Long before Laverne Cox made the cover of Time magazine as a “transgender tipping point,” and long before Caitlyn Jenner made global headlines as a former Olympian transitioning from male to female at age 65, there was Candis Cayne.

早在拉韦恩·考克斯(Laverne Cox)作为“变性人引爆点”登上《时代》(Time)杂志封面之前，早在作为前奥运会选手的凯特琳·詹纳(Caitlyn Jenner)在65岁时变成女儿身成为全球头条新闻之前，坎迪丝·凯恩(Candis Cayne)就已经进入公众视野。

The 5-foot-10 Hawaiian beauty ruled the New York club scene for more than a decade before moving to Hollywood in 2007. There, Ms. Cayne became the first transgender actress to appear on network TV.

这位身高5英尺10英寸（约合1.77米）的夏威夷美女称首纽约俱乐部舞台十多年，2007年进军好莱坞。在那里，凯恩成为第一位出现在电视上的变性女演员。

She was cast on ABC’s “Dirty Sexy Money,” opposite William Baldwin as a transgender woman having an affair with a married politician. She appeared on “Good Morning America,” where Robin Roberts said she was “blazing a path” for transgender visibility.

她在ABC频道的《黑金家族》(Dirty Sexy Money)中与威廉·鲍德温(William Baldwin)演对手戏，饰演一位与已婚政客有染的变性女人。她还在《早安美国》(Good Morning America)中亮相，罗宾·罗伯茨(Robin Roberts)说她为变性人能更多的被社会所关注“照亮了道路”。

The spotlight did not last. After “Dirty Sexy Money” was canceled, Ms. Cayne largely faded from public view. But in recent weeks she has re-emerged on a larger stage.

但是公众的关注没能一直持续下去。《黑金家族》停播后，凯恩基本上从公众视野中消失了。但是最近几周，她又重新出现在更大的舞台上。

She appeared on the cover of Star Magazine, was interviewed by People magazine, has appeared in innumerable tabloid blog posts and was the grand marshal at the Gay Pride Parade in Montreal.

她登上《明星》杂志(Star)的封面；接受《人物》杂志(People)的采访；出现在无数小报的博客文章中；担任蒙特利尔同性恋傲娇大游行(Gay Pride Parade)的大礼官。

The source of this sudden attention is E!’s “I Am Cait,” in which Ms. Cayne, 44, has emerged as the unlikely confidante of Ms. Jenner, accompanying her on trips to San Francisco to meet with gay and transgender activists and escorting her to the ESPY Awards in New York.

她突然之间获得的关注源于E!的真人秀节目《我是凯特》(I Am Cait)，44岁的凯恩在其中不可思议地以詹纳的闺蜜身份现身，多次陪她去旧金山与同性恋和变性人活动家们会面，护送她去纽约接受ESPY奖。

There have also been rumors of a romantic spark, though it’s hard not to be skeptical that the story line was manufactured by E! producers to gin up tabloid interest. Indeed, a recent teaser posted by E! is called “Caitlyn Jenner Gets Asked Out on a Date,” although the actual clip just shows Ms. Jenner going to Ms. Cayne’s house for a glass of wine.

也有传闻说，她们之间擦亮了爱的火花，但是人们很难不去怀疑，这个故事是E!的制作人们为了引发小报兴趣而编出来的。的确，前不久，《E!》发布了一个预告片，名叫《凯特琳·詹纳应邀赴约》(Caitlyn Jenner Gets Asked Out on a Date)，而实际上，那个片段只是詹纳去凯恩家喝葡萄酒。

And earlier this month, Star published a photo of Ms. Cayne on its cover, with the headline: “Caitlyn Jenner: I’m in Love.”

本月早些时候，《明星》杂志在封面上登出凯恩的照片，标题是“凯特琳·詹纳：我恋爱了”。

Ms. Cayne is savvy enough to know a good tabloid story, so when asked about the relationship, she simply offers, “I can say Caitlyn and I have become close, and we’re great friends.”

凯恩很精明，知道这是很好的小报故事，所以当被问及她们的关系时，她只说，“可以说，我和凯特琳很亲密，我们是好朋友。”

On a recent Wednesday, Ms. Cayne was running around a spacious house in the Hollywood Hills, where a photographer was taking publicity shots for her newfound fame.

前不久的一个周三，凯恩在好莱坞山的一所宽敞的房子里到处游逛，一位摄影师在为她在公众中的新形象拍摄宣传照片。

There were sequins in every shade of the rainbow and dresses made out of peacock feathers. But it was her hair — long and blond and blown out to perfection, the sort beauty queens try to emulate — that completed the look.

现场有各种颜色的亮片和用孔雀羽毛做成的连衣裙。不过，是她的头发让造型变得完美——她长长的金发吹得很完美，是选美皇后们努力追求的发型。

“It’s my showgirl moment,” Ms. Cayne said. “This dress I’m wearing now has a kind of ‘Viva Las Vegas’ vibe.”

“这是我的歌舞女郎时间，”凯恩说，“我现在穿的连衣裙有一种‘拉斯维加斯万岁’的感觉。”

Growing up in Maui in the early 1980s as Brendan McDanniel, things were a little more crunchy granola. Her parents were teachers and progressives who had few issues when, as a teenage boy, their son came out as gay. It would be several more years before Ms. Cayne came to terms with her gender identity.

坎迪丝·凯恩原名布伦丹·麦克丹尼尔(Brendan McDanniel)，20世纪80年代初在毛伊岛长大，那里相对开明。他的父母都是教师，也是进步人士。当十几岁的儿子出柜时，他们几乎没有表示异议。几年后，凯恩才弄清自己的性别身份。

Shortly after high school, Ms. Cayne moved to New York in hopes of becoming a professional dancer. She lived in a single-room occupancy hotel in the then-seedy meatpacking district; went on scholarship at Steps, a dance studio on the Upper West Side; and worked as a kitty girl at the Roxy, a former gay club in Chelsea.

高中毕业后不久，凯恩搬到纽约，希望能成为一名职业舞蹈演员。她住在当时比较脏乱破旧的肉库区的一个单人套房旅馆里，后来获得了上西区舞蹈班Steps的奖学金，在切尔西的前同性恋俱乐部Roxy里做猫女郎(kitty girl)。

“I had a tray and I would sell candy, cigarettes and lollipops,” she said. “And then I realized I loved doing drag.”

“我拿着一个托盘，卖糖果、香烟和棒棒糖，”她说，“然后我发现自己喜欢变装。”

There, Ms. Cayne fell in with Lina Bradford, also known as the “gender illusionist” Girlina, and the two became inseparable. Ms. Cayne worked by day at the wig bar at Patricia Field’s boutique in Greenwich Village, and performed by night with Ms. Bradford at Boy Bar in the East Village and the Tunnel in Chelsea.

在那里，凯恩偶然结识了莉娜·布拉德福德(Lina Bradford)，后者也被称为“性别魔术师”格莉娜(Girlina)，她们俩形影不离。白天，凯恩在格林尼治村帕特丽夏·菲尔德(Patricia Field)的时装精品店的假发部工作，晚上，她和布拉德福德在东村的男孩酒吧(Boy Bar)以及切尔西的隧道酒吧(Tunnel)表演。

They did triple pirouettes in four-inch pumps and knew the words to every disco song. A crowd favorite was their lip-synced rendition of “No More Tears (Enough Is Enough),” with Ms. Cayne channeling Barbra Streisand and Girlina as Donna Summer.

她们穿着四英寸（约合10厘米）高的高跟鞋表演脚尖旋转三周，她们知道每一首迪斯科舞曲的歌词。观众最喜欢的是她们对口型演唱《不再有泪（够了）》(No More Tears [Enough Is Enough])，凯恩饰演芭芭拉·史翠珊(Barbra Streisand)，格莉娜饰演唐娜·萨默(Donna Summer)。

“They were like the Linda Evangelista and Naomi Campbell of the gay club scene,” said the veteran drag performer Linda Simpson. Well, at least the scrappy downtown version of them.

“她们就像同性恋俱乐部圈里的琳达·埃万杰利斯塔(Linda Evangelista)和娜奥米·坎贝尔(Naomi Campbell)，”资深变装演员琳达·辛普森(Linda Simpson)说。呃，至少在杂乱的市中心同性恋俱乐部圈里是这样。

Matthew Kasten, who was the promoter at Boy Bar, said, “She kept her shoes in the oven because she didn’t cook.”

马修·卡斯滕(Matthew Kasten)是男孩酒吧的推广员。他说，“她把鞋子存放在烤箱里，因为她不做饭。”

By the time Ms. Cayne was 24, it was clear that performing in beaded gowns at night was not enough for her. “Nothing made sense,” she said. “I just felt better when I was female.”

凯恩24岁时，显然已经不满足于仅在晚上身穿珠饰礼服进行表演。“哪儿都不对劲，”她说，“我就是觉得成为女人时更舒服。”

But there was one thing standing in the way of a transition. “I was flat broke,” Ms. Cayne said.

但是变性有个难题。“当时我身无分文，”凯恩说。

Through a transgender club doorwoman named Paris, Ms. Cayne began getting black-market hormones. Surgeries took place in a decrepit basement in Guadalajara, Mexico.

通过一个名叫帕里斯(Paris)的变性人俱乐部看门人，凯恩开始从黑市上购买荷尔蒙。手术在墨西哥瓜达拉哈拉的一个破旧的地下室进行。

To help pay for her nose job, the club promoter Marc Berkley hosted a benefit at the Palladium around 1996.

1996年左右，为了给凯恩筹集鼻子整容的费用，俱乐部推广员马克·伯克利(Marc Berkley)在守护神俱乐部(Palladium)举办了一场义演。

“There was a dunking booth, and all the girls got in and you would pay to dunk the queens, and the money went to getting Candis a new nose,” said the drag performer Sherry Vine, one of several performers who participated.

“那里有一个扣篮浸泡机(dunking booth)，所有的女孩都进去，观众付费投篮，投中后，变装皇后们就会掉进水里，筹集的钱给坎迪丝整鼻子，”变装演员雪莉·瓦因(Sherry Vine)说。她是其中一位表演参与者。

After Ms. Cayne completed her transition, she moved into the cabaret world, often performing at the Viceroy, a since-shuttered Chelsea restaurant, where her signature move was to take her show into the street, where she would continue to lip-sync and dance while climbing onto the hoods of taxicabs, as the audience watched through the plate-glass windows.

凯恩完成变性后，进入卡巴莱舞蹈圈，经常在切尔西的餐馆Viceroy（后来倒闭了）表演，她的招牌是把表演延伸到大街上，她会一边继续对口型唱歌跳舞，一边爬到出租车发动机罩上，观众们透过平板玻璃窗观看。

But she always wanted to act and soon began auditioning. One of her first jobs was on “CSI: NY.” It was a bit part.

但她一直想去表演，很快开始试镜。一开始，她曾在《犯罪现场调查：纽约》(CSI: NY)中演一个小角色。

“I ended up getting drowned in a toilet,” she said. “I was the dead person.”

“最后，我溺死在厕所里，”她说，“我演的是一个死人。”

Then, in 2007, she received a phone call from Ms. Field, her former boss, who had since become an in-demand costume designer. Ms. Field had been hired on a noirish nighttime soap called “Dirty Sexy Money,” which was casting the part of a transgender woman. Would Ms. Cayne come in and audition?

2007年，前老板菲尔德给她打来电话。那时，菲尔德已经是一位热门戏服设计师，为一部名叫《黑金家族》、有些阴暗的晚间肥皂剧工作。当时剧组正在寻找一名饰演变性女人的演员。凯恩会来面试吗？

“I read for it and a week later I got a callback,” Ms. Cayne said. “I had no idea it was a big deal.”

“我去试镜了，一周后，我得到回电，”凯恩说，“当时我完全不知道那是个绝佳的机会。”

But when the ratings for “Dirty Sexy Money” dropped in the second season, one of the first things that was reconsidered was her character’s place in the plotline. Once again, she died an ignominious death.

但是当《黑金家族》第二季的收视率降低后，剧组首先重新考虑的一点就是她的角色在故事情节中的地位。她第二次不光彩地死去。

“I got killed in a flashback,” Ms. Cayne said. “A flashback!”

“我是在倒叙中死去的，”凯恩说，“在倒叙中！”

The next few years weren’t easy. She got a small part on the FX show “Nip/Tuck,” and appeared as a judge on “RuPaul’s Drag U,” an offshoot of “Drag Race.”

接下来的几年并不容易。她在FX频道的电视剧《整容室》(Nip/Tuck)中得到一个小角色；在《鲁保罗变装皇后秀》(Drag Race)的衍生剧《鲁保罗变装皇后学院》(RuPaul’s Drag U)中饰演一名法官。

It turns out that there weren’t a lot of significant roles for transgender actresses. In recent years, she earned her living mostly by doing drag shows around the country. Meanwhile, the relationship with the man she expected to marry ended.

事实证明，给变性女演员准备的重要角色并不多。近些年，她主要靠在美国各地表演变装秀为生。与此同时，她想要结婚的男朋友也跟她分手了。

“I just assumed because I was a novice that I would be getting auditions and working a lot more,” said Ms. Cayne, who lives in a modest home in Glendale, Calif., with her two boxers. “It was a stark reality that I faced.”

“我本以为，因为我是新手，所以我需要试镜，需要更努力，”凯恩说。她住在加利福尼亚州格伦代尔一个简朴的房子里。家里有两只拳师犬。“这就是我面对的残酷现实。”

Then this May, a few weeks before Ms. Jenner’s Vanity Fair cover hit the newsstands, Ms. Cayne received a phone call from a producer at “I Am Cait.” Except she wasn’t told what the show was about.

今年5月，在詹纳的《名利场》(Vanity Fair)封面火爆上市的前几周，凯恩接到《我是凯特》的一个制片人的电话。只不过，她未被告知这个节目是讲什么的。

“He said, ‘I want to tell you something but I can’t until you sign a confidentiality agreement,’ ” Ms. Cayne said. “It was like: ‘Hmm. OK. I’m going to sign my life over before I know anything.’ But I was also intrigued because of that.”

“他说，‘我想告诉你一件事，但你必须先签一份保密协议，’”凯恩说，“那就像是说：‘嗯。好吧。我要先把命签出去，才能知道是为了什么。’但我也因此很好奇。”

Soon, the producer called back to say that he was working on Ms. Jenner’s series for E! and that the show wanted Ms. Cayne to go to a dinner at Ms. Jenner’s house.

很快，那位制片人打来电话说，他在为《E!》制作詹纳的真人秀节目，想让凯恩去詹纳家赴宴。

Ms. Cayne put on a navy lace dress and drove over, and was surprised to discover not only how far along Ms. Jenner was in her transition, but that a number of other prominent trans women were there, including the artist Zackary Drucker and Jennifer Finney Boylan, a Barnard professor and frequent contributor to The New York Times.

凯恩穿上一件海军蓝蕾丝连衣裙开车过去，惊奇地发现詹纳已经快要完成变性了，而且其他几位著名的变性女人也在那里，包括艺术家扎克里·德鲁克(Zackary Drucker)和詹妮弗·芬尼·博伊兰(Jennifer Finney Boylan)，后者是巴纳德学院(Barnard)的教授，经常为《纽约时报》撰稿。

And the cameras were rolling.

摄像机在拍摄。

At first, Ms. Jenner was shy. “Not in the sense of being quiet,” Ms. Cayne said, “but in the sense of wanting to learn. Now she’s blossomed.”

一开始，詹纳有点害羞。“我不是说她很安静，”凯恩说，“而是那种她想学习变性的感觉。现在，她已经自如盛放了。”

Likewise, a genuine friendship seems to have blossomed, on and off camera, between the two. “Very good friends” is how Ms. Cayne put it.

她们似乎也结下了真正的友谊，不管在镜头前还是私下里。凯恩现在的表述是，她们是“很好的朋友”。

Perhaps eager not to alienate the producers at E! (“I don’t even have a contract,” she said at one point), she hedged a little when asked point blank whether she and Ms. Jenner were dating. Then she gave a wink.

也许是因为她非常不想疏远E!的制作人们（“我甚至没签合同，”她说过），所以当被直接询问她和詹纳是否在交往时，她有点回避。然后她眨了一下眼。

“I lived in New York for 15 years,” she said, alluding to the friends there who know her to be solely interested in dating straight men. “You do the math.” Asked the same question on “Access Hollywood” this week, she was more direct, saying: “No. We’re just really, really good friends.”

“我在纽约住了15年，”她说。她间接提到，那里认识她的朋友们都知道她只和直男交往。“你自己猜吧。”本周，当《直通好莱坞》(Access Hollywood)节目也问起这个问题时，她回答得更直接：“不，我们只是非常非常好的朋友。”

If this sort of attention in the celebrity press has not bothered her, it’s partly because the show has put transgender issues front and center in a way seldom seen on television.

如果说这种关注名人的媒体并没有困扰她，那么部分原因是这个节目让变性问题成为焦点，这在电视上很少见。

“The reason I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m going to do this’ is because it’s going to change the world,” she said. “This is going to make a huge difference to kids who feel alone and watch this show, and see trans women who are successful, happy, amazing people.”

“我说‘是的，我要做这个’，是因为它会改变这个世界，”她说，“对那些感到孤独的孩子们来说，通过这个节目，看到变性女人是成功的、快乐的、美妙的，这将会对他们产生重大影响。”