One Friday night last fall, 50 well-dressed guests piled into an apartment in Hell’s Kitchen for a party celebrating Sheela-Marie Padgett, a 57-year-old former dancer with the New York City Ballet.
去年秋天的一个周五晚上，位于纽约地狱厨房区的一处公寓楼内，50位衣着光鲜的客人接踵而至。他们前来参加为前纽约市芭蕾舞团舞蹈演员、57岁的茜拉·玛丽·帕吉特(Sheela-Marie Padgett)举行的派对。
Waiters passed drinks before a buffet dinner of fancy Indian food was presented. Then came a chocolate cake from the Erotic Bakery made in the shape of corseted showgirl with a male appendage. It was sliced up and served to the crowd.
侍者们供应着酒水。之后，客人们享用了印式精致美食自助餐。甜点是来自“情欲面包房”的一块巧克力蛋糕。蛋糕的形状是一个穿了紧身胸衣却有着男性性器官的歌舞女郎。蛋糕被切成小块以偿宾客。

Which was fitting enough, because the following morning, Sheela — formerly known as Bruce — was scheduled to fly to Scottsdale, Ariz., for the last major procedure in her transition from male to female: gender reassignment surgery.
这真是再应景不过了。第二天早上，茜拉——她之前的名字是布鲁斯——就要飞到亚利桑那州的斯克茨戴尔完成她从男性变为女性的最后一步：变性手术。
One by one, friends made their way over to the Nakashima-style wood dining table to offer congratulations. Almost unanimously, they noted that Bruce had been cynical, withdrawn and biting, while Sheela is soft and effervescent.
朋友们一个接着一个走到中岛风格(Nakashima-style)的餐桌前，向茜拉表示祝贺。他们几乎不约而同地注意到：之前的布鲁斯愤世嫉俗、孤僻、爱嘲讽，而茜拉却温婉活泼。
“It’s like you’re a different person,” said Edwin Pabon, a freelance photographer. “Before the lights were off, and now they’re on.”
“她完全变了一个人,”自由职业摄影师埃德温·帕波恩说：“就好像之前灯是关着的，现在它们打开了。”
“It’s true,” said Ms. Padgett, who stands 5 foot 7 inches tall (when not in heels), wore a black lace top, and, with her hair done in a Raphaelite style, looked rather like the portrait that would emerge if John Singer Sargent were alive today to paint Madonna. “My friends were all frightened of me. I was a nasty person. I was so unhappy. It tainted all my relationships.”
“这是真的，”帕吉特女士说:“以前，我的朋友们都怕我。我不是一个好相处的人。我非常不快乐。这影响了我所有的人际关系。”帕吉特身高一米七，穿着一件黑色的蕾丝上衣，头发的样式模仿了拉斐尔派画像里的女性。如果肖像画家约翰·辛格·萨金特(John Singer Sargent)还在世的话，他画的麦当娜可能会和她别无二致。
Lori Ogle, another friend, said: “It’s really brave to do what she’s doing and it’s even braver because it’s so late in life. We were born the same year. I don’t know what I want to change, but this is inspiring. It’s like, ‘Go ahead, it’s not too late.’ ”
另一位朋友，萝莉·奥格(Lori Ogle)说：“她做这件事真的很有勇气。考虑到她的年龄，她尤其显得勇敢。我们是同一年出生的。帕吉特给了我激励，尽管我不知道我想改变什么。这就好像有人告诉我：‘放手去做吧，还为时不晚。’”
Awareness of transgender issues has surged over the last year. Laverne Cox, a star of the television show “Orange Is the New Black,” appeared in June on the cover of Time. Janet Mock chronicled her transition from male to female in the memoir “Redefining Realness,” which landed last spring on the New York Times best-seller list. Transgender models like Andreja Pejic have walked the runways in New York and Milan. And major retailers like Barneys are using transgender men and women in their ad campaigns.
对于跨性别话题的关注从去年开始高涨。电视剧《铁女子监狱》(Orange Is the New Black)中的主演之一，变性女星拉文·考克斯(Laverne Cox)在去年六月上了《时代》周刊的封面。简妮特·默克(Janet Mock)的回忆录《重新定义真实》(Redefining Realness)记述了她从男性到女性的转变，并于去年春季跻入《纽约时报》畅销书排行榜。像安德烈·佩伊其(Andreja Pejic)这样的跨性模特在纽约和米兰的秀场崭露头角。而诸如巴尼斯(Barneys)这样的零售商巨头也在广告宣传中启用了跨性人士。
But it took Amazon’s popular and acclaimed TV series “Transparent,” about a septuagenarian father of three who is coming out as trans (which coincided with frenzied coverage of Bruce Jenner’s drastically changed physical appearance) to shed light on a largely undiscussed segment of the transgender population: those who undergo a gender change later in life, sometimes even in their 60s and 70s, after decades of feeling not fully whole.
而很少人会去关注那些在人生后半段——有些甚至是到了六七十岁，在经历了好几十年的缺憾后才开始转变性别的跨性人群。亚马逊出品的《透明家庭》(Transparent)改变了这一情况。这部人气高涨，备受好评的电视剧讲述了一位耄耋之年，养育了三个子女的跨性父亲的出柜故事（电视播出的同时，媒体正大肆报道1949年出生的前运动员布鲁斯·詹纳[Bruce Jenner]变性后大为改变的外貌）。
Coming out as transgender is not easy for anyone. But the issues are particularly thorny for those trying to reconfigure a central tenet of identity decades after building an adult life with family and career.
出柜对于跨性人士来说并非易事。对于那些构建了好几十年人生，有了家庭和事业的人们来说，要想改变身份的核心成分更是难上加难。
Social changes have a tendency to take root among the young, and to then trickle up years (sometimes decades) later. To be in transition around the time you qualify for AARP membership is to be on some level a paradox; a person newly born at a seasoned age.
社会身份的变化会在年轻人心目中扎根，然后在数年甚至数十年后体现出来。到了该退休的年龄再想改变性别，这无异于一个悖论：本是熟龄人士，却刚获得新生。
Additionally, these late transitioners grew up in an era of rigid gender stereotypes, which they have been both oppressed by and in some cases internalized. A great number of them are married and have children who struggle to accept that the person who raised them is now becoming someone new.
此外，这些高龄变性者成长于一个性别观念僵化的年代。他们被这些观念压迫，而这些观念也成了他们当中某些人自我意识的一部分。他们中的大多数人都已成家，有了子女。对后代来说，要接受养育他们的家长现在就要变为另外一个人，这会是一个艰难的过程。
There are pragmatic as well as physical challenges, too, particularly for the older population of trans women (which refers to those born with men’s anatomy and who have since transitioned). Men’s jaws and shoulders widen over time, making a more “womanly” shape hard to achieve. Hair grows on their bodies while disappearing from their scalps, necessitating hair transplants or wigs.
另外还有一些现实的和身体上的挑战，尤其是对于女性跨性别者（女性跨性别者指的是生下来是男性，后来转变为女性的人士）来说。男性的下颚和肩膀会随着年岁增长变宽。这使得他们更难获得较为女性化的身材。他们的体毛变得旺盛，但是头发却逐渐脱落。这样他们不得不进行头发移植，或是戴假发。
All of which has profound emotional consequences for a group of people coming to terms not only with their genders but with the indignities of aging and impending mortality. Many will not be beautiful, like the young transitioners they watch on TV. Many will not “pass.”
所有这些困难对高龄变性人的情绪影响极其深刻：他们既为自己的性别身份而苦苦挣扎，同时还要面对因为衰老而丧失尊严和即将到来的死亡所带来的困扰。许多人都不会像他们在电视上看到的那些年轻变性人那样美貌。还有许多人的变性结果并不会获得社会“认可”。
“After I went on hormones, there was a letdown,” said Barbara, 63, who lives on the Upper East Side and agreed to talk to a reporter on the condition that her last name not be used. “I thought, ‘Where do I go now?’ I’m not going to look like a movie actress in her 20s or 30s. I’m not going to look like Laverne Cox.”
“在摄入荷尔蒙后，我有点失望，”63岁的芭芭拉说。芭芭拉住在纽约的上东区，她接受记者采访的条件是不透露姓氏。“我想：‘我现在该怎么办？’我不可能变成像二三十岁的电影演员那样美丽。我不可能变得像拉文·考克斯那样。”
Today, she goes to a support group at Sage, the largest organization for older LGBT people. “No one there is dating,” she said.
如今，芭芭拉参加了一个名为Sage的互助小组，这是全国最大的老年LGBT人士互助小组。“我们小组里没有一个人在约会，”芭芭拉说。
Still, the pull to live as a person wants, even for a short time, even under reduced circumstances, remains powerful. Some people interviewed said they waited to retire before transitioning so as not to disrupt or destroy their careers. Others chose to push forward after the deaths of their parents or after their children had left the nest.
尽管如此，能过上自己所渴望的生活——哪怕只是很短的时间，并有各种不尽如人意——这种吸引力还是巨大的。接受采访的一些人说，为了不至于干扰自己的事业，或是使事业毁于一旦，他们等到退休后才开始变性。另一些等到他们父母去世或是子女们成人离家后才开始有所动作。
But invariably, they said that they had given enough, pretended enough, and wanted to claim the years remaining as their own. The entirety of their bucket list was to finally become themselves.
但是所有的人都说他们已经付出够多，伪装够长。他们想在有生余年过上自己想要的生活。他们现在的人生目标清单只有一项，那就是做回自己。
As Ms. Padgett tells it, she lived the first part of her life assuming that the pull to be female would go away. Her father was a Baptist minister in Mississippi. Her mother taught first grade. When she came to New York and became a dancer, she thought that she had found her calling, a world that was more open and tolerant.
就像帕吉特女士所讲述的那样。在她人生的上半段，她一直都以为自己想要变成女性的渴求会随时间消逝。她的父亲是密西西比州的一位浸礼会牧师。母亲是小学一年级教师。当她来到纽约成为一名舞者后，她以为自己找到了人生归宿——一个更加开放和宽容的世界。
She hung out with Andy Warhol at Indochine and spent late nights at Studio 54 and the Peppermint Lounge.
她和安迪·沃霍尔(Andy Warhol)一起在印度支那（Indochine,纽约著名餐厅——译注）用餐，在54号工作室（Studio 54,纽约一俱乐部——译注）和薄荷舞厅(Peppermint Lounge)寻欢到深夜。
And yet during all the years she was a member of one of the world’s most famous ballet companies, she stood off to the side, wanting not to be the prince in “Swan Lake,” but Odette, the female swan.
但是置身世界上最有名的芭蕾舞团之一的这些年里，她却一直是一个边缘人物。她不想当《天鹅湖》中的王子，却一直想出演白天鹅奥杰塔。
It didn’t happen. Instead, after she turned 50, she found herself increasingly lonely and isolated. Then, in 2007 and 2008, her parents died in quick succession. She began to think of what she characterizes (in stronger language) as the “what the hell” years.
她没有如愿。反而，在过了50岁之后，她觉得自己越发孤寂。她的父母于2007年和2008年先后过世。“怎么会这样？”（帕吉特女士的原话语气更为强烈）是她这段时间里的口头禅。生活的不如意促使她思考。
There was a small inheritance. A friend who had had gender reassignment surgery more than 20 years before went in for facial feminization surgery. “It was a big success,” Ms. Padgett said. “It completely changed her appearance.” Soon, she began telling people that she was transitioning.
她继承了一小笔遗产。一位朋友在20年前做了变性手术，这会儿刚做完了使脸部女性化的手术。“手术很成功，”帕吉特女士说：“她完全变了样。”不久，帕吉特开始告诉周围的人她在变性。
Though the reaction to Ms. Padgett’s transition has been largely positive, the process nevertheless has been arduous, and filled with roadblocks that may not have existed had she made the leap earlier.
大多数人对帕吉特女士变性消息的反应是正面的。尽管如此，变性的过程相当艰难，充满了许多障碍，而如果帕吉特女士早一点决定变性的话，这些障碍可能并不会存在。
“Your grandmother looks more like your grandfather than she did while they were younger,” said Dr. Jeffrey Spiegel, a plastic surgeon in Boston who works largely on trans women and who treated Ms. Padgett. “The eyebrows drop, the nose changes, cheeks get more flat, the upper lips get longer, the jaw gets wider, skin quality deteriorates.”
“你的祖母年岁越大长得就越像你的祖父，”杰弗瑞·史比格尔(Jeffrey Spiegel)——一位波士顿的整容医师说。史比格尔医生的客户大多是跨性女性。他也是帕吉特女士的医生。“女性随着年龄的增长眉毛会下垂，鼻子也会有所改变，面颊变平，上唇变长，下颚变宽，肤质也变差了。”
“Dr. Spiegel redid my forehead,” Ms. Padgett said. “I had a very masculine brow bone, so he softened that. He raised my eyebrows so that there’s more space between my eye and my eyebrows. He cut the skin inside my lids to take away the old skin. He did a rhinoplasty to make my nose smaller and more delicate. He raised my upper lip so that there’s less space between my nose and my upper lip. He put in cheek implants and chin implants, and he did a tracheal shave and a lower neck and face-lift.”
“史比格尔医生给我的额头做了些改变，”帕吉特女士说：“我之前的眉骨非常男性化，所以他把它变得柔和了一些。他还把我的眉毛提高，这样我的眼睛和眉毛之间距离就大了一些。他割去了我眼皮下的一些老皮。还给我的鼻子做了手术，让它变得小巧玲珑一些。他提升了我的上唇，缩小了我的鼻子和上唇的距离。他还给我的面颊和下巴放入了填充物。他除掉了我的喉结，并给我做了下颈部和脸部的拉皮。”
The total cost for Dr. Spiegel’s work was $53,000. In addition, Ms. Padgett has had several years of painful electrolysis treatments to stop hair from growing on her face and body. Almost nothing related to Ms. Padgett’s gender transition was covered by her health insurance company, including her gender reassignment surgery and breast implants. With those three things added on, she estimates that the cost of transitioning physically was about $100,000. “I am broke,” she said.
史比格尔医生做的这些一共花去了53,000美元。除此之外，帕吉特女士还进行了好几年痛苦的电解治疗，使她脸上和身上的毛发停止生长。所有这些和变性有关的治疗，包括变性手术和乳房填充术，帕吉特女士的医疗保险公司几乎都不受理。帕吉特女士估计在变性上的花销一共有差不多10万美元。“我已经成穷光蛋了，”她说。
Many trans people older than Ms. Padgett describe growing up in a time when there was really no vocabulary to even describe what they were.
许多比帕吉特女士年长的跨性人士都说，在他们成长的那个年代，甚至没有一个词汇来描述他们这群人。
“The only word was ‘transvestism,’ nothing was known of this at all,” said Bobbi Swan, 84, of Clinton, Mich., just north of Detroit. She transitioned at age 72.
“唯一的一个词就是‘异装癖’了，人们对此真的是一无所知，”84岁的葆比·斯万(Bobbi Swan)说。斯万来自位于密歇根州紧邻底特律南边的科林顿。她在72岁的时候开始了变性历程。
After high school, deeply in the closet, Ms. Swan went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, got her degree in aeronautical engineering, and then served in the Air Force during the Korean War.
高中毕业后，严守自己跨性身份秘密的斯万就读于麻省理工学院，并在那儿拿到了航天工程学位。之后，她参加了朝鲜战争，在空军服役。
In 1954, she went to work at Ryan Aeronautical, where one of her jobs included flying target drones over China during the Eisenhower administration. She became a member of the National Rifle Association, donated to numerous Republican candidates, married three different women, had two children, ran a hunting preserve and, in the ’90s, secretly edited a magazine for transvestites called “Our Way.”
她于1954年加入了赖安航天公司。在那里，她的工作职责之一是在艾森豪威尔执政期间操控无人机在中国上空进行侦查。她是美国全国步枪协会的成员，给众多共和党候选人捐过款，先后与不同的女性结了三次婚，有两个孩子，管理着一个狩猎场。在九十年代，她秘密地编辑了一本给变装者看的名为《我行我素》(Our Way)的杂志。
“I think it’s safe to say that the employment I had would prohibit any sign of cross-dressing or anything like that,” Ms. Swan said. “I would have lost my job. The main customer is the Department of Defense. It was totally out of order.”
“我的工作禁止我露出一点易装或是诸如此类的苗头，这么说我想并不为过，”斯万女士说，“我会丢了工作。我们的主要客户是国防部。我根本不敢有任何非分之想。”
But by 2000, she had retired. Her children were grown. Her parents were no longer alive. It was time, she decided, to make a change she had long dreamed of.
到了2000年，斯万女士退了休。她的孩子们也已长大成人，父母也过了世。她决定，梦寐以求的做出改变的时机已到。
So three years after Ms. Swan began taking hormones and dressing daily as female, she underwent gender reassignment surgery in Thailand. She paid for it mostly through a $5,000 check sent by one her sons that came with a note from him that read: “Sometimes the most important thing in life is finding oneself.”
就这样，在斯万女士开始每天摄入荷尔蒙并按女性着装的三年后，她在泰国接受了变性手术。她两个儿子中的一个给了她一张5000美元的支票，用来支付了手术开销的大部分。儿子在支票上写道：“有时生活中最重要的事情就是找到自我。”
That level of acceptance can be the exception. Stephanie James, a 64-year-old trans woman in St. Louis, said she is pleased that she is no longer living a lie (“It’s been worth every penny,” Ms. James said), but the reaction from her three sons was dispiriting. She told her youngest two sons in 2007. “They were bewildered,” she said. Her oldest son found out a week later and stopped speaking to her.
家人的这种接受程度并不常见。斯提芬妮·詹姆斯(Stephanie James)是一位住在圣路易斯的跨性女性，今年64岁。她说她很高兴自己不用再在欺骗中生活。（“能这样花出去的钱都值了，”詹姆斯女士说。）但是她的三个儿子的反应却令人失望。她在2007年向两个小儿子说出了实情。“他们根本不理解我，”詹姆斯女士说。她的大儿子一个星期后知道了真相，从此没有跟她说过话。
They remain estranged. “I have not even met my grandbaby,” she said.
直到现在他们的关系依旧疏远。“我甚至都没有见过我的儿孙，”詹姆斯女士说。
In 2009, she was fired as a strategic account manager at Graybar Electric, where she had worked for five years, during which time she transitioned. (Carrie Johnson, director of corporate and marketing communications at Graybar, said Ms. James’s departure was an “individual personnel matter” and declined further comment, saying, “I’m sure you can understand.”)
2009年的时候，她被Graybar Electric公司从战略客户经理的职位上解雇。她在公司工作了五年，并在其间开始变性。（凯莉·约翰逊[Carrie Johnson]是Graybar的企业与营销传播部主任。她说詹姆斯女士由于“个人原因”离开了公司。她拒绝进一步解释，“我想你能理解”，她说。）
In her last two years at Graybar, Ms. James said, she earned $125,000 with benefits and bonuses. This year, working as a live-in caregiver to an 86-year-old woman, she earns $480 a week, plus health care. “You do the multiplication,” Ms. James said.
在Graybar的最后两年里，詹姆斯女士说她连福利带奖金一共挣了125,000美元。今年，她给一位86岁的老太太做护工，每周的工资加上医保是480美元。“你自己做乘法吧，”詹姆斯女士说。
Over time, Ms. James has come to a number of awakenings not just about transphobia, but about sexism in general — dynamics she did not understand during 50-plus years living outwardly as a man.
这些年下来，詹姆斯女士不但对人们对跨性者的恐惧有了认识，她还对性别歧视有了新的看法。在之前做为男性生活的50多年里，她并没有觉得性别歧视是个问题。
“The loss of a position in a white male society is subtle but omnipresent,” Ms. James said. “I remember, before I was let go, I was in a corporate meeting and one of the V.P.’s said, ‘Who brought the bagels?’ No one had. So the V.P. says, ‘Stephanie, would you mind running out to pick them up?’ It was pouring down rain! We could all see it. There were windows on three sides of the conference room. That kind of stuff never happened before I transitioned. It happened all the time after.”
“在白人男性社会失去地位是一件微妙的事，但是你时刻都会感知到这个事实，”詹姆斯女士说，“我记得，在我被解雇前，我们在开一个公司会议。一个副总裁问：‘谁买了面包圈？’没有人买。于是这个副总裁说：‘斯提芬妮，你介意跑出去买一下吗？’外面下着瓢泼大雨。会议室三面都有窗户，我们都能看到。在我变性前，这种事是绝对不会发生的。我变性之后，就屡见不鲜了。”
Gretchen Lintner, 58, lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Shortly before she was laid off from her job at a commercial real estate firm, an executive there said to her, “Don’t you people just go somewhere new and start over?”
58岁的格蕾馨·林特纳(Gretchen Lintner)居住在旧金山湾区。在她被一家商业地产公司解聘不久前，一位经理问她道：“像你们这样的人是不是都搬到一个新地方重新开始？”
On a recent Friday, she was sitting in the lobby of a hotel near Union Square in San Francisco. She arrived wearing a Chanel-inspired blazer from Coldwater Creek, a Jones blouse, Gap jeans and a pair of alligator-patterned pumps. Her hair was long and blond and she wore silver hoop earrings. Nevertheless, as she walked in, the doorman greeted her by saying, “Hello, sir.”
不久前的一个周五，她坐在位于旧金山联合广场附近的一个酒店大堂里。她穿着一件Coldwater Creek的仿香奈儿上装，Jones的衬衫，Gap的仔裤和一双鳄鱼皮的高跟鞋。她留着金色的长发，带着银色的大圈耳环。就是这样一幅装扮，在她走进酒店时，门卫对她的问候是：“先生，你好。”
“That’s how I go through life,” she said. “It’s the small oppressions that you get that you just have to be able to deal with.”
“这就是我的人生，”林特纳女士说：“我不得不应对生活中的这种小小苦闷。”
“The hardest thing,” she continued, “is working for less money and being bumped off my career track because of being a woman, because of being a trans woman, because of the 2008 economic dislocation. I don’t blame anyone, but it’s a fact. And I’m over 50 and it’s hard for any individual over 50 to find employment.”
她接着说道：“但是最艰难的是工作被减薪以及被迫终止我的职业。这些只不过是因为我是一个女人，一个跨性女性，当然还有2008年经济形势混乱的因素。我不责怪任何人，但这是事实。我已经50多岁。任何一个50多岁的人要想找工作都不容易。”
Other things have changed as well. Today, Ms. Lintner dates both men and women. “For me, the parts are negotiable,” she said. “My sexual attraction was always toward women, and then as I transitioned I became more interested in men.”
另外还有一些别的改变。现今，林特纳女士的约会对象有男有女。“对我来说，在两性关系里扮演哪个角色是可以商量的，”她说：“我从前一直对女性有性趣，在我变性后，男性对我更有吸引力。”
For many, aspects of sexual identities shift. Language fails. There is a contingent of “transbien” relationships, the common term among LGBT types for what happens when two trans women get together. Straight men become straight women. Lesbians become gay men. This is what happened with Eugene Potchen-Webb, 60. He transitioned at 50 from female to male and, after having been a lesbian for many years, discovered he was into guys. “It was a surprise to me,” he said.
许多人的性别身份都发生了改变。这些改变很难用语言描述。在同性恋和跨性者群体里，出现了许多所谓的“跨女同性恋”关系，指的是两位跨性女性之间的亲密关系。异性恋男性变性后成了异性恋女性。同性恋女性变性后成了同性恋男性，60岁的尤金·泼特琴·韦博(Eugene Potchen-Webb)就是这样。他在50岁的时候从女性变成了男性。这之前他一直是位跨性女同性恋者，变性后却发现自己只对男性有性趣。“这真令我吃惊，”他说。
Rachel Sorrow is a 64-year-old San Francisco-based architect and amateur stand-up comedian who remains married to her spouse, though they date other people and sleep in different bedrooms in the apartment they share in the Castro.
64岁的蕾切尔·索罗(Rachel Sorrow)是旧金山的一位建筑师和业余滑稽说笑演员。变性后她没有和原配偶离婚。她们在卡斯特罗区共同拥有一处公寓。她们各自约会，睡在不同的卧室里。
“When I’m having sex with a man, I feel 100 percent a woman, and when I have sex with women I slip back into male roles,” Ms. Sorrow said. “I always thought if you are a guy and you have a sex-change operation and you’re still dating women, you’re a lesbian, because you look like a woman and you’re dating them. It’s a relatively reasonable assumption unless you know a lot of trans people.
“当我和男性做爱时，我觉得我百分百是个女人，而当我和女性做爱时，我就又回到了男性的角色，”索罗女士说：“我之前一直以为，如果你生来是男性，在你做了变性手术后还是和女性交往，那你就是一位女同性恋者。因为你有女性的外表，你也和女性约会。这种想法听上去很合理，但是如果你认识许多跨性者，你就不会这么认为了。”
“In our case, I think it just doesn’t apply. I have way more flexibility than that. Trans means to move back and forth, like transportation, and I think that’s just part of it.”
“这种观念对我来说就完全不适合。我要有灵活性得多。‘跨’(trans)这个词根的意思就是有进有退，就像‘交通’(transportation)这个词。我认为这是‘跨性’这个词含义的一部分。”
But having a progressive attitude about sex and self-expression doesn’t preclude clinging to ideals that are anachronistic and even a little bit sexist. Many older trans women grew up in “Mad Men”-era houses where women were accessories and children were supposed to speak when spoken to. And sometimes these tendencies are absorbed and play out in ways feminists sometimes find disconcerting.
对于性别身份问题，跨性人士的观念颇为进步，但这并不意味着那些老套甚至有点性别歧视的观点被完全摒弃。许多年长的跨性女性成长于《广告狂人》那个年代。在那个年代里的家庭里，女性是附属品，孩子们不能随便讲话。有时这些观念根深蒂固，并被带到了跨性者的日常行为中，这让女权主义者时常感到不安。
“I do feel like sometimes I have to be more feminine than anyone else,” said Ms. Padgett, the onetime New York City Ballet dancer. “There have been so many times when I’ve been on the street and I realize I’m the only one in a dress and heels. I reach for those things that are more feminine than a genetic girl would go for. The stakes are higher for me because I wasn’t born female so I don’t take it for granted.”
“确实，我有时觉得我必须得比别的女性更加有女人味儿一些，”曾经是纽约市芭蕾舞团成员的帕吉特女士说：“有好多次，我意识到我是街上唯一穿裙子和高跟鞋的。和普通的女性相比，我会选择那些更女性化的东西。我生来不是女性，现在的身份来之不易，所以我要比别人付出更多。”
Ms. James of St. Louis agrees: “I feel naked if I don’t have eye makeup on. I’ve worked hard to get this far.”
圣路易斯的詹姆斯女士也这么认为：“如果我不上眼妆的话，我就会觉得像没穿衣服一样。能到今天这样，我付出了太多努力。”
Nearly all older trans men have experienced oppression, but they had the advantage of growing up in an era when coveting manhood was somewhat understandable and tomboyishness was at least forgiven.
几乎所有年长的跨性男性都受到过歧视和压制。但是他们却有一项优势——在他们成长的年代里，女孩子渴望做男生情有可原，而假小子的行为也至少会被原谅。
Jeffrey Dickemann, an 85-year-old retired anthropology professor from Sonoma State University in California who transitioned in his 60s, recalls that when he was in college, there were rules against women wearing trousers. But he also had a dad who bonded with him over sports and clothes. “In high school, my father gave me his military boots, which I wore,” he said. “I didn’t even realize how much I stuck out.”
85岁的杰弗瑞·迪克曼（Jeffrey Dickemann）是加州索诺玛州立大学的一位退休人类学教授。他在60多岁的时候开始变性。他回忆起当他上大学时，学校有规定不许女生穿裤子。但是他却有一位关系亲密的父亲，带他进行体育活动，并指导他着装。“高中时，父亲把他的军用靴子给了我，我穿上了它们，”迪克曼先生说，“我那会儿甚至都没有意识到我是多么与众不同。”
Katherine Rachlin, a therapist who counsels trans people, said these themes come up frequently. “It’s much more difficult if you’re a woman that is 6-foot-3 than a man who is 5-foot-3,” she said. “We look at women differently.”
凯瑟琳·拉切林(Katherine Rachlin)是一位给跨性人士做咨询的心理医师。她说她时常能在治疗中听到这类话题。“一位一米九的女性比一位一米五的男性相比，前者作为变性者要艰难得多，”她说，“人们看女人有另外的一套标准。”
This also resonates with Vanessa Fabbre, an assistant professor at the Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis, and one of the few experts on the subject of late transitioners. “I hear a lot of older trans men say that they were tomboys and that it was acceptable,” she said. “But we don’t have an equivalent term for tomboy with people who are born male. We have yet to create a real option for young boys wanting to express an aspect of their female selves.”
拉切林的观点和凡妮莎·法博的看法一致。法博是圣路易斯的华盛顿大学布朗社会工作学院的副教授，也是研究高龄变性人士为数不多的专家之一。“我听到许多年长的变性男性说他们年轻时是假小子，人们并没觉得这有什么，”她说，“但是对于那些生为男性却身份认同是女性的人群来说，并没有一个和‘假小子’相应的词来形容他们。我们必须给那些想表达他们女性一面的男孩们一个真正的选择。”
Three years ago, Ms. Fabbre was studying for a doctoral degree in social sciences at the University of Chicago, when she decided to write her thesis on late-age transitioners. With Jess T. Dugan, 28, a photographer who is also her life partner, Ms. Fabbre has been documenting the lives of many of these people on a website called To Survive on This Shore. However ostracized and exoticized they are, perhaps the most shocking thing about their pictures on the site is how ordinary the people in them seem.
三年前，法博女士在芝加哥大学攻读社会科学博士学位。她把她的博士论文选题定为了高龄变性人士。她和她的伴侣、28岁的摄影师杰斯·T·杜根一起创建了一个名叫“此岸生存”的网站，记录了许多高龄变性人士的生活。这些人受到社会排斥，并被视为异类，网站上的照片可能最让人震惊的地方就是他们在其中看上去跟普通人并没有区别。
A fair number of them have been following the news of Bruce Jenner with interest. So has Ms. Padgett, who said it was obvious to her what was going on well before People Magazine reported it had confirmed that Mr. Jenner was in transition.
他们中的许多人都在密切地关注布鲁斯·詹纳的新闻。帕吉特女士也是。她说早在《人物》杂志核实詹纳先生确实在变性之前，她就知道是怎么回事了。
“I could just tell,” she said. “I kept saying, ‘I think he’s transitioning.’ He was taking all the actions I took. But I can’t imagine what it must be like to be him. People have said to me over and over ‘What you’re doing is so brave.’ But I never felt it had anything to do with braveness. It was a need and a hunger, and when I saw the solution it was like a truckload of food coming at a starving person. Someone like Bruce Jenner has to do it in front of the entire world. That is brave.”
“我一眼就看出来了，”她说，“我一直在说，‘我认为他在变性。’他经历的过程我都经历过。但是我不能想像如果我是他的话会是怎么样。人们反复跟我说‘你所做的真是太勇敢了’，但是我从来不觉得这和勇敢什么关系。这就像一种渴求，当我看到满足这种渴求的办法时，就好像一个挨饿的人看到一卡车食物冲他而来。像布鲁斯·詹纳这样的人却要在全世界面前做这件事，这才是勇敢。”
Occasionally, she has noticed the sneering tone of some of the tabloid coverage, the incredulity that someone could have hidden this for so long and decided so late to take action. But that’s exactly why she thinks it will be a watershed moment.
偶尔，她注意到一些小报报道采用了一种讥讽的口吻，质疑竟然会有人隐藏了这么多年，直到这么大年纪了才采取行动。但正因为如此，帕吉特女士认为詹纳出柜这件事会成为一个转折点。
“It’s going to spotlight these issues to millions of Americans,” Ms. Padgett said. “It shows that whatever body you’re born into, being transgender doesn’t go away. I thought it wasn’t going to last, the desire to be female would go away. If anything, at 50 it got stronger. And then it was like ‘what the hell.’ I’ve only got a few more years. Why not do what I’ve always wanted to do?”
“这件事让上百万的美国人注意到了这些问题，”她说：“这件事说明，不论你出生时的性别是什么，你是跨性者这个事实是不会改变的。我从前以为自己想变成女性的渴望不会持续，会随着时间的流逝而消失。但是，当我50岁时，这种愿望更加强烈。那时，我想：‘我就豁出去了。’我的余生之年屈指可数，是该做些自己一直想做的事了。”