What You Don't Know Can Hurt You

As a rule our society is stuck on knowing everything. We are not comfortable being in the dark about anything even if it does not directly affect us.  Currently, America is obsessed with the idea of same-sex marriages, a concept that honestly does not affect all Americans, but only those in the process of trying to attain a marriage license. It is situations like this that make non-heteronormative relationship dangerous. I argue in this post that a sense of unknowing and ignorance is ultimately what caused Private Barry Winchell's death. His murderers were not knowledgeable about his relationship with Calpernia Addams. Specifically that Winchell was not gay and that Addams was a woman simply awaiting a surgery that would complete her womanhood.

Chapter 5 of John Sloop’s book illustrates the life and death of Private Barry Winchell at Fort Campbell. Calvin Glover, a soldier, beat Winchell to death. Fellow soldier Justin Fisher, Winchell’s roommate, pushed Glover to this attack. Glover and Fisher assumed Winchell was gay and decided there was no room in the Army for a gay man. These assumptions were made after it was discovered that Winchell was dating Calpernia Addams, a former navy medic and pre-opt male-to-female transgendered woman. The murder was considered a hate crime and compared to the story of Brandon Teena.

Within this chapter Sloop analyzes several aspects of the story surrounding Private Winchell. Sloop compares the Winchell story to the Brandon Teena story in how both individuals were made to be gay or lesbian so the public and media could better understand and accept their stories. Sloop states, “having encouraged Addams to refer to herself as a gay man in order to simplify public perception of the killing as a hate crime” (pg 124). This is similar to how the Boys Don’t Cry film portrayed Brandon as a lesbian in the end, so the audience would better handle his story; soften the blow so to speak. It seems that we are too concerned with the public’s understanding and feelings about one’s lifestyle, so in order to make them comfortable we alter the authenticity of their life.

Barry Winchell never "came out" as gay because he was not gay. Growing up Winchell only dated women as his own mother explains. When he met Calpernia she was a woman by all standards. On page 131, Addams admitted that she felt she was a woman. Addams was even described as a female in reports with examples such as, “country girl”, “Nashville preacher’s daughter”, etc. With this is mind, although Addams was born a man when she met Winchell she was a woman, which furthers the point that Winchell was not gay. He was not attracted to a man, but to a beautiful woman. His roommate and killer figured that because Addams was born a man and Winchell was a man than the two were living as a gay couple. I understand that the idea of sexuality and sex are fluid and hard to understand for most, but if Glover and Fisher would have just taken the time to try and understand the situation maybe they would have reacted differently. 

With all this being said it seems that society is stuck on labels and classifying people. As cliché as it sounds, society only sees black and white, when we all know there are gray areas of life. As far as society is concerned, you are either homosexual or straight, male or female, man or woman and no in between. I guess the saying "Knowledge is power" is more than appropriate in this case.