逆变性者跟女同或男同性恋的区别？｜经济学人精读解析

常见心理医学词汇

ram home 是什么意思

“诽谤”的几种英文表达

*文章来源：The Economist

*本文中原文及部分例句翻译均采用机翻+人工微调，仅供参考，不当之处欢迎大家在评论区讨论。

Portrait of a detransitioner

逆变性者肖像

Carol was born a woman, thought she was a man, then realised she wasn’t. Her story has lessons for the way doctors treat transgender people.

卡罗尔生下来是女性，但认为自己是男性，后来又意识到自己不是。她的故事对医生治疗变性人的方式有借鉴意义。

?精读解析：

开篇第一句用连动用法交代了本文的主题，吸引读者。第二句 the way 直接引导定语从句，意思等同于 how。

【释义】

这是本文的核心词，但也是一个新创词（coinage），我们根据其构词分析一下词义。

结合本文主题，transition在这里指 a process by which a transgender person comes to live in accordance with their gender identity through changes to their appearance and presentation often with the aid of medical procedures and therapies 变性。

前缀 de- 表示 the opposite of …的反义，“Detrans Voices”网站将detransition 解释为 the process of stopping or reversing medical transition and returning to living as one’s biological sex 反变性，逆变性

后缀 –er 表示“人”，本文将 detransitioner 译为“逆变性者”。

Carol had long suspected her everyday life in rural California would be easier if she were a man. Yet she was stunned by how true this turned out to be. As a “butch” woman (and “not a big smiler”) she was routinely treated with slight contempt, she says. After a double mastectomy and a few months on testosterone—which gave her facial hair and a gravelly voice—“people, cashiers, everyone, suddenly became so goddam friendly”.

长期以来，卡罗尔一直怀疑，如果自己是男性，在加州农村的生活便会容易一些。然而事实证明确实如此，她很震惊。她说，作为一个“男性化”的女人（而且是不爱笑的女人），她经常受到些许轻视。而在接受了双乳切除手术和几个月的睾丸激素注射（这让她长了胡子，声音变低沉）之后，“人们，收银员，所有人，突然变得非常友好”。

?精读解析：

【释义】

形容女性时，表示 behaving or dressing like a man 举止或衣着男子般的，男性化的

形容男性时，表示 big, and often behaving in an aggressive way 高大的，常趾高气昂的

【释义】

a medical operation to remove a person’s breast 乳房切除术

【释义】

a hormone produced in men’s testicles that causes them to develop the physical and sexual features that are characteristic of the male body 睾酮，睾丸素，会使人表现出男性的身体和性别特征。

【释义】

形容词，指 deep and with a rough sound 声音低沉沙哑的

【例句】

There’s a triumphant note in his gravelly voice. 他沙哑的嗓音中有一种胜利的口气。

Yet Carol soon felt wretched as a transman. At first, the testosterone she started injecting at 34 lifted her mood and energy levels. But after two years she began to suffer awful side effects. Vaginal and uterine atrophy which can cause tissue to crack and bleed was “extremely painful”. Her cholesterol levels rose and she had palpitations. She also became so anxious she started having panic attacks.

然而，卡罗尔很快开始感到不适。她起初是在34岁时开始注射睾酮，这时的她情绪很好，活力满满。但两年后，副作用出现了。阴道和子宫萎缩导致组织破裂出血，带来了极大的痛苦。此外，她胆固醇水平上升，还会出现心悸。她也变得非常焦虑，开始出现恐慌症。

?精读解析：

【释义】

 feeling ill/sick or unhappy感到不适的；难受的；不愉快的，或者 extremely bad or unpleasant 极坏的；恶劣的

【例句】

I felt wretched about the way things had turned out. 事情落了这么个结局，我感到很难受。

The animals are kept in the most wretched conditions. 这些动物的饲养条件极其恶劣。

值得注意的是，wretched 去掉 –ed 后缀后，词性并不是动词，而是名词，wretch 表示“不幸的人，可怜的人”，在口语中也指“坏蛋”。

【释义】

既可以作名词，也可以作动词，都表示“身体部位的萎缩衰退”，也可以用作比喻义。

【例句】

The cultural life of the country will sink into atrophy unless more writers and artists emerge. 如果没有更多的作家和艺术家出现，这个国家的文化生活将衰退。

Are we going to let our freedoms just dissipate and have American power atrophy? 我们要让我们的自由消散，让美国的力量萎缩吗?

【释义】

a substance found in blood, fat and most tissues of the body. Too much cholesterol can cause heart disease. 胆固醇，过多会导致心脏病

【释义】

一般以复数形式出现，表示 a physical condition in which your heart beats very quickly and in an irregular way 心悸

【例句】

The piercing sounds of that old drill sent my heart into palpitations. 那台旧钻头刺耳的声音使我的心怦怦直跳。

【释义】

a sudden overwhelming feeling of acute and disabling anxiety 突如其来的一阵恐慌，恐慌症

【例句】

As soon as he was shut in, he became claustrophobic and had a panic attack. 一旦他被关在里面，他的幽闭恐惧症就犯了，同时惊恐发作。

So she went on antidepressants, and they worked. She realised her gender dysphoria, the painful feeling she was in the wrong body, did not, in fact, make her a man. Nearly three years ago, after four years as a trans man, Carol became a “detransitioner”: someone who has taken cross­sex hormones or had surgery, or both, before realising this was a mistake. Her experience illustrates the dangers of a “gender­affirmative” model of care that accepts patients’ self­diagnosis that they are trans, now standard practice in America’s transgender medicine field.

所以她开始服用抗抑郁药，药效很好。她意识到自己的性别焦虑，那种处于错误身体中的痛苦感觉，事实上并没有使她成为一个男人。大约三年前，在做了四年变性人之后，卡罗尔成了一名“逆变性者”：即在服用了变性激素或做了变性手术，或两者都完成了之后，才意识到这是错误决定的人。她的经历说明了接受患者自我诊断为跨性别者的“性别肯定”护理模式的危险性，这种模式现在是美国跨性别医学领域的标准做法。

?精读解析：

先分析本段第二句结构，句子重点是 she realized 后的宾语从句，从句的主干为 her gender dysphoria did not make her a man. the painful … body 整体为解释说明 dysphoria 的同位语，其中 she was in the wrong body 应该是 feeling 的同位语从句，我们在写作时建议不要像《经济学人》这样任性地把引导词 that 省略掉，这里指 Carol 心理取向和生理性别特征不相符，in fact 为插入语，拿掉后不影响句意理解。

本段最后一句的句子主干为 Her experience illustrates the dangers，之后全部是修饰语。首先 danger 指“‘性别肯定’护理模式的危险性”，第一个 that 引导的定语从句修饰 model of care，指这一护理模式接受患者的自我诊断，第二个 that 引导修饰 self-diagnosis 的同位语从句，解释患者将自己诊断为跨性别者，now …field 也是解释说明 model of care 的同位语。

【释义】

 a drug used to treat depression 抗抑郁药

depressant 指 a drug which slows the rate of the body’s functions 抑制剂，或者 able to diminish or reduce nervous or functional activity 有镇定作用的

更常用的“镇定剂”是 tranquilizer

【释义】

a state of worry or general unhappiness 烦躁不安

前缀 dys- 表示 diseased, abnormal, or faulty 恶化的、不良的、有问题的

例如：

dysfunction 机能失调，功能障碍

dysentery 痢疾

dyslexia 失读症，诵读困难

A recent survey of 100 detransitioners by Lisa Littman, a doctor and researcher, found a majority felt that they had not received an adequate evaluation before treatment. Nearly a quarter said homophobia or difficulty accepting that they were gay had led them to transition; 38% reckoned their gender dysphoria was caused by trauma, abuse or a mental­health condition.

丽莎·利特曼是一名医生，也是一名研究员，她最近对100名逆变性者进行了调查，发现大多数调查对象认为自己在接受变性治疗前没有得到充分的评估。近四分之一的调查对象表示，对同性恋的恐惧或难以接受自己是同性恋导致他们选择变性；38%的调查对象认为他们的性别焦虑是由创伤、虐待或心理健康状态引起的。

?精读解析：

【释义】

a strong dislike and fear of homosexual people 对同性恋者的厌恶和恐惧

phobia 是大家较熟悉的一个名词后缀，表示 a strong unreasonable fear or hatred of a particular thing恐惧症，也可以单独使用。

【例句】

The fight or flight mindset of our ancestors is mimicked in the symptoms of a person suffering from a social phobia. 我们祖先的“战或逃”心态与社交恐惧症患者的症状相仿。

较流行的恐惧症还有：

xenophobia 仇外，惧外

claustrophobia 幽闭恐惧症

trypophobia 密集恐惧症

allodoxaphobia 选择恐惧症

acrophobia 恐高症

thalassophobia 深海恐惧症

大家如果对究竟有多少种phobia感兴趣，可以查阅 http://phobialist.com/ 网站。

【释义】

a very severe shock or very upsetting experience, which may cause psychological damage 精神上的创伤；痛苦经历

【例句】

Hassoun blamed his actions in part on childhood trauma living in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. 哈桑将他的行为部分归咎于生活在科特迪瓦阿比让的童年创伤。

 医学上也可以指“身体损伤”

【例句】

The patient suffered severe brain trauma. 患者的大脑受到严重损伤。

Carol believes the roots of her gender dysphoria lay in her childhood. An upbringing that was both fanatically religious and abusive rammed home two harmful messages. One was the importance of “rigid gender roles…women were there to serve; they were less than men”. Her mother’s endless fury that Carol would not bow to this notion of womanhood, which included wearing only dresses meant she grew up believing her way of being female was somehow “all wrong”. The other message was that homo­sexuality was “an abomination”.

卡罗尔认为她的性别焦虑根源于她的童年。他的成长过程中既有狂热的宗教信仰，又有辱骂，这给他灌输了两个有害的信息。一个是“僵化的性别角色……女性是服务者；她们不如男性。”卡罗尔的母亲对她不愿屈从于这种女性观念（包括女性只能穿裙子）的无尽愤怒意味着她在成长过程中一直认为自己作为女性的方式在某种程度上是“完全错误的”。另一个信息是，同性恋是“令人憎恶的”。

?精读解析：

第二句的主干结构为 An upbringing rammed home two messages. 倒数第二句的句子主干为 Her mother’s fury meant…。“that Carol … dresses”部分为解释 fury 的同位语从句，其中嵌套 which 引导的宾语从句修饰 notion of womanhood，meant 后面也是并与从句再嵌套一个 believing 后面的宾语从句。也就是说，Carol 成长中被灌输的第一个有害信息是，她不做一名传统观念中的女性让母亲很生气，导致她认为自己可能心理上本不是一个女性。

【释义】

这里的 lay in 等同于 lie in，表示“在于”，常见的用法为 lay in the fact that 原因在于

【例句】

Bulger’s success lay in the fact that he was smart, ruthless and never showed emotion. 巴尔杰的成功在于他聪明、无情、从不流露感情。

lay in 还表示 to accumulate and store 囤积

例句：

They began to lay in extensive stores of food supplies. 他们开始储备大量的食物。

【释义】

the way in which a child is cared for and taught how to behave while it is growing up 抚育；养育；教养；培养

【例句】

He calls a religious upbringing a form of indoctrination and equates it to child abuse. 他把宗教教育称为一种教化形式，并把它等同于虐待儿童。

【释义】狂热地

If you describe someone as fanatical, you disapprove of them because you consider their behaviour or opinions to be very extreme. 狂热的

【例句】

He became fanatically rigid, cut off from any ideas but his own, and from communication with the world. 他变得极度死板，除了自己的想法之外，切断了与外界的交流。

【释义】

to make (something) very clear and obvious in a forceful way 充分显示

【例句】

She hoped that the pictures and examples would ram her point home. 她希望这些图片和例子能把她的观点讲清楚。

【释义】

to agree to do what someone wants you to do, although you do not want to 服从，屈服于

【例句】

Kim thinks LG will benefit from being the first chaebol to bow to government pressure. 金认为，LG将受益于做第一个屈服于政府压力的财阀。

【释义】

a thing that causes disgust and hatred, or is considered extremely offensive 令人憎恨的事物；可恶的东西

【例句】

The institution of slavery was, is, and will always be an abomination of the most sacred property right of all. 奴隶制度过去是，现在是，将来也永远是最神圣的财产权所厌恶的东西。

It was in her early 20s, when many lesbians in her social circle started identifying as trans men that she began to think, “This must be it!” By her mid­30s, she saw a therapist, because she wanted to “do it right”. The therapist did not explore her childhood trauma, but encouraged her to try testosterone. Months later Carol had her breasts removed.

在她20岁出头的时候，她社交圈里的许多女同性恋开始认为自己是跨性男，她也开始想，“（我）肯定就是这样!”35岁左右，她去看了治疗师，因为她想“正确地变性”。但治疗师没有探索她的童年创伤，就直接鼓励她尝试睾酮。几个月后，卡罗尔做了乳房切除手术。

?精读解析：

本段第一句为强调句，强调 Carol 开始发觉自己可能是跨性男的时间，逗号后跟 when 引导定语从句修饰 early 20s。

Detransitioning was the hardest thing she has done, she says. She was so terrified and ashamed that it took a year to come off testosterone. To her relief her cholesterol levels returned to normal in months. She still has some facial hair and a deep voice. Her mastectomy “is like any loss: it dissipates but it never completely goes away”.

她说，逆变性是她做过的最困难的事情。她非常害怕和羞愧，用了一年的时间才脱离了睾丸素。不过令她宽慰的是，几个月后她的胆固醇水平恢复了正常。她脸上还有胡子，声音还很低沉。她的乳房“就像任何失去的东西一样：虽消散了，但永远不会完全消失”。

?精读解析：

【释义】

此处表示 to become detached or be detachable from something 脱离

【例句】

A button had come off my coat. 我的外套掉了一颗纽扣。

come off 还可以表示 successful or effective 成功，奏效

【例句】

They had wanted it to be a surprise but the plan didn’t come off. 他们本想一鸣惊人，然而计划却流产了。

其他搭配：

come off worst/best 结果最差/最好

【释义】

使人安心的是…

【例句】

To France’s relief, there has been no further mention of this distinctly touchy issue. 令法国松了一口气的是，没有进一步提及这个明显敏感的问题。

【释义】

to gradually become or make something become weaker until it disappears （使）消散，消失；驱散

【例句】

Her laughter soon dissipated the tension in the air. 她的笑声很快消除了紧张气氛。

此外，还可以表示 to waste something, such as time or money, especially by not planning the best way of using it 挥霍，浪费，消磨时间、金钱等，同义词为 squander

【例句】

He needs someone who can keep him from dissipating his time and energy on too many different things. 他需要有人来阻止他浪费时间和精力做太多不同的事情。

Sometimes they squander their money, and prolonged absences from home can make their families break down. 有时他们会挥霍钱财，长期不在家会导致家庭破裂。

She now spends a lot of time campaigning for other detransitioners’ stories to be heard. This is not easy work. Outspoken detransitioners are often maligned. Dr Littman’s study found that only 24% of detransitioners told their doctors transitioning had not worked out. This may help explain why some dismiss the phenomenon.

她现在花了很多时间为其他逆变性者的故事发声。这不是一件容易的事。直言不讳的逆变性者经常遭到诋毁。利特曼医生的研究发现，只有24%的变性人告诉过他们的医生变性没有效果。这或许有助于解释为什么有些人会忽视这一现象。

?精读解析：

【释义】

to say bad things about somebody/something publicly 公开诽谤，毁谤，中伤

【例句】

She feels she has been much maligned by the press. 她觉得她遭到了新闻界的恣意诽谤。

另外，表示“诽谤”的词还有 slander 和 libel /ˈlaɪbl/，区别在于 slander 强调“口头诽谤”，libel 指“发表文字诽谤”，而 malign 对此没有限制。

【例句】

He angrily accused the investigators of slandering both him and his family. 他气愤地指责调查者诋毁他和他的家人。

He claimed he had been libelled in an article the magazine had published. 他声称他遭到了那家杂志发表的一篇文章的诽谤。