February 1, 2000 Winchell's woman. (From the Advocate Archives).

The new film A Soldier's Girl tells the painful story of transgendered performer Calpernia Sarah Addams, leading up to and following the murder of her boyfriend, Pfc. Barry Winchell, in July 1999. In an interview with The Advocate seven months after the tragedy, Addams discussed how the media added insult to injury.

"I knew immediately that my being a transgendered person would add a Jerry Springer-like angle to this story," she said. "I didn't want to see the headline 'Drag Queen Lover Tells All.'"

Addams said she understood the confusion in the press about her gender identity and Winchelrs sexual orientation. Even so, she added, "it's the media's job to get complicated information across in an understandable format, but it's not my job to make it easier for them."

Many male-to-female preoperative transsexuals enter into relationships with closeted gay men who use them as what Addams called a "bridge into homosexuality," only to leave them in the end. But she said Winchell was different. "It really hits me that Barry was a rare and wonderful find, somebody I could really look forward to making a relationship with," she said, crying. "And now he's gone."