TED演讲:出身决定命运?(2)

 　　Another example:  还有一个例子

　　a few years ago I got a call from a man who was 19 years old,  几年前，我接到一个十九岁的男孩打来的电话

　　who was born a boy, raised a boy,  他生下来是个男孩，也被当作男孩来养

　　had a girlfriend, had sex with his girlfriend,  后来有了女朋友，也和女友发生了性关系

　　had a life as a guy  一直过着男孩的生活

　　and had just found out that he had ovaries and a uterus inside.  但是最近，他发现自己体内有卵巢和子宫

　　What he had was an extreme form  他所有的是一种很极端的病症

　　of a condition called congenital adrenal hyperplasia.  叫做类固醇21-羟化酶缺乏症

　　He had XX chromosomes,  他携带XX染色体

　　and in the womb,  并且在子宫内的时候

　　his adrenal glands¹ were in such high gear  他的肾上腺很活跃

　　that it created, essentially², a masculine hormonal³ environment.  从而形成了一个男性荷尔蒙的环境

　　And as a consequence, his genitals were masculinzed,  结果就是，他发育了男性生殖器官

　　his brain was subject  他的大脑接受了

　　to the more typical masculine component⁴ of hormones⁵.  更多的典型的男性荷尔蒙

　　And he was born looking like a boy -- nobody suspected anything.  因此他生下来看起来像个男孩儿--根本没人怀疑

　　And it was only when he had reached the age of 19  只有当他长到19岁的时候

　　that he began to have enough medical problems  当他开始遇到生理问题的时候

　　actually from menstruating internally,  其实是在体内出现月经起

　　that doctors figured out that, in fact, he was female internally.  医生发现，实际上他的内部是女性

　　Okay, so just one more quick example  好，我们再来快速的看一个例子

　　of a way you can have intersex.  另一个可能带来两性特征的情况

　　Some people who have XX chromosomes  有XX染色体的一些人

　　develop what are called ovotestis,  会发育一种叫做卵睾的器官

　　which is when you have ovarian tissue  也就是当卵巢组织

　　with testicular tissue wrapped around it.  被睾丸组织包裹起来的一种器官

　　And we're not exactly sure why that happens.  我们还不能确定它的成因

　　So sex can come in lots of different varieties.  所以说性别可以是很多种形式

　　The reason  拥有这些身体特征的

　　that children with these kinds of bodies --  孩子们——

　　whether it's dwarfism, or it's conjoined twinning,  不论是侏儒症，或者连体婴儿

　　or it's an intersex type --  或者是双性型的——

　　are often normalized by surgeons  常被外科医生手术纠正的原因

　　is not because it actually leaves them better off  实际上并不是为了

　　in terms of physical health.  身体健康

　　In many cases, people are actually perfectly⁶ healthy.  因为很多情况下，他们的身体其实都很健康

　　The reason they're often subject to various kinds of surgeries  他们接受各种外科手术的原因

　　is because they threaten our social categories.  是因为他们受到我们社会上对人分类的威胁

　　Or system has been based typically on the idea  或者说社会上已经有一个典型的认识

　　that a particular kind of anatomy⁷ comes with a particular identity.  什么样的身体结构，有什么样的特征

　　So we have the concept that what it means to be a woman  因此，我们的概念就是作为一个女人

　　is to have a female identity;  就必须有女性的特性

　　what it means to be a black person is, allegedly,  以此类推，一个黑人

　　is to have an African anatomy  就得具有非洲人的身体结构特征

　　in terms of your history.  在你的履历中

　　And so we have this terribly simplistic idea.  因此我们就有了这种过于简单的认识

　　And when we're faced with a body  当我们面对一个

　　that actually presents us something quite different,  某些方面是与众不同的身体的时候

　　it startles us in terms of those categorizations.  那些不能归类的想法让我们感到吃惊

　　So we have a lot of very romantic ideas in our culture  因此我们的文化中有很多天真的想法

　　about individualism.  是关于个人主义的

　　And our nation's really founded on a very romantic concept of individualism.  并且我们国家建立在一个非常不实际的个人主义的概念上的

　　Well you can imagine how startling then it is  好，你可以想象那多么令人震惊

　　when you have children that are born  当你的两个孩子

　　who are two people inside of one body.  出生的时候是在一个身体中的

　　Where I ran into the most heat from this most recently  我最近一次遇到这种情况是

　　was last year the South African runner, Caster Semenya,  去年的时候，非洲田径运动员，卡斯特尔·塞门亚

　　had her sex called into question at the International Games in Berlin.  在柏林国际比赛中被质疑性别问题

　　I had a lot of journalists calling me, asking me,  许多记者给我打电话，问我

　　"Which is the test they're going to run  “他们会用哪种检测方法

　　that will tell us whether or not  来向大家证明

　　Caster Semenya is male or female?"  卡斯特尔·塞门亚是男还是女？”

　　And I had to explain to the journalists there isn't such a test.  于是我不得不跟他们解释说，根本没有检测的方法

　　In fact, we now know  事实上，我们现在已经了解

　　that sex is complicated enough  性别是非常复杂的

　　that we have to admit  我们不得不承认

　　nature doesn't draw the line for us between male and female,  大自然根本就没有一个明确的分界线来区分男性或女性

　　or between male and intersex and female and intersex;  或者男性和双性以及女性和双性

　　we actually draw that line on nature.  这条分界线实际上是我们自己画的

　　So what we have is a sort of situation  因此我们现在的情况是

　　where the farther our science goes,  科学越发展

　　the more we have to admit to ourselves  我们越得承认

　　that these categories  这些性别的分类形式

　　that we thought of as stable anatomical categories  也就是我们认为很理所当然的身体结构学上的分类

　　that mapped very simply  是过于简单地

　　to stable identity categories  给特性分了类

　　are a lot more fuzzy than we thought.  实际情况要比我们想象的模糊的多

　　And it's not just in terms of sex.  并且这不仅仅是关于性别的问题

　　It's also in terms of race,  也同样是关于种族的问题

　　which turns out to be vastly more complicated  这个复杂程度

　　than our terminology⁸ has allowed.  远不是我们的学术语言所能形容的

1 glands   

n.腺( gland的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• a snake's poison glands 蛇的毒腺
• the sebaceous glands in the skin 皮脂腺

2 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。

3 hormonal   

adj.激素的

参考例句：

• Some viral diseases are more severe during pregnancy, probably tecause of hormonal changes. 有些病毒病在妊娠期间比较严重，可能是由于激素变化引起的。
• She underwent surgical intervention and a subsequent short period of hormonal therapy. 他接受外科手术及随后短暂荷尔蒙治疗。

4 component   

n.组成部分，成分，元件；adj.组成的，合成的

参考例句：

• Each component is carefully checked before assembly.每个零件在装配前都经过仔细检查。
• Blade and handle are the component parts of a knife.刀身和刀柄是一把刀的组成部分。

5 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。

6 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

7 anatomy   

n.解剖学，解剖；功能，结构，组织

参考例句：

• He found out a great deal about the anatomy of animals.在动物解剖学方面，他有过许多发现。
• The hurricane's anatomy was powerful and complex.对飓风的剖析是一项庞大而复杂的工作。

8 terminology   

n.术语；专有名词

参考例句：

• He particularly criticized the terminology in the document.他特别批评了文件中使用的术语。
• The article uses rather specialized musical terminology.这篇文章用了相当专业的音乐术语。