I have a confession to make, right off the bat. I don't know what you were doing at 16, but I'm a really big fan of "Harry Potter" and was waiting way too long to receive my letter inviting me to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry -- I could have gone for sixth form. I was also waiting for an invitation to the Jedi Temple or a tap on the shoulder to invite me to the X-Men. I was that kid.
我要先向大家坦白一件事。 我不知道你們十六歲時在做什麼, 但我當時很迷《哈利波特》, 且有好長好長的時間都在期盼收到 讓我進入霍格華茲魔法 與巫術學院的邀請信—— 我可以去讀它的預科。 我也在期盼絕地聖殿的邀請, 或收到加入 X 戰警的秘密邀請。 我就是那種小孩。
When I was 16 years old, I got my wish. I was taken into a doctor's office and told that I am in fact part of a group of people who are still largely invisible and misunderstood. I am intersex. That's my superpower.
在我十六歲時,願望成真了。 我被帶去看醫生, 醫生告訴我,我屬於一個幾乎隱形 且被誤解的族群。 我是間性人。 那是我的超能力。
For many of you in this room, it will be the first time you've even heard the word "intersex." Intersex is anatomy. It refers to people who were born with one or more of a variation of sex characteristics. That's your genitals, your hormones, your chromosomes that fall outside of the traditional conceptions of male and female bodies. In other words, the most basic assumption we've made about our species -- what we're taught in schools that sex is binary, just male and female -- is not correct. Like most things in this world, it is much more complicated than that.
在座許多人可能是第一次 聽到「間性人」這個詞。 間性是一種解剖的構造。 它指的是出生時就有一種或多種 性徵的變異。 也就是說,你的生殖器、 你的荷爾蒙、你的染色體 不符合傳統上對男性女性身體的觀念。 換言之, 我們對人類這個物種 所做的最基本假設—— 學校教導我們,性別是二元的, 只有男性和女性—— 這並不正確。 和世界上大部分的事物一樣, 性別沒有二元這麼簡單。
Intersex people who fall outside of this false sex binary have always existed, throughout human history. Like the wizards of "Harry Potter," we are pretty much invisible. Some of us don't even know that we are intersex. Like the X-Men, some of our traits are obvious at birth and others turn up around the time when puberty is supposed to kick in. When we find out we are intersex, some of us believe we are the only ones in the world.
人類歷史上間性人一直都存在, 他們不屬於這種錯誤的二元性別。 就像《哈利波特》裡的巫師, 我們幾乎是隱形的。 有些間性人甚至不知道自己是間性人。 就像 X 戰警, 有些間性人的特徵在出生時就很明顯, 有些人的特徵則要在 青春期時才會出現。 當我們發現自己是間性人時, 有些人會以為自己 是世界上唯一一個這種人。
Me, specifically, I have XY chromosomes, which you may have understood to be typically male. I was also born with gonads instead of ovaries. Standing here on this stage would have been my worst nightmare only five years ago. It would have been impossible.
明確來說,我有 XY 染色體, 各位應該知道, 那表示我是典型的男性。 我出生時,卵巢由性腺取代。 五年前,站在這個舞台上 會是我最糟糕的夢魘。 那是我絕對做不到的事。
I use the metaphor of the superhuman, but really, we are just like you. Intersex people are thought to make up to 1.7 percent of the population. That means more, depending on where you are in the world, but you get the picture. We are in front of you, getting coffee; we are sitting next to you on the train; we are swiping you left and right on dating apps --
我用超人類來做比喻, 但其實,我們和各位都一樣。 人口中有 1.7% 是間性人。 那表示其實間性人很多, 要看你身在何處, 但你懂我的意思。 你排隊買咖啡, 排在前面的可能就是間性人; 在火車上,坐在你旁邊的 可能就是間性人; 可能有間性人在 約會 APP 上滑你的資料。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
So why haven't you heard of us? If we are so common, why don't you see us? How has the world responded to us?
所以,為什麼你都沒聽過我們? 如果我們這麼常見, 為什麼你都沒有看過我們? 世界對我們是什麼反應?
We often think of disciplines like medicine and the law as supposedly neutral -- immune to bias. The law is "reason free from passion." The doctors' Hippocratic oath states that "warmth, sympathy and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's pill." In truth, these disciplines that touch our lives are impressive, but they are filled with our prejudices. They are not immune, just as we are not immune to the effects of that prejudice, which can be devastating.
我們通常認為醫學及法律等學術領域 應該是中立的, 應該對偏見免疫。 法律是「不受情感影響的理性」。 醫生的希波克拉底誓詞中說到 「溫暖、同情,和理解 比醫生的手術刀 或藥師的藥丸更重要。」 事實上, 雖然這些領域的知識 對我們生活的貢獻很讓人欽佩, 但也充滿了偏見。 它們並沒有對偏見免疫, 同樣的,我們也沒有對 那些偏見造成的效應免疫, 那些效應可能很有殺傷力。
In medicine, intersex babies who are born with ambiguous genitalia are routinely operated on without consent, without medical need, irreversibly, in order to make their healthy anatomy appear more "normal." This is before they've even said their first words, indicated a sexuality or a gender identity.
在醫學上, 出生時生殖器難以確定的雙性寶寶 會接受例行手術, 不需要得到同意, 這在醫療上沒有必要性, 而且手術是不可逆的。 目的是要讓他們 本來就很健康的身體構造 看起來更「正常」。 這在寶寶能開口說話之前就發生了, 他就這樣被指定了 一種性向或性別身分。
Many people are never told the truth about their intersex traits, and those who are are instructed, often, not to tell anyone. Secrecy is enforced and shame is a close shadow. In the law, intersex people fall outside of categorization, and more importantly, protection. This concerns the banal tasks -- if you can imagine the number of forms you've filled out that you had to check "M" of "F" on -- to lacking protection under any law, specifically, the Gender Recognition or Equality Act. And intersex people cannot correct the sex classification they've been given at birth unless they declare they are transgender. After decades of activism, these life-altering problems are starting to be addressed.
許多人都不知道事實上 自己有間性人的特徵。 知道的人,通常則被吩咐 不可以告訴任何人。 被迫要保密,羞恥感總是形影不離。 在法律上, 間性人不屬於任何分類, 更重要的是,他們也不受到保護。 從無聊的事講起, 想像看看有多少表格上面 必須要勾選「男」或「女」。 更不要說在法律下沒有任何保障, 特別是性別認同或性別平等法案。 且間性人無法修改他們在出生時 被決定的性別, 唯一的辦法就是宣稱自己是變性人。 經過幾十年積極推行改革之後, 這些會改變人生的問題 漸漸有人開始因應。
So why does this matter to those of you who aren't intersex, who don't have variations of sex characteristics? I imagine many people in this audience have, in the privacy of their own bathrooms, wondered ... "Are my labia too long?" "Are my testicles uneven?" "Is my penis too small?" "Is my vagina too wide or too shallow?" Nothing that hurts or gets in the way, just aesthetically: "Are mine 'normal?'" I imagine that many people in this audience have those small concerns but generally go about their lives not thinking about it. These variations in our bodies, like the color of our eyes or the size of our feet, rarely affect our health, materially.
如果你們不是間性人, 沒有變異的性徵, 這些有什麼重要的? 我猜想,在座有許多人都曾經 私下在自己家裡的浴室中納悶…… 「我的陰脣會太長嗎?」 「我兩邊睪丸不一樣大嗎?」 「我的陰莖會太小嗎?」 「我的陰道會太寬或太淺嗎?」 都不會痛或是造成麻煩, 只為了美觀,你還是會問: 「我的正常嗎?」 我猜想在座有許多人 都有過這種小小憂心, 但通常就繼續過日子,不多想。 我們身體的有些差異, 比如眼睛的顏色或腳的大小, 很少會對我們的健康 造成實質的影響。
To put it another way, to give you an idea of the intersex experience, what if when you were an infant, your parents or your doctors looked at your labia, your penis, your testicles, and thought, "They're healthy, feeling, but they're not 'normal,'" even before you knew what you wanted to do with them, or you know, want to put them.
為了各位更能了解間性人的感受, 我換個方式說。 如果,你在嬰兒時期, 你的父母或你的醫生 看了你的陰脣、你的陰莖、你的睪丸, 心想: 「它們很健康、有感覺, 但它們不『正常』。」 這發生在你自己可以決定 要拿它怎麼辦或怎麼用它之前。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
What if they went so far as to assign you a different sex based off these measurements ... And then they lied to you about what they'd done? What if these surgeries sterilized you? What if they resulted in immense pain and scarring? What if you had to take medicine for the rest of your life to replace the healthy organs they took away, and you had to pay for that medicine yourself? And then every time you went to a doctor's office for a cold, you were questioned about your sex life, your gender identity, what your private parts looked like. And then more doctors and medical students were invited to add to these questions, ask you to drop your trousers or submit to an unnecessary medical exam.
如果他們做到了這種程度: 根據這些對正常的觀念 就把你改成另一種性別…… 接著他們說謊, 不告訴你他們做了什麼? 如果這些手術會讓你無法生育呢? 如果這些手術造成 很大的痛苦或創傷呢? 如果你終身都得持續服藥 以補償他們拿走的健康器官, 且藥錢還要你自己付呢? 且每次你因為感冒去看醫生, 醫生還要問你的性生活、 你的性別身分、 你的私處是什麼樣子的。 接著還有更多醫生 和醫學系學生被邀請來 問更多問題, 請你脫下褲子, 或接受不必要的醫學檢查?
This is a picture of what is happening to the intersex community -- people like me, every day, around the world. Our community is not antimedicine or antisurgery. We are for the right to make decisions about our bodies and our lives. The current approach to intersex people stems from a now-debunked academic study from a man who, over 50 years ago, believed that you could raise a child in any gender by changing their genitals, never telling them and reinforcing that gender over and over again. It also stems from referring to healthy intersex variations as abnormal or disordered. This makes sense. If you refer to something as a disorder, it suggests there's a fix. It also stems [from] the fear and stigma of being intersex, from homophobia, transphobia, sexism and ultimately, our colonial past.
間性人族群就會發生這種狀況, 全世界每天都有像我這樣的人會遇到。 我們這些人並不反對醫學或手術。 我們想要的是有權利 為我們的身體及我們的生活做決定。 目前對間性人採用的方式, 源自於一項現在已經 被揭穿的不實學術研究, 一項五十年前的研究。 研究者相信,你想要孩子 是什麼性別都可以, 只要改變他們的生殖器, 不要告訴他們真相, 並一再強化他們 對那個性別的認同即可。 另一個源頭則是將 健康的間性人雙性性徵 視為異常或生病的觀念。 這也難怪。 如果你稱它是種病, 就意味著有方法可以治療。 還有一個源頭是 對間性人的恐懼和汙名, 來自對同性戀、變性人的恐懼, 來自性別主義; 最終,是來自我們的殖民歷史。
I am not here to say that the categories of men and women don't exist. I'm saying, like most things in this world, it is more complicated than that. The world is complex, and we can choose to see that as beautiful, or we can choose to continue to deny the existence of that complexity, push people into artificial, binary boxes, fix what isn't broken and restrict our own field of vision.
我並不是要說男和女的分類不存在。 我要說是,和世界上 大部分的事物一樣, 性別不能簡單地 用黑白分明的方式來看。 世界很複雜, 我們可以選擇把複雜視為是美好的, 也可以選擇繼續否認那複雜度的存在, 迫使大家採用人工、二元的觀念, 去修理沒有壞的東西, 去限制我們自己的視野。
One of the challenges that intersex people face today is making ourselves visible and making ourselves safe at the same time. By that, I mean we are appealing to the humanity of lawmakers to make us safe whilst putting ourselves into the public eye, sharing our stories, trying to build community with people like us ... Even when it isn't safe to do so. For parents of intersex children listening and watching, for those in the audience who may become the guardians of intersex people, I want you to know I love my life, but it has not be free of issue, especially in relation to being intersex. No life is free of issue. All coins have two sides.
現今,間性人面對的挑戰之一 就是讓自己被看見, 同時還要確保自己的安全。 我這麼說是要呼籲立法者發揮人性, 讓我們能安全, 同時我們能讓自己被大眾看見、 分享我們的故事, 希望他們試著和像我們這樣的人 一起建立我們共存的社會, 即使這麼做並不安全。 正在聽、正在看 這場演說的間性孩童家長, 在座有可能變成間性人守護者的人, 我希望你們知道,我愛我的人生, 但這個人生並非沒有問題, 特別是在身為間性人這方面。 人生不會都沒有問題。 所有的硬幣都有兩面。
On the one side, I have been humiliated in doctors' offices. I have stood in front of prospective partners and felt afraid and so not good enough. I have watched other women pass me in the street and imagine the ways that they were more woman than me, more human than me. I have questioned whether I have a place in this world.
在一面, 我曾經在醫生的診間中被羞辱。 我曾經站在未來的伴侶面前, 感到害怕且覺得自己不夠好。 我曾經在街上看著 從我身邊經過的其他女性, 想像她們有哪些地方比我更像女人, 比我更像人。 我曾經質疑過, 世界上是否有我的容身處。
On the other, I have been deeply loved for everything that I am, in friendship and romantically. I have learned compassion and empathy for a wider range of society. I have taken the time to love my body and not judge the bodies of others. I have developed a strength and a hope that would have been impossible without this particular life.
在另一面, 真實的我,在友情和愛情世界中, 被深愛著。 我學會了對更廣範圍的社會 發揮同理心和同情心。 我花了時間去愛我的身體, 且不去評斷他人的身體。 我發展出因為擁有這種生命 才可能發展出的力量與希望。
The instinct to protect children is instinctive and it's admirable, but the truth is that love, acceptance and refusing to bathe that child in shame will protect them more than trying to fix something that isn't broken. This is why it is in our interest to protect intersex people and make them visible. For as long as societies reinforce one form of acceptable, of "normal," everyone will face insecurity for being different in any way. Simply trying to erase variation, difference, builds shame.
想要保護孩子的直覺是一種本能, 也令人敬佩, 但事實是, 愛、接受, 以及拒絕讓孩子沉浸在羞恥中 會比去修補沒有壞掉的東西 更能夠保護他們。 這就是為什麼保護間性人 且讓他們被看見, 其實對我們有好處。 因為只要社會強迫大家 只接受某種形式的「正常」, 人人都會因為自己在任何方面 和別人不同而有不安全感, 若只是試著消除差異、不同, 那只會造成羞恥感。
Being intersex has not materialized the powers that I wished for as a teenager ... beyond being able to see where this false sex binary harms us all. It is my belief that if intersex people can gain equality, can be seen, can be accepted and can be loved, then we all will.
身為間性人並沒有讓我產生 我在青少年時期所期望的超能力, 但讓我看出這種錯誤的 性別二元論會傷害所有人。 我相信, 如果間性人能得到平等, 能被看見, 能被接受, 且能被愛, 那麼所有人也都能獲得這些東西。
Thank you.
謝謝。
(Applause and cheers)
(掌聲及歡呼聲)