knew I wanted to be completely female, that wasn’t in question. I took the plunge because I felt like I had to. I suffered being a pre-op. Some girls adapt to just fine to that, but I needed to go all the way. Luckily it turned out wonderfully for me.
S: Who are your heroes and why?
C: One of my heroes is Andrea James of tsroadmap.com. She had a lot of obstacles in her transition, but she went ahead and came out the other side a beautiful, dynamic woman. And seeing that she could make it, I was, like, “Wow! I could do this, too.” [Calpernia is working on several projects with Andrea, including instructional videos for transgender women, plus a short film they are writing and producing.]
S: In retrospect how do you feel about SLDN and the Lesbian and Gay Coalition for Justice and how they handled your relationship with Barry?
C: I felt they were honestly trying to do good. They weren’t there to push me down and make me feel bad about myself or repress transgender women. I wish that all of us knew more then of what we know now.
S: What were your concerns when you were first approached about turning this story into a film?
C: I was worried based on the media portrayals that I’d seen before that that it would be Priscilla, Queen of the Desert meets the murder of JFK or some horrible Hollywood treatment. It took me more than a year and a half to settle on working with ShowTime. They were very genuine, very committed to making the story right. I really like Soldier’s Girl; it’s unflinching. It shows at least two love scenes between Calpernia and Barry that are not pornography. The producers made a miracle happen. It’s a wonderful movie.