Hey, humans. How's it going? Susan, Ruth here. Thanks.
Listening to another episode of Hey Human Podcast.
This is episode 361,
and I had a conversation with Calpurnia Adams.
Calpurnia is a veteran actress, award-winning showgirl,
trans activist, producer, author, and musician.
She spent four years as a field medical combat specialist in the Navy,
and was one of the elite combat trained devil dogs
serving in, uh, the Iraq Wars.
She's a Peabody Award recipient for Soldier's Girl,
a film that details her relationship with murdered Army Soldier Barry Winchell.
She's made numerous films and television appearances and
runs deep stealth productions,
ink with business partner and not activist and previous. Hey,
human guest episode tour do one,
Andrea James producing media with an awareness of quote,
the truth and value of trans women's contributions.
We had a great conversation. I really enjoy Calpurnia.
She's funny and brilliant and, uh, lovely.
I'm excited for you to hear this episode.
You might hear a lot of sing-songy noises in the background or,
or chirpy noises and things.
Calpurnia has a gaggle of birds as pets and
her, as she calls them, her family, and I've met them. They're very sweet birds.
So when you hear that, that's,
that's that sound in case you're wondering if we are outside or,
or what's going on, check out, Hey human podcast.com for links.
And to learn more about my guests in the show, check out Susan ruth.com.
To learn more about me and my other artistic endeavors,
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All I ever Wanted was everything. Also,
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practitioner, Mara Edelman. It's on YouTube under Are We There yet?
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It's, I really appreciate it and it's super helpful. Thank you,
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Thank you for being a supporter of this show and everything I do here.
And, uh, yeah, be well, be love.
Lift each other up and be there and support each other.
We're all in this together, you know. All right, here we go.
Calpurnia Adams, welcome to Hey, human.
Thank you for having me. Wow, I appreciate it.
Yeah, I'm really excited. Thank you for saying yes.
It's always a delight when people say Yes, .
That, that's been my motto. Uh, ever since I hit 50,
I'm just like, say yes. And in my acting career,
I answer the phone, I'll take it. So .
I, I feel the same way. I say yes to everything,
and if I don't know how to do something,
I figure it out as I'm building my wings, you know? Exactly. Yeah.
How was it turning 50? Was that a shocker or were you ready for it?
Um, I, you know, I, let's, uh,
kind of cut to the chase early.
I'm trans and having transitioned somewhat young,
the normal milestones that other people hit, you know,
I've already hit so many other weird milestones that turning 50,
I was just like, okay, you know, here we are. Let's do this. It,
it wasn't that big a deal for me.
I feel like after 21, any birthday is just sort of what I,
I know some people are really into birthdays, but it just seems,
except for little kids, it's kinda like Christmas, like, yeah,
I get it for little kids. It makes sense.
. Yeah, and, and I came up,
I didn't drink until I didn't do anything, until I was,
I think 32 was my first drink of alcohol.
So even my 21st birthday, I was like, eh, who cares?
.
Yeah.
Yeah. A lot of people that's like, oh, I can finally drink,
but I just didn't care.
Well, let's get into you. Where, where did you grow up?
What was family life like, and, uh,
how did it shape you?
Well, I have to say, I, I start this out,
like when I meet a new person at a social party or
something,
I almost hesitate to answer questions about the normal
getting to know you questions because it almost feels like I'm making it
up or it's like, you know, too much. But, uh,
I was born in 1971 in Nashville, Tennessee to a,
to a poor working class family who were incredibly,
incredibly religious and an ultra conservative fundamentalist
Christian cult. I, um, happened to be,
you know, quite intelligent and artistic,
and that was unusual in my family group
and paradigm. Um,
I ended up getting into a high school for the gifted, uh,
strangely through a lot of weird circumstances,
made a lot of interesting friends, but was discouraged from college,
joined the military,
served in the Gulf War in Saudi Arabia as a combat medic
in the Navy with the Marines. Got out transitioned,
uh, you know, having been assigned male at birth and transitioned to female,
dated a military soldier who was murdered,
became focused of international activism and media,
moved to Hollywood and worked as an actress and
activist, and now, many decades later, here I am.
That is like the ultimate cliff notes of your life, .
It's, it's really bizarre to boil it down to that.
I mean, um, I, uh, it's, it's too much.
It's too much for a listener at a party, like, you know, Hey,
where are you from? ? So, I,
I just usually don't even go into it, but, you know, for, for, uh,
a a moment like this, you know,
maybe it might be interesting to talk about some of the steps along the way.
Absolutely. Well, let's start with, uh,
the childhood raised in a strict religious, as you said,
cult-like Christian family.
Uh, do you have siblings?
I'm the oldest of three. I had a, um,
a brother in the middle and a baby sister, and, um,
to add to my, uh,
Shakespearean tragedy of a life,
my brother and sister have died and my sister's only child has
died, and my father has died.
So my entire family is dead except for me and my mother. Holy, and.
I'm so sorry.
It's, it,
it's heartbreaking and I'm not making light of it,
but I have had to just take a deep breath
throughout my life and, and look at the tragedy and, um,
just raise my eyebrows and be like, you know, here we are.
Whenever a guest speaks of somebody who's passed on from their family or friend
group,
I like to say the first names of those who have passed as a way to remember
them.
My dear sister Ginger Gwen, and Gwen is short for,
uh, Gwendolyn, which in its original language means wanderer.
And I always like to think that, you know,
perhaps even though she passed early,
she has gotten to wander other realm and see the world.
And my little brother, Jeremy Ray, was a brilliant, um,
guitarist and musician and very funny. So, you know, I,
I bless him and hope that if there is something else out
there, that he's found music and laughter in it.
Nice. And your dad's name?
Uh, Dennis Ray. And, you know, poor deer. He grew up,
he grew up impoverished in, in, uh, you know,
very early times and very rural Tennessee with so few
resources. But he painted, uh, he loved the Beatles.
Um, he was a good strong father, and I appreciate him.
My sister's, uh, dear son,
he was a sweet, simple soul. He,
he didn't have a lot of guidance and help, you know,
with us, with the losses our family suffered.
But he was sweet and had big, beautiful eyes and,
and was a good boy.
Well, well, may they rest well,
when you were young and coming up in a family that had such a strict religious
backbone, were you immediately, I'm in,
this sounds great, as kids often are, and then have an epiphany, or did you,
uh,
carry it with you through your life of God or what that all meant?
I was a little stickler . I hate to, um,
you know, I, not to, uh, to my own horn or anything,
but I just was really smart from a real early age,
and I questioned it all immediately. I was like, well,
if this, then why that? And if this is okay,
then why is that? Okay. And I,
I was born into a very strict fundamentalist Christian
religion and we weren't allowed to listen to modern music. Uh,
so, you know, me being, growing up in the eighties, I had no,
no Tiffany or the Cure or, um, you know,
in any of the eighties music that any anybody else came up to.
Boy George and George, Michael and I, I didn't get any of that.
And even worse,
we weren't allowed to consume current media,
so I never got to see any Disney cartoons, you know,
Cinderella or Snow White or any of that.
I never got to see the Goonies or Star Wars or et.
And yet all of my peers around me were consuming
that media. And they had the lunch boxes and the backpacks and the,
the themed birthday parties and all that.
And the only way I could interact was I would sneak down
to the local gas station and I would read the Mad
magazine parodies of these movies and TV shows on the
shelf, cuz I couldn't afford it. It cost 25 cents to buy the magazine.
But I would read the parodies of Star Wars and ET and,
you know, the current TV shows, nightlight or whatever.
And that's the only way I could try to keep up with my peers.
Did you have an inkling from a young age that you are
trans?
Or was it one of those things where you were going along just to get along,
obviously in a religious fundamental household is very hard to even find an
identity, period. ?
Well, uh, I have this funny story from the very earliest age.
There used to be a television show starring, um,
the actress Sally Field called The Flying Nun.
And it was a ridiculous TV show about a nun who had
the power to clumsily fly,
uh, using her big headdress somehow. And,
and somehow her ability to fly would like solve the problem of the week,
whatever it was. And it, it, it was a really dumb low budget comedy,
but it being religious themed, I was allowed to watch it.
And as a toddler,
I remember I ran through the church holding a piece of paper over
my head to simulate her nun's headdress.
And I was screaming, I'm the flying Nun. I'm Sister Betrayal.
I'm Sister Betrayal, the flying nun. And I,
I don't know what my parents were more angry about that I was saying I was a
girl, or that I was saying I was Catholic. .
, that's hilarious, .
But from a very early age, I, I was, I was feminine,
whatever that means. I was feminine.
And my mother was always flapping my hands cuz when I talk, you know,
my hands would be up and gesticulating or whatever.
And she would clap them and say, you know, put your hands down when we talk.
And I, I always had a, a high voice. And the,
the interesting thing is, growing up in that church, I,
the women did not wear makeup or dyed their hair or loose
hairspray or any of that.
They did not wear jewelry cause uh,
they'll shall not adore nine self fit gold or, or pearls or et cetera.
So my idea of womanhood was never about
a rema like, you know, jewelry and makeup and hairstyles and stuff.
But my idea of being a woman was still very
firmly
seated in what I thought in the women around me.
Were you able to express yourself in that way outside of
the family? Did you, uh, you in some,
in some way get to feel like yourself?
Well, I, I was very ,
very heavily bullied, uh, throughout my entire childhood. I,
it was the seventies and eighties in Nashville, Tennessee.
So I,
I quickly learned to just turn inward and tried to
disappear,
tried to be invisible whi which was very against my nature
because I actually loved to perform and tell jokes and be funny
and, and all that. Fortunately as a child,
I was given a fiddle and I,
I remember we had a very large backyard, uh,
full of trees and lightning bugs and,
and June bugs and cicadas and crickets. And,
and for a whole summer I would walk that giant
backyard almost in a trance, playing that cheap fiddle that I was given,
learning the notes for learning to find the notes to all the songs I
knew, which, most of which were bluegrass gospel songs. And
our family would play bluegrass gospel in church.
Daddy would play the banjo, mama taught herself the piano.
She just had to take over cause our pianist died and
Jeremy played the guitar, and Ginger played the taming.
And so we did have the music in church. And,
and that was, that was my only creative expression.
And I still look back now as hard as that church was,
the music still touches me.
Were you close with your parents?
Did you have a bond or was there always a bit of a distance because
you were exhibiting differentness?
Well, that's,
that's the thing is that I've heard a lot of stories where the parents
are just complete villains. Mine really loved me.
They really did. They were good people,
but they were ignorant people. They, you know,
of course they had been born in the forties and fifties.
They grew up in Tennessee. How would they ever know anything about,
you know, trans or queer or gay things? They just didn't.
And they were product of their time.
So they had a really long
experience to grow and love and understand.
But because their baseline was that they loved me and their
baseline was that they were good people. All these years later,
before my father died, he accepted me, uh,
as a woman and my mother, who's still alive, we're good friends now.
We text every day. She loves me. It,
it was a long journey and as a child it was very
difficult because they were young and ignorant and products of their time.
But now it's good.
Oh, that's good to hear. What made you decide to join the military?
You were in the Navy?
Well, growing up I was, I was always, and I don't wanna take my horn,
I'll say again, but I was always real, real smart. I just,
everything was easy for me academically.
I would read a book a day or every day or two, you know, I just,
I remember as a young child, a friend of my mother's was a high school teacher,
and I asked her if I could have some of her books that she used in
class. She taught biology and science. And,
and I took those home as a young child and just tore through those high
school biology books. And, but, um,
you know, I I was not encouraged in any of that, unfortunately.
And being poor.
We were not well served by the educational system at the time.
But a good friend of mine, uh,
got into a magnet school called Hume Fog in
Nashville. And it's a gorgeous school. It looks like a castle. It's, uh,
it's hundreds of years old. It's built of stone, looks like a castle,
right on Broadway,
right up the street from Tootsie's Orchid Lounge and Second Avenue where all the
honky towns are. And when he got in,
I took his acceptance letter down to the library. I,
uh,
ran it on the copying machine with his name covered out and wrote
my name in and turned it into the school.
And they just let me in . Cause this was pre-computer,
and they were like, if you have the form, you can get in. And, you know,
thank goodness,
getting into that magnet school exposed me to a whole new level
of education. And unfortunately though,
my parents said, if you go to college, it'll lead you away from God.
So even though I scored in the top 1% of the nation on the
SATs, I did not apply to college.
But all the military came knocking because of my test scores
and I joined the Navy.
Wow. That's a, a brutal thing to say to someone.
You can't go to college because it will lead you away from God. It's,
it seems to me like such a disconnect that the thing that frustrates me the most
about religion is that folks say,
here's this omnipotent being and the very nature of that word.
And yet they,
they take away from its ability and its omnipotence by saying,
oh, if you do this other thing somehow, uh, you're,
you're separate from God. It's, well, how can God create me,
make me bright and provide all these opportunities. But at the same time,
if I take those opportunities, I'm somehow away from God.
It makes it such a confusing concept to me.
Well, I mean, if you look at it academically, uh, you know,
Thomas Klein, Peter and Paul, uh, there, there is,
uh, there's an infinity of theological
scholarly, uh, work being done.
College obviously would not be you away from God,
even though for me, uh,
I did end up going to college and it did lead me away from God even further. Uh,
cause I personally am now an atheist and et cetera. But,
uh, I,
it was just a very unfortunate view of my very, unfortunately,
poor and uneducated parents at the time. I,
I often look back and think, you know, what, if I had gone to Columbia or,
or I looked at Bard and Carleton and Oxford, and, you know,
I, my life might be so different if I had gone to those. But,
uh, at the time, the military was my only option.
And because I had scored so highly, I had my pick of jobs.
And I chose the hospital core,
which was the military medical core,
which I did love because it suited my,
my gentle nature, my empathy.
And yet there was a lot of academic work to it.
And I did become an educator in the hospital core. I was chosen to,
uh, you know, lead remedial classes for students who can keep up, et cetera.
I was immediately advanced, uh,
two ranks cause of my academia. It,
it was a very good job for me. But right when it started,
the Gulf War was starting.
So I was immediately sent overseas to serve in the desert
with the Marines who are a branch of the Navy,
though they hate to admit that.
In that capacity, what kinds of experiences did you have?
Um, it, it was, it was actually a great experience. You know,
a lot of people might want me to denigrate the military, uh, to say,
you know, it's for dumb people or poor people, or whatever. It's,
it really taught me a lot. I,
who had been so sheltered and, uh,
hidden away from the world.
It threw me headlong into, you know,
a group of people who, um,
who taught me a lot of social skills.
I had not been able to develop until then.
And, um, in the medical field, it,
it is deeply intellectually stimulating. I,
I got to learn anatomy, physiology,
first aid in the military.
It's really interesting because at even at that lower level,
you get to do things like, I got to suture wounds.
I got to perform minor surgeries.
I got to prescribe and administer medications.
A lot of things that even registered nurses don't get to do.
And then in my further training as a field medical combat specialist with the
Marines,
I did the whole thing where you crawl under barbed wire in the mud with smoke
bombs going off and, you know, inhale, um, uh,
whatever that gas is that burns your eyes. And I,
it was a trial by fire that kind of, I'm grateful for.
It brought me out of a shell that could have led me into sort of
being a shut in, you know,
sort of weird person. It broke me out of that shell.
What was that experience like to have,
to be able to think so quickly in the moment to be able to save lives on the
battlefield, especially when we're talking about the Marine Corps, you know,
as a naval medic to help folks that are in the shit of it.
How was that experience just mentally?
I imagine it would be quite taxing emotionally.
One of, one of the through lines,
I think of who I am as a person is,
is a deep sense of empathy.
Even as a small child, I was always, and,
and I'm not building myself up here as some kind of a saint.
I have a million flaws and I've made a million mistakes.
But I always deeply feel what another,
what I think another person is feeling.
And being a medic really fed me in
that way. And,
and it was exciting to know what to do
when I came upon a person who was grievously injured or, you know,
horrifically damaged or whatever.
Having the knowledge of how to help them
was thrilling. And, um, and even today,
you know, now I'm, I'm a dumpy plain old woman with gray hair,
you know, overweight, walking down the street with no makeup or whatever.
But if, if I see someone hurt or injured, my immediate thought is,
you know, put them on their back, elevate their legs, uh, check, um,
you know, check the ABCs, do whatever. And I,
it was really good for me. I think it,
it gave me a superpower in a way that I needed to
have. And, and I still treasure that knowledge today.
I had read that in your last year of service,
that you really were like, it's time. I'm ready to be who I am.
How did that, it was a don't ask don't tell time yet.
I went through the war. And then because my high academic scores,
I was, uh,
given the option to choose where my next duty station would be.
And a lot of people were stunned that I chose Adac Island in
Alaska, which is a 24 by 32 incredibly remote
island in the Aleutian chain,
3,200 miles away from the shore of mainland Alaska
and closer to Russia. It, it was a bleak, um,
harsh, uh,
elemental landscape to me.
It looked like what the world must have looked like in its
formation in their, you know, the beginnings of the planet Earth.
But I was fascinated by that and the cleanliness
of the pure air and the clean water and the challenge of being there.
And so I, after the war,
which was quite an experience for me on so many levels,
I went to this clean
harshly scrubbed by the arctic winds
place to sort of figure out who I was as a person.
You know, I was, I joined at 17,
I was 18, 19, 20 when I got there.
And I was just trying to figure out what did this all mean and who was I?
And I met some wilderness lesbians from, uh,
a lot of navy lesbians who were airplane mechanics who
fixed the airplanes that landed there and went on to the next place.
And I met two, um,
I met a lesbian and I'm met a trans man who were cryptographers.
They worked, doing all the secret messages and, and,
you know, secret communique that came to the island
and were decrypted from Russia and, and places like that.
And at the time in the military, you could be imprisoned,
punished, uh, have everything taken away from you, a dishonorable discharge,
which is a lifelong mark against you,
akin to a felony that prevents you from getting work.
You could lose everything if you were discovered as being what they considered
gay.
But I met this small group and they started teasing out
what they saw in me,
which was something other than being cis and hetero,
just by default, I, I wasn't, you know,
standing up and saying I'm a straight male or anything.
It was just by default, um, people,
you know, would look at me and, and be what they assumed was male.
And the default sexuality was heterosexuality.
So they would assume that. And I,
because of how sheltered I was,
I really wasn't aware that there were many other options.
I had gone to the public library, uh,
at which time you used the thing called a card catalog,
which is a very large piece of furniture that you pull out
small drawers,
and it has every book in the library listed by,
uh, you know, subject and dewey decimal system code, et cetera.
And I had looked up things about trans
people,
but all the literature at that time presented it as a mental illness,
as a tragedy, as a murder victim, et cetera.
So at the time,
I really did not understand that there were any other options
until we were all waiting.
President Clinton was running for office and he said, if I get elected,
I will eliminate the ban on gays in the military.
Which at the time I would've been considered gay,
just cuz there weren't even,
there wasn't even language around things like trans or whatever.
And so me and all these wilderness lesbian airplane mechanics
and my trans cryptographer friend, we were waiting,
fingers crossed. And then Bill got elected and he,
instead of eliminating the ban on gates and the military,
he instituted the much less good policy of don't
ask, don't tell, which meant that we won't ask you,
you don't tell, but if we find out you're gay,
you will still go to military prison.
And so I got out of the military, went back home to Nashville,
immediately went to a gay club, saw my first trans woman,
and knew that's what I wanted to do.
And how long before you were able to have those kinds of con conversations with
your family, with your parents, did you have them right away?
Or did you just say, I'll see you in a decade, , you.
Know, well,
I got out of the military in 93, late 93,
early 94. And you know, at you're,
you're kind of, you know, cast out. Um,
you have nothing set up or anything at that point.
So I went back home to my parents, assuming, you know,
I'll find my footing and do whatever.
But I was a bit militarized at that point because I had
had those two years with, with my lesbian friends.
I had been, I had ordered online, this is pre-Amazon,
you know, this book called The Big Day Book, which was this thick,
thick book about four, four and a half, five inches thick,
full of just, uh,
it was almost in an encyclopedia of L G B T resources.
And
so I came home a a bit militarized and came out
to my parents and they, um, to, to their,
uh, you know, to their sadness, uh, they said,
you have to get out.
So I ended up living in my truck in Centennial Park
for several months. And,
and I got a job though at the local gay bar, the connection,
which was an enormous,
it was the largest gate owned and operated bar in the United States at the time.
It was, uh, 40,000 square feet.
2000 people would come on a Saturday night.
And I got a job running the spotlight there for the drag shows.
But, uh, many of the drag queens on cast were trans women.
And I was just captivated. I was like, oh my God,
how did they do this? How did they affect this transformation?
How can they be so beautiful and do what I love to do,
which is be on stage? You know, I was a fiddle player.
I had set up a theater company in Alaska, um,
where I put on many shows on the island of adap. And,
uh, as part of running the spotlight,
I started studying under the girls and then doing Wednesday night,
no pay talent night,
and then filling in on a Friday if a girl was sick.
And eventually I got on cath and ended up working there for 12 years.
And along the way, you fell in love.
I did. And, um, you know, I,
I really encountered,
especially 10 or more years ago after I moved to Hollywood,
I encountered a lot of trans women who looked at me
for having transitioned in the gay nightclub scene
for having transitioned performing, you know,
in the drag culture. They really looked down on me for that. They,
um, it was all but said that,
you know, well, you are,
you're just a gay man because you were a quote unquote drag
queen. Um,
it was used that term was used denigrating against me
in, uh, published articles in the L G B T press,
et cetera. It,
they really discounted my womanhood because I came up
through the club scene because I came up performing in the drag world,
but all of them were usually a half generation to a generation
younger than me.
And they just didn't understand that there were no resources,
there was no internet, there was, there was no glad, there was no,
you know, there, there was nothing for us.
So the only time I had ever seen a trans woman was
on stage at a gay bar.
And it just so happened that I am an entertainer.
I'm an artist.
That's the deepest part of my self-identification is as an artist.
And that was the only allowed space
for me to both, you know,
transition my gender and be an artist, get paid for it.
I mean, if I had tried to go work at the mall, you know,
transitioning, I would've been kicked out.
If I had been tried to go work at AutoZone or whatever transition,
I would've even kicked out.
This was a job I could pay my rent to,
you know, perfect my gender presentation and be an artist. And
so I came up through all that. And one night,
uh, Fort Campbell Kentucky is right at the,
the bottom of Kentucky at the top of Tennessee, and it's an army base.
And an army boy named Barry Winchell, uh,
came to see the show one Sunday night. And we would often get,
uh,
army boys from Fort Campbell come down to the club because a lot of
straight girls came even back then in the nineties, you know,
and the straight guys figured, you know,
the straight girls at a gay bar, they're, I, my odds are,
you know, the odds are in my favor.
And so it wasn't unusual to see a table full of straight boys,
but I was hosting at the time. I was,
I was young and and gorgeous. I had, you know,
my natural long auburn hair to the middle of my back.
I had a 26 inch waist and, and natural
rests and, you know, all that I not to get too, but I,
I, you know, was quite a psych at the time. I've seen.
Pictures of you from back then. You were stunning. You're still gorgeous,
but I mean, you were the epitome of,
of like a Vegas showgirl just stunning.
It, it was, and, and as a side note,
to grow up feeling so ugly, I had terrible acne.
I had awful, awful buck teeth,
which I'm so grateful my parents purchased braces for.
I was the only of we three kids to get braces. And I,
I feel very bad that my sister didn't get them. But, you know,
to grow up feeling so unattractive and especially being attracted to boys
and them not looking at me at all,
to reach a moment in my early twenties where, you know,
I I was able to embody kind of an,
an archetype of female sexual attractiveness.
It it was mind boggling. Um, and,
and now I'm fully settled into, you know, if you,
if you look at archetypes and Greek mythology, there's the maiden,
the mother and the crone, and I'm kind of,
I had that maiden moment,
and I'm settled comfortably and happily into the crone moment now,
which is, which this speaks wisdom and experience to me. It's, it's not,
you know, a negative. But at that moment,
I was in my maiden moment, you know, I, I was, uh,
presenting quite a sight. And this young man,
Barry was attracted to me. Uh,
he came up and invited me out to coffee, and I said, yes, and we started dating.
But unfortunately,
his roommate who was with him spread the rumor amongst the other Army
boys that, that Barry was dating, quote unquote a transsexual.
And thus, that made him gay. Uh,
even though Barry had only ever dated women, was only attracted to women. Um,
but he started receiving Antifa bullying and
harassment, which he never told me, uh, breaks my heart,
I would've helped him, but he didn't tell me that.
And eventually on the 4th of July in 1999,
he was beaten to death in his sleep, uh,
by that roommate and a patriot. Um,
and that began a new chapter
in my life, uh, dealing with that and activism.
I'm so, so sorry that happened. I watched the movie, our,
our mutual friend Andrea James, who we both adore. Uh,
she told me about the film Soldier Girl, soldiers Girl. So I watched that,
and I, I mean,
aside from the fact that no one should experience that kind of horrific
experience, uh, I, I can't even, firstly,
it's hard to wrap your brain around people behaving that way, um,
just because somebody is out there just living their life. And secondly,
I watching it and knowing you,
even though we're just getting to know each other better,
that my heart was, and I'm sure you've heard this before, you know,
my heart was breaking. Like, you are a very tender-hearted, lovely woman.
You're, you're very kind. You,
you seem to seek the good in people from what I've,
from what I've seen of you thus far. And I mean,
I couldn't imagine even just sitting in the theater when that premiered and
having to re-traumatize watching that.
Well, it's, it's been almost a quarter century. And,
and, you know, tears still
come when I really think about it. When, um,
when it happened,
I was competing in this Tennessee Entertainer of the Year,
so I was actually on stage and I won,
I won the Crown that night. And just looking back,
knowing that as I was winning the crown, you know, he was,
he was being murdered. Um,
and then of course, the media swooped in.
It was a very lurid, you know,
a very lurid idea for a story, I suppose. And, um,
they pursued me. They parked vans outside of the nightclub, and,
and I, I didn't wanna talk to anyone,
but I still had to do my shows. I have to pay my rent and my bills and all. So,
um,
but then I was called into court and I was very early in my
transition, and this happened in July,
so it was so hot. And, you know,
I was early in my transition,
so having to wear makeup and a wig
and, you know,
the clothing to the courthouse in that horrible sun
with those cameras just zooming in cad,
every little flaw to make,
trying to make us look bad.
It was a bad, it was a,
it was a bad time and a very vulnerable
time. But thankfully, I did have a lot of help from,
um,
from various L G B T legal organizations,
and we did convict the killers, but unfortunately,
they're both out of prison now.
They're both free all these years later.
I'm sorry.
It's,
it's strange to know that I could go to a Walmart or something and just
bump into Calvin Glover or Justin Fischer,
but you know, they're, they're in different states.
That won't happen.
Yeah.
And I don't know how accurately the film portrayed Barry,
but he certainly seemed like a really beautiful soul and just a
really loving open soul. And it's,
it's a horrific story, but I'm,
I cannot imagine how difficult it must be as a trans person to
find love and experience love because of the bigotry in
the world. Um,
it's hard enough when you're sis you've been given that sort of hall
pass of quote unquote normalcy.
So the fact that you found someone is beautiful,
the fact that they were ripped from you is, is so horrific.
Yes. Even, even now, you know,
it's difficult to date as a trans person, of course,
that then in Tennessee and Kentucky,
it was, it was all the more, you know, a,
a truly rare gift. You know, fortunately in,
in the current years, I, I found someone wonderful, um, you know,
who I was with for 12 years. And, and that was
a real gift. But the, the takeaway from
moving forward after Barry was murdered was that, uh, we,
and especially with the movie Soldiers Girl, we were given the opportunity to
speak about the issues around it, to make people aware,
to generate some empathy. And, um, you know, I,
I've been able to speak at, at Oxford and Harvard and,
um, Johns Hopkins and travel all over the world,
and hopefully open some hearts and minds, uh,
speak on ccan and for Congress. Uh,
bill Clinton even, uh,
gave a somewhat of an apology at some point, you know,
too little, too late, I have to say, even if that's a little unkind.
But, um,
thankfully we were able to bring some
something forward from Barry's murder. And, um,
that,
it's a real hard part from that though, is that it,
it,
in a sense pulled the curtain on me as an
entertainer, and me as a, just an individual, it,
it came to define me. And when I moved to Hollywood, you know,
I found that even though I had been an entertainer and an actor and a performer
my whole life,
nobody wanted me for the soccer mom and the Subaru commercial when I
was the murder bride, you know, quote unquote,
who had been on the cover of the New York Times and Rolling Stone and Vanity
Fair for this awful thing. And in a lot of ways,
it really kind of ended
the possibility for me being an entertainer that wasn't
colored by tragedy.
Yeah. Yeah.
Where did you go with your activism? I know that you did, uh,
aside from talking at these prestigious colleges and on television
about
normalizing and having empathy for the lgbtq plus community,
but how did your activism develop and grow?
And I know you did the Vagina Vagina Monologues, and you've done,
you've written songs and, and you've performed,
and you and Andrea started a production company.
Yeah, I mean, uh, some of the things I'm most proud of other than, um,
you know, things like speaking at the Oxford Union and, and all that,
doing a solo show at, at Harvard's a c t theater. And I, uh,
we, Jane Fonda's son,
Troy Garrity played Barry in the movie Soldiers Girl. And,
um, he, he did a wonderful job, Lee Pace. Uh,
he's a brilliant actor, played me in Soldiers Girl.
And even at the time, um,
I had wished that a woman could have played me in the film,
but Hollywood just wasn't there yet. And looking back,
it's easy to criticize having a cis male actor play a trans part,
but we just weren't there at the time. And, um.
I thought he did a beautiful job with it, though.
I do too. Uh, it was his first role out of Juilliard, and, um,
he brought all of his talent to it, and, and he,
they were all rightfully nominated for Golden Globes and Emmys and,
and all that. Um, I'm grateful, you know,
as a product of its time, it was the best that we could have hoped for.
It was written by non-white Ron Wanner, who wrote Philadelphia.
But, um, through Troy playing my boyfriend,
I met and became friends with Jane Fonda, uh,
which became a whole other thing. I, we became personal friends.
I spent the summer with her. I, I cooked Christmas dinner for her.
And she goes without saying,
is an amazing woman who herself has a lifetime of
stories to tell. And
she had partnered with Eve Enzler, the creator of the Vagina Monologues.
And through those connections,
Andrea James and I put on the first all trans women
production of the Vagina Monologues, uh, here in, in Hollywood.
And it was, uh, you know, a star studded attendance. Uh,
all the glitterati came and we raised money for the LA
Commission on assault against women and, uh, other women's charities.
And we brought all the most, um, interesting, powerful,
creative trans women of that moment that we could get there.
You know, there were certainly some who couldn't come or whatever, but we had,
we had doctors, lawyers, airline pilots, activists, sex workers,
um, community organizers. We had it,
it was a truly amazing event. And, um,
you know, it, it's,
it's one of the things I'm most proud of in terms of activism.
Absolutely. Jane Fonda is somebody I admire as well.
I think she's done a lot of really phenomenal things, uh,
and in the face of a lot of adversity at times, I had no idea that was her son.
He did an excellent job as well.
Yeah, Troy Garrity, he, he took his, uh,
grandmother's name to try to try to work without coasting
on the Fonda name.
I would be remiss to not bring up the fact that right now anti-trans legislation
is, is running amok.
Well, unfortunately, my home state of Tennessee,
alongside Texas, uh,
have been leaders in just awful anti L G
B T and ly trans legislation. And, and that hurts.
Cause when you're from Tennessee, it's kind of built into you.
There's a Tennessee pride and, and outsiders will laugh at it. They're like,
why are you proud of being a hillbilly? Why are you proud of being poor?
Or Why are you proud of being in the 40th 42nd place and national
education or whatever. But there,
there are beautiful things about Tennessee and about growing up there
and the people and the culture and the food.
I love Tennessee and I'm proud to have grown up there,
but I'm not proud of what our
religious leaders and what our legislators are doing. And it, it,
it just breaks my heart. I mean, sometimes I just feel powerless.
It's like watching this big behemoth steamroll over
all of our rights.
But I do my little part and I support
financially and,
and emotionally and however else I can,
any of the activist organizations, and I still do fundraisers.
My, my whole job in Los Angeles was doing charity
fundraisers for everything from AIDS life cycle to providing
inclusive playground equipment for children with disabilities, et cetera.
We raised millions and millions of dollars for those until covid shut
all that down. You know, I, I just,
I do what I can Yeah. But with my talents.
Let's talk about the birds .
For.
Anybody listening,
they probably heard some squawking going on in the background. And that is your,
your family.
. I do apologize.
I'm fully to be hendron Hendron out here. I, um,
I fantasized since I was a child of owning a cockatoo,
I used to draw cartoons as a very young child of me with a big
white cockatoo on my shoulder. And finally,
several years ago, I was settled. I was, you know, stable.
I had a income and everything, but cockatoos are very large birds,
and they, they actually need, you know, a lot of specific hair.
So I purchased a cockatiel,
which is like a miniature tiny cockatoo,
and I just fell in love, you know, they're so intelligent.
My little boy Suge is short for sugar dumpling. He,
he looks me in the eye every morning and speaks the words,
I love you. He says, I love you.
And when he does something he wants you to see, he says, good boy,
good boy. And, you know, so I,
I got him what I thought was a brother, and it turned out to be a girl.
And so they ended up, uh, doing what many boys and girls do.
And now I have four children.
So I have six cock heels that swarm me,
fly about me, land on me, and through my hair,
and talk to me and whistle at me all day.
Yeah, you have a delightful Instagram. Uh,
it's aside from the fabulous snarkiness that you have with Andrea,
which is great, and I love following that, that you two do with each other.
I, I think a lot of,
a lot of a big segment of people who first started following me
started following me when I was kind of a glamorous Vegas style
showgirl. So there was, there were a lot of posts of, you know, me at the club,
me painted in wigs and drenched in diamonds and, you know,
this and that. But I have kind of transitioned now to, uh,
I mostly post my very elaborate homemade southern cooking
and the funny hygienes of my birds. And surprisingly,
uh, my followers have stuck around. They don't mind the, the transition.
Absolutely. Let's talk about how people can find you, where,
where you are out there on the worldwide web aons of life.
Well, Julius Caesar's wife was named Calpurnia.
And, um, she, uh,
thankfully enough had a dream in which she saw fountains of blood
and predicted that his friends would kill him. She said,
beware the eyes of March.
And I chose this name before I'd ever met Barry, who was killed by his friends.
And, uh, but I chose it because Shakespeare, you know,
name Julius Caesar's wife is Calpurnia,
and I thought that was an interesting name.
Then in the book To Kill a Mockingbird,
the loving Mother figure to scout. And Jim was the maid, Calpurnia.
And lastly, in the Adams family movie,
Wednesday's great-Aunt Calpurnia was burned as a witch in 1706
before dancing naked in the town square and in enslaving a minister,
all of those Calpurnia are spelled with a u I am at
Calpurnia,
spelled with an E c A L p e R N I A
on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, on TikTok.
I'm Calpurnia Adams with two Ds,
Calpurnia with a double D. Or you can just go to calpurnia.com.
Perfect. And I'll put links on, Hey, human podcast,
so people can find you quite easily, your story.
It certainly resembles a lot of the tragic tales of your,
um, but you've also had some really beautiful,
lovely moments too. And I hope,
I hope that those keep you going and buoy you
as you move, you know, through your life and you keep going forward. I mean,
you're a survivor.
My life is full of love, and I have dear, dear,
close deep friends who are more family than friends. Um,
not the Lisa, which is, um, Ms. Andrea James,
who deserves her own book and documentary and, and my, my babies,
my birds. I, I'm very blessed despite all the tragedy,
and I'm happy and I look forward to seeing what's next.
Absolutely. You're still finding the notes, you're still figuring out,
we know what's to come, which is, I think as human beings,
it's all we can hope for is that we are constantly on that Ithaca journey
trying to figure out along the way,
on the way there to whatever that there is.
Exactly. There's, there's so much more to see and,
and the bad stuff that happens. Uh, you know, it's,
it's just all the more put in the distance every time you discover something
new. That's wonderful.
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for sharing your story today, Kardinia.
I I really appreciate it.
I appreciate you for having me. And, and thank you so much.
Absolutely. Thank you for listening, everybody. Bye.
See you soon.
Rate review and subscribe to, Hey, human Podcast on iTunes, Spotify,
or wherever you get your podcast. Thanks. Bye.