A Secret Life

page 2

Steve Hammond is an ordinary guy. I drive a Jeep Cherokee pickup. I built the house where me and my wife, Sara Jane, live. I get up every day and go to my job at a warehouse in Berea, Kentucky. I wants to adopt a child and provide stability for my family. Like most of us, I dream of getting a little extra out of life. An ordinary guy. But I have an extraordinary story to tell.

Surprise

In 1981, Linda Jean Hammond (I was known as "Linda Jean"), 25, stepped into the Richmond office of Dr. William P. Grise a few minutes after he had opened. "It was the first time I'd revealed myself to a doctor. I'd been to a doctor for an ear ache and an infected hand but had never had a complete physical. I was very embarrassed and scared. I knew my secret was going to be revealed, a secret I'd held in all my life. "I figured he would know without asking me so many questions. That first time, I had a hard time talking." Grise remembers single-word answers to nearly every question, chipping away at Linda's wall of protection. Then came the examination.

Born Different

Linda Jean Hammond was born with a birth defect June 2, 1956, in Mary Rutan Hospital in Bellefontaine, Ohio. Dr. John B. Traul is listed as the physician. He has since died. If he or his nurses noticed anything unusual about the infant Hammond, they didn't press hard to do something about it. Linda went home untreated.

Six weeks later, my mother, Christine, and father, Floyd, moved our family of five children to Jackson County, Ky. Floyd's sister noticed "Linda used the bathroom funny" when she diapered the baby. She wanted to take Linda to a doctor. She told my father, but he wasn't around much. There wasn't money for the essentials then, much less medical help. A few years later, my parents divorced. My mother tried to raise the family the best she could, but there was barely enough to eat.

There are memories of the poverty: "We woke up sometimes bleeding - me on the toes and my sister from the head - where rats bit us. We lived in houses with dirt floors. In the winter, it was always cold, so Mamma put us all in one bed together and covered us with a feather mattress so we could keep warm." I cried alot during those first years. My mother often thought something was wrong but couldn't pinpoint it and never said anything about it to me. I took comfort from my younger brother. Me and my younger brother Michael were the closest. I always wanted to play with his toys more that mine. He always had the guns. I always got the dolls.

The Tomboy

Photos of Linda at the time (this one at age 10) show a cute, cheerful child, a little girl with chestnut hair cut in a pageboy. But all was not right. School was boring. There were school chums at Sand Gap Elementary School, but mostly Linda wanted to stay home alone, play softball or shoot basketball. Linda seemed a bit of a tomboy, but it only provoked a little teasing. By seventh and eighth grade, Linda became a cheerleader. "I wanted to be a part of the boy's basketball team, but I couldn't play. That was the only way I could be part of the team."

When I was 10, my mother married John R. Johnson. Life got much better. "He loved us alot. I have a biological real dad, but to me he is my real dad because I didn't know my other dad. He (Johnson) ran a filling station and taught all of us, but I guess I was the one most interested in electrical work, plumbing, carpentry, and mechanics. Mostly, he taught us alot of common sense."

What is Normal?

In Jackson County, where I grew up, pictures of naked men and women were hard to find, nor had I ever seen a naked man or a naked woman. So how could I know about normal development and about what male and female body parts were supposed to look like? At 11, I did tell my mother, "I get hard down there." I made my mother swear she wouldn't tell "John R.", as I called I my stepfather.

When I started at Jackson County High School in the early 1970's, the vague feelings got worse. Girlfriends talked about developing breasts and having menstrual periods, but I didn't develop. Periods never came. The anatomy was wrong, and it scared me. My mother wanted me to go to a doctor. I was terrified and refused.

Girls normally reach puberty between the ages of 11 and 17. My mother thought things would either get better or I would get sick and have to see a doctor. But my birth defect meant that wouldn't happen. I bullied Mamma into ignoring it.

Impulses of a Man

Linda went to work as a shipping clerk in a 13-acre warehouse. In one particularly striking photo from that time, Linda's hair falls well below the shoulders. Linda wore padded bras. Still, Linda's frustration kept building. Linda transferred from the clerk's job to loading trucks. To co-workers, Linda was "L.J. - the strongest woman they ever had to work with."

The guys on the dock didn't bother me much, and after work there was always softball. The trophies filled a room. By then, the frustration had become a full-fledged battle between the spiritual side of Linda and the angry person who wondered why God would make such a person. I was troubled by an attraction to women.

A co-worker said to Linda, "Jesus will save you." And the "big old tomboy who was always laughing and carrying on" grew quiet. I attended services in a white cinder block Baptist church. One day the preacher seemed to speak directly to me. He said the Bible said men shouldn't wear women's clothes and women shouldn't wear men's. My face burned. That was one of the last times I wore a skirt.

My attraction to women increased. A female friend became convinced my impulses were those of a man and urged me to visit a doctor. To do so, I had to show a body that had been hidden for so long. "Here I am, and I think I know what's going on but I'm confused. I think I could be both sexes, and I'm scared they're going to find out."

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