So what does it mean to be a woman? We all have XX chromosomes, right? Actually, that's not true. Some women are mosaics. They have a mix of chromosome types with X, with XY or with XXX. If it's not just about our chromosomes, then what is being a woman about? Being feminine? Getting married? Having kids? You don't have to look far to find fantastic exceptions to these rules, but we all share something that makes us women. Maybe that something is in our brains.
身為女性是什麼意思? 我們都有 XX 染色體,對吧? 其實,並不是如此。 有些女性像是鑲嵌畫。 她們的染色體類型是有 X、 XY 或 XXX 的混合型態。 如果身為女性的重點 並不只在染色體, 那是什麼? 女性化? 結婚? 生子? 這些規則都有例外, 且並不難找, 但某些共通性形塑我們成為女人。 也許那種共通性存在我們的大腦中。
You might have heard theories from last century about how men are better at math than women because they have bigger brains. These theories have been debunked. The average man has a brain about three times smaller than the average elephant, but that doesn't mean the average man is three times dumber than an elephant ... or does it?
你可能有聽過上個世紀所提的 男性比女性更擅長數學的理論, 因為男性的大腦比較大。 這些理論已經被推翻。 男人的腦袋比大象的腦袋 小約三倍, 但那並不表示 一般男人比大象笨三倍…… 或確實是如此呢?
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
There's a new wave of female neuroscientists that are finding important differences between female and male brains in neuron connectivity, in brain structure, in brain activity. They're finding that the brain is like a patchwork mosaic -- a mixture. Women have mostly female patches and a few male patches.
新一波的女性神經科學家 正研究出女性和男性的大腦間 在神經元的連接上、 大腦結構上和大腦活動上的重大差異。 她們發現,大腦就像 拼布鑲嵌圖一樣—— 是種混合體。 女性具有大部分的女性拼布 和一些的男性拼布。
With all this new data, what does it mean to be a woman? This is something that I've been thinking about almost my entire life. When people learn that I'm a woman who happens to be transgender, they always ask, "How do you know you're a woman?" As a scientist, I'm searching for a biological basis of gender. I want to understand what makes me me. New discoveries at the front edge of science are shedding light on the biomarkers that define gender. My colleagues and I in genetics, neuroscience, physiology and psychology, we're trying to figure out exactly how gender works. These vastly different fields share a common connection -- epigenetics. In epigenetics, we're studying how DNA activity can actually radically and permanently change, even though the sequence stays the same.
有了這些新資料, 身為女性的意義是什麼? 我幾乎一生都在想這個問題。 人們發現我正好是跨性別的女性時, 他們總是會問: 「妳怎麼知道妳是女性?」 身為科學家,我在尋找的是 性別的生物基礎。 我想要知道是什麼形塑了如今的我。 科學前端的新發現, 為性別生物標記的領域開啟了曙光。 我同事和我研究遺傳學、 神經科學、生理學和心理學, 我們試圖了解性別是如何運作的 。 這些迥異的領域有一個共同的連結— 表觀遺傳學。 在表觀遺傳學中,我們研究的是 DNA 的活動如何產生 徹底、永久的改變, 即使它的序列維持不變。
DNA is the long, string-like molecule that winds up inside our cells. There's so much DNA that it actually gets tangled into these knot-like things -- we'll just call them knots. So external factors change how those DNA knots are formed. You can think of it like this: inside our cells, there's different contraptions building things, connecting circuits, doing all the things they need to make life happen. Here's one that's sort of reading the DNA and making RNA. And then this one is carrying a huge sac of neurotransmitters from one end of the brain cell to the other. Don't they get hazard pay for this kind of work?
DNA 是纏繞在我們 細胞裡面的長型線狀分子。 DNA 的數量如此眾多, 以致像打結似地纏繞著—— 我們就直接稱為「結」。 外部因子會改變 這些 DNA 結的形成方式。 你可以這樣想: 在我們的細胞中,有不同的新奇裝置 在建構東西、連結線路、 執行維持生命運作所需的工作。 這個是在讀取 DNA 並製造 RNA。 而這個是將一個大型的神經傳遞質, 從大腦細胞的一端帶到另一端。 它們做這種工作沒領安全津貼嗎?
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
This one is an entire molecular factory -- some say it's the secret to life. It's call the ribosome. I've been studying this since 2001.
這個是完整的分子工廠—— 有些人說,它是生命的秘密。 它叫做核醣體。 我從 2001 年起就在研究這些。
One of the stunning things about our cells is that the components inside them are actually biodegradable. They dissolve, and then they're rebuilt each day, kind of like a traveling carnival where the rides are taken down and then rebuilt every single day. A big difference between our cells and the traveling carnival is that in the carnival, there are skilled craftsmen that rebuild the rides each day. In our cells, there are no such skilled craftsmen, only dumb builder machines that build whatever's written in the plans, no matter what those plans say. Those plans are the DNA. The instructions for every nook and cranny inside our cells.
我們的細胞其中一項 讓人吃驚的特性就是 它們內部的組件是可行生物分解的。 它們會溶解, 每天又會再重建, 有一點像巡迴的遊樂場, 遊樂設施每天都會拆下來、 又重新搭建起來。 我們的細胞和遊樂場最大的差別 是在遊樂場中, 有技術精良的工匠 負責每天的重建工作。 在我們的細胞中,沒有這種工匠, 只有傻呼呼的建造機器, 計畫寫什麼,它們就建什麼, 不管那些計畫說的是什麼。 那些計畫就是 DNA。 在細胞內部有著鉅細靡遺的指示。
If everything in, say, our brain cells dissolves almost every day, then how can the brain remember anything past one day? That's where DNA comes in. DNA is one of the those things that does not dissolve. But for DNA to remember that something happened, it has to change somehow. We know the change can't be in the sequence; if it changed sequence all the time, then we might be growing like, a new ear or a new eyeball every single day.
以我們的腦細胞為例, 如果裡面的一切 幾乎每天都會溶解, 那大腦怎麼可能記得 前一天的任何事? 那就是 DNA 上場的時候了。 DNA 是不會溶解的東西之一。 但若要 DNA 記住發生過什麼事, 它就得做某種改變。 我們知道改變並不在序列中; 如果它隨時在改變序列, 那我們每天可能會長出 一個新耳朵或一顆新眼球。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
So, instead it changes shape, and that's where those DNA knots come in. You can think of them like DNA memory. When something big in our life happens, like a traumatic childhood event, stress hormones flood our brain. The stress hormones don't affect the sequence of DNA, but they do change the shape. They affect that part of DNA with the instructions for molecular machines that reduce stress. That piece of DNA gets wound up into a knot, and now the dumb builder machines can't read the plans they need to build the machines that reduce stress. That's a mouthful, but it's what's happening on the microscale. On the macroscale, you practically lose the ability to deal with stress, and that's bad. And that's how DNA can remember what happens in the past.
所以,它就改變自己的形狀, 這就是 DNA 結發揮作用的時候了。 你可以把它們想成是 DNA 記憶。 當我們的人生中發生重大的事, 比如創傷性的兒時事件, 壓力荷爾蒙就會湧入我們的大腦。 壓力荷爾蒙不會影響 DNA 序列, 但會改變它們的形狀。 它們透過指示減壓分子機器的啟動, 影響那個部分的DNA。 那一段的 DNA 會繞成一個結, 所以,傻呼呼的建造機器就無法讀到 它們需要建立減壓機器的計畫了。 聽起來很冗長,但在 微觀世界的狀況就是這樣。 宏觀上,你可能就會 失去處理壓力的能力, 那不是好事。 那就是 DNA 記住過去 發生了什麼事的方式。
This is what I think was happening to me when I first started my gender transition. I knew I was a woman on the inside, and I wore women's clothes on the outside, but everyone saw me as a man in a dress. I felt like no matter how many things I try, no one would ever really see me as a woman. In science, your credibility is everything, and people were snickering in the hallways, giving me stares, looks of disgust -- afraid to be near me. I remember my first big talk after transition. It was in Italy. I'd given prestigious talks before, but this one, I was terrified. I looked out into the audience, and the whispers started -- the stares, the smirks, the chuckles. To this day, I still have social anxiety around my experience eight years ago. I lost hope. Don't worry, I've had therapy so I'm OK -- I'm OK now.
我認為這就是我剛開始 做性別轉變時發生的情況。 我知道我內在是位女性, 外在會穿著女性的服飾, 但大家看到的都是 一位穿著女裝的男人。 我覺得, 不論我做多少嘗試, 都不會有人把我當作女性來看待。 在科學界,可信度凌駕一切, 而大家會在走廊上竊笑, 盯著我看, 做出嫌惡的表情—— 害怕靠近我。 我記得我變性之後的 第一場大型演講。 地點在義大利。 我之前做過不少頗具盛譽的演講, 但這次,我害怕極了。 我看向觀眾, 開始有人耳語—— 還有人盯著看, 有假笑、有竊笑。 至今,我仍因八年前的 這段經驗而患有社交恐懼症。 我失去了希望。 別擔心,我有接受治療, 所以我沒事—— 我現在沒事了。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
(Cheers)
(歡呼)
(Applause)
(掌聲)
But I felt enough is enough: I'm a scientist, I have a doctorate in astrophysics, I've published in the top journals, in wave-particle interactions, space physics, nucleic acid biochemistry. I've actually been trained to get to the bottom of things, so --
但我受夠了,該適可而止了: 我是科學家, 我有天體物理學博士學位, 在頂尖期刊中發表過文章, 研究領域包括波粒子交互作用、 太空物理、核酸生物化學。 我受的專業訓練是要追根究柢, 所以——
(Laughter)
(笑聲)我上了網路——
I went online --
(掌聲)
(Applause)
So I went online, and I found fascinating research papers. I learned that these DNA knot things are not always bad. Actually, the knotting and unknotting -- it's like a complicated computer language. It programs our bodies with exquisite precision.
我上網,找到了很棒的研究論文。 我發現這些 DNA 結 並不一定都是不好的。 其實,形成結和解開結—— 就像是一種複雜的電腦語言。 它以細緻的精確度在我們體內運作。
So when we get pregnant, our fertilized eggs grow into newborn babies. This process requires thousands of DNA decisions to happen. Should an embryo cell become a blood cell? A heart cell? A brain cell? And the decisions happen at different times during pregnancy. Some in the first trimester, some in the second trimester and some in the third trimester. To truly understand DNA decision-making, we need to see the process of knot formation in atomic detail. Even the most powerful microscopes can't see this. What if we tried to simulate these on a computer? For that we'd need a million computers to do that. That's exactly what we have at Los Alamos Labs -- a million computers connected in a giant warehouse.
所以,當我們懷孕時, 受精的卵子會長成新生兒。 這個過程需要數千個 DNA 決策才能完成。 這個胚胎細胞應該變成血液細胞嗎? 或是心臟細胞?腦細胞? 這些決策發生在懷孕的不同時期。 有些是在前三個月, 有些是在四到六個月, 有些則在七到九個月。 若要真正了解 DNA 的決策方式, 我們需要從原子細節 去了解結形成的過程。 就連最強大的顯微鏡也看不到。 如果我們嘗試用電腦來做模擬呢? 我們需要一百萬台電腦才辦得到。 我們在洛斯阿拉莫斯 國家實驗室正好就有—— 在一間巨型的倉庫中, 有一百萬台電腦連結在一起。
So here we're showing the DNA making up an entire gene folded into very specific shapes of knots. For the first time, my team has simulated an entire gene of DNA -- the largest biomolecular simulation performed to date. For the first time, we're beginning to understand the unsolved problem of how hormones trigger the formation of these knots.
這裡,我們展示的是 構成完整基因的 DNA 所形成特定形狀的結。 這是第一次, 我的團隊模擬出了 整個基因的 DNA —— 這是至今進行過 最大的生物分子模擬。 這是第一次,我們解開了 荷爾蒙如何觸發形成這些結的謎團。
DNA knot formation can be seen beautifully in calico cats. The decision between orange and black happens early on in the womb, so that orange-and-black patchy pattern, it's an exact readout of what happened when that cat was just a tiny little kitten embryo inside her mom's womb. And the patchy pattern actually happens in our brains and in cancer. It's directly related to intellectual disability and breast cancer.
DNA 結的形態在花斑貓的 身上完美展現出表徵。 初期在子宮內,橘色和黑色的選擇 已然定調, 所以那橘黑相間的花樣, 正是精確地演繹出 小貓在母貓子宮的 胚胎時所定調的事而已。 在我們的大腦以及癌症上, 也會看到花樣模式的情況。 它和智能障礙及乳癌有直接的關係。
These DNA decisions also happen in other parts of the body. It turns out that the precursor genitals transform into either female or male during the first trimester of pregnancy. The precursor brains, on the other hand, transform into female or male during the second trimester of pregnancy. So the current working model is that a unique mix in my mom's womb caused the precursor genitals to transform one way, but the precursor brain to transform the other way.
這些 DNA 決策也發生在 身體的其他部分。 結果發現,在懷孕的前三個月, 前驅生殖器會轉變成女性或男性。 另一方面,前驅大腦 是在懷孕的四到六個月 才會轉變成女性或男性。 所以,目前的工作模型是: 在我母親子宮中的獨特組合機制, 造成前驅生殖器 以一種方式轉變性別, 但前驅大腦 則以另一種方式轉變性別。
Most of epigenetic research has really focused on stress, anxiety, depression -- kind of a downer, kind of bad things.
大部分的表觀遺傳學研究 都把焦點放在壓力、焦慮、憂鬱—— 蠻掃興的,都是壞事。 (笑聲)
(Laughter)
But nowadays -- the latest stuff -- people are looking at relaxation. Can that have a positive effect on your DNA? Right now we're missing key data from mice models. We know that mice relax, but could they meditate like the Dalai Lama? Achieve enlightenment? Could they move stones with their mind like Jedi Master Yoda?
但,現今,最新的東西—— 大家在思考的是放鬆。 放鬆對於你的 DNA 會有正面的影響嗎? 現在,我們的老鼠模型 還缺少了關鍵性的資料。 我們知道老鼠會放鬆, 但,牠們能像達賴喇嘛那樣冥想嗎? 得到啟發? 牠們能像絕地武士尤達那樣 用念力移動石頭嗎?
(Yoda voice): Hm, a Jedi mouse must feel the force flow, hm.
(尤達的聲音):嗯,絕地老鼠 必須要感受到原力的流動,嗯。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
(Applause)
(掌聲)
I wonder if the support I've had since that talk back in Italy has tried to unwind my DNA. Having a great circle of friends, supportive parents and being in a loving relationship has actually given me strength and hope to help others. At work I wear a rainbow bracelet. Sometimes it raises eyebrows, but it also raises awareness. There's so many transgender people -- especially women of color -- that are just one demeaning comment away from taking their own lives. Forty percent of us attempt suicide. If you're listening and you feel like you have no other option, try to call a friend, go online or try to get in a support group. If you're a woman who's not transgender but you know pain of isolation, of sexual assault -- reach out.
我很納悶,從義大利的 那次演說之後, 我所得到的支持是否 在試著解開我的 DNA。 很棒的朋友圈、很支持的雙親, 且沉浸在愛情之中, 已經給了我力量與希望去幫助他人。 工作時我會戴著彩虹手環。 有時它會引人注目, 但它也會揚起意識。 有好多變性人—— 特別是有色人種的女性—— 僅再一次貶低的詆毀, 就可能讓她們自殺。 我們當中有四成的人嘗試過自殺。 如果你在聽, 且你覺得別無選擇, 試著打電話給一個朋友, 上網或是去尋求支持團體。 如果你是女性,不是變性人 但知道孤立的痛苦, 知道性侵的痛苦—— 請向外求援。
So what does it mean to be a woman? The latest research is showing that female and male brains do develop differently in the womb, possibly giving us females this innate sense of being a woman. On the other hand, maybe it's our shared sense of commonality that makes us women. We come in so many different shapes and sizes that asking what it means to be a woman may not be the right question. It's like asking a calico cat what it means to be a calico cat. Maybe becoming a woman means accepting ourselves for who we really are and acknowledging the same in each other.
所以,身為女性是什麼意思? 最新的研究顯示, 女性和男性的大腦 在子宮內發展的方式確實不同, 可能會給予我們女性這種 從內心就覺得自己是女人的感受。 另一方面, 也許是我們共有的 共通感讓我們成為女性。 我們有各種體型、尺寸, 「身為女性是什麼意思」 可能不是個正確的問題。 這就像是問花斑貓, 身為花斑貓是什麼意思。 也許,變成女性就表示 接受我們真實的自己, 並認可彼此的共同性。
I see you. And you've just seen me.
我看見你們。 你們也看見了我。
(Applause and cheers)
(掌聲及歡呼)