TED演讲:同性恋和异性恋(2)

 　　It's worth mentioning though  我需要澄清一下

　　that I didn't hate my body or my genitalia.  我不讨厌我的身体或性别。

　　I didn't feel like I was in the wrong body.  我没觉得我投错了胎。

　　I felt like I was performing this elaborate act.  我只是觉得这是一场精心的演出。

　　I wouldn't have qualified¹ as transgender.  我不会真的去变性

　　If my family, though, had been the kind of people to believe in therapy,  我的家人他们或许会认为我的性别趋向畸形，

　　they probably would have diagnosed me  或许给我注射激素

　　as something like gender² dysmorphic  以避免“青春期的困扰”。

　　and put me on hormones³ to stave off puberty.  但是我并没有被归为变性者。

　　But in my particular case,  在我这个特殊的案例中，

　　I just woke up one day when I was 14,  我在14岁的时候突然的觉醒了，

　　and I decided⁴ that I wanted to be a girl again.  决定重新做回姑娘。

　　Puberty had hit, and I had no idea what being a girl meant,  青春期的困扰来了，我不知道这个决定意味着什么，

　　and I was ready to figure out who I actually was.  但是我想找到真正的自我。

　　When a kid behaves like I did,  像我这样（女扮男装）的孩子，

　　they don't exactly have to come out, right?  其实用不着宣布出柜的，对吧

　　No one is exactly shocked.  没有人觉得意外。

　　But I wasn't asked to define myself by my parents.  但是我的父母并没有要求我给自己归类。

　　When I was 15, and I called my father  在我15岁的时候，我给爸爸打电话

　　to tell him that I had fallen in love,  告诉他我恋爱了

　　it was the last thing on either of our minds  这是我们最后一次

　　to discuss what the consequences were  讨论喜欢上一个女孩子

　　of the fact that my first love was a girl.  可能带来的后果。

　　Three years later, when I fell in love with a man,  三年后当我爱上一个男人时，

　　neither of my parents batted an eyelash either.  我的父母眼皮都没眨一下。

　　See, it's one of the great blessings⁵ of my very unorthodox childhood  瞧，在我离经叛道的童年经历中最大的幸运，

　　that I wasn't ever asked to define myself  就是我从来没有被要求把自己

　　as any one thing at any point.  归为某个确定的类别。

　　I was just allowed to be me, growing and changing in every moment.  我能够自由的做自己，成长，并随时改变自己。

　　So four, almost five years ago,  所以大概四五年前，

　　Proposition 8, the great marriage equality debate,  关于同性恋婚姻合法化第八号提案

　　was raising a lot of dust around this country.  在美国引起了巨大的关注。

　　And at the time, getting married wasn't really something  那个时候我还没有花太多时间

　　I spent a lot of time thinking about.  考虑结婚的问题。

　　But I was struck by the fact that America,  但是让我震惊的是，

　　a country with such a tarnished⁶ civil rights record,  有着那样不堪的人权历史的美国，

　　could be repeating its mistakes so blatantly⁷.  竟然又一次公然的重复自己的错误。

　　And I remember watching the discussion on television  我还记得在电视上看到人们的辩论时，

　　and thinking how interesting it was  觉得多么的好玩：

　　that the separation of church and state  宗教之间和州之间的差异

　　was essentially⁸ drawing geographical⁹ boundaries throughout this country,  使得国家被划出一条地理上的界限，

　　between places where people believed in it  这边的人们持赞成观点，

　　and places where people didn't.  那边的人持反对态度。

　　And then, that this discussion was drawing geographical boundaries around me.  然后我发现这些讨论使得我也需要进行站队。

　　If this was a war with two disparate sides,  如果这是两方相互对立的战争，

　　I, by default, fell on team gay,  我应该归为同性恋这一边，

　　because I certainly wasn't 100 percent straight.  因为我显然不是百分之百“直”的（异性恋）。

　　At the time I was just beginning to emerge  那个时候我刚刚跌跌撞撞的

　　from this eight-year personal identity crisis zigzag  从八年的自我认同危机中走出来，

　　that saw me go from being a boy  从一个男孩，

　　to being this awkward girl that looked like a boy in girl's clothes  从一个穿着女孩子衣服但是像男孩子的女孩子，

　　to the opposite extreme of this super skimpy,  到一个超级性感、过度补偿的、超有女人味的

　　over-compensating, boy-chasing girly-girl  男孩子梦寐以求的女孩子，

　　to finally just a hesitant exploration of what I actually was,  到现在最终发现了真实的自己，一个

　　a tomboyish girl  男孩子气的女孩，

　　who liked both boys and girls depending on the person.  喜欢某些男孩也喜欢某些女孩。

1 qualified   

adj.合格的，有资格的，胜任的，有限制的

参考例句：

• He is qualified as a complete man of letters.他有资格当真正的文学家。
• We must note that we still lack qualified specialists.我们必须看到我们还缺乏有资质的专家。

2 gender   

n.（生理上的）性，（名词、代词等的）性

参考例句：

• French differs from English in having gender for all nouns.法语不同于英语，所有的名词都有性。
• Women are sometimes denied opportunities solely because of their gender.妇女有时仅仅因为性别而无法获得种种机会。

3 hormones   

n. 荷尔蒙，激素 名词hormone的复数形式

参考例句：

• This hormone interacts closely with other hormones in the body. 这种荷尔蒙与体內其他荷尔蒙紧密地相互作用。
• The adrenals produce a large per cent of a man's sex hormones. 肾上腺分泌人体的大部分性激素。

4 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

5 blessings   

n.（上帝的）祝福( blessing的名词复数 )；好事；福分；因祸得福

参考例句：

• Afflictions are sometimes blessings in disguise. 塞翁失马，焉知非福。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• We don't rely on blessings from Heaven. 我们不靠老天保佑。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

6 tarnished   

（通常指金属）（使）失去光泽，（使）变灰暗( tarnish的过去式和过去分词 )； 玷污，败坏

参考例句：

• The mirrors had tarnished with age. 这些镜子因年深日久而照影不清楚。
• His bad behaviour has tarnished the good name of the school. 他行为不轨，败坏了学校的声誉。

7 blatantly   

ad.公开地

参考例句：

• Safety guidelines had been blatantly ignored. 安全规章被公然置之不顾。
• They walked grandly through the lobby, blatantly arm in arm, pretending they were not defeated. 他们大大方方地穿过门厅，故意炫耀地挎着胳膊，假装他们没有被打败。

8 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

9 geographical   

adj.地理的；地区(性)的

参考例句：

• The current survey will have a wider geographical spread.当前的调查将在更广泛的地域范围內进行。
• These birds have a wide geographical distribution.这些鸟的地理分布很广。