Addams grew up in Nashville, Tennessee.[2] She served as a Hospital Corpsman with the Navy and United States Marine Corps. During her last year in the military she came out as a transgender woman.[3] Addams chose the name "Calpernia" from the William Shakespeare play Julius Caesar (a variant spelling of Caesar's wife Calpurnia) and its appearance on a tombstone in the film The Addams Family.[3]
In 1999, while working as a performer, Addams began dating PFC Barry Winchell. Word of the relationship spread at Winchell's Army base where he was harassed, and ultimately murdered, by fellow soldiers.[4] Addams' and Winchell's romance and the crimes of their abusers are depicted in the film Soldier's Girl, released in 2003. Addams was portrayed by Lee Pace. A subsequent New York Times article, "An Inconvenient Woman", documented the marginalization and misrepresentation of transgender sexuality even by gay rights activists.[5]
