美國精英女子學院遭遇性別認同挑戰

Hundreds of young women streamed into Wellesley College on the last Monday of August, many of them trailed by parents lugging suitcases and bins filled with folded towels, decorative pillows and Costco-size jugs of laundry detergent. The banner by the campus entranceway welcoming the Class of 2018 waved in the breeze, as if beckoning the newcomers to discover all that awaited them. All around the campus stood buildings named after women: the Margaret Clapp library, the Betsy Wood Knapp media and technology center, dorms, labs, academic halls, even the parking garage. The message that anything is possible for women was also evident at a fenced-in work site, which bore the sign “Elaine Construction," after a firm named for one woman and run by another.

八月的最後一個星期一，成百上千名年輕女性涌入衛爾斯理女子學院。許多人後面還跟着父母，拖着行李箱，裝滿了疊好了的毛巾和飾枕的盒子，以及超市經濟裝的大罐洗衣粉。在校園入口的幹道上，歡迎2018屆新同學的橫幅在微風中招展，似乎在邀請新生們探索這個新環境 。坐落在校園各處的建築都是以女性命名：瑪格麗特·克萊普(Margaret Clapp)圖書館、貝茨·伍德·耐普(Betsy Wood Knapp)媒體技術中心，還有宿舍樓、實驗室、學術廳，甚至停車庫，無一例外。“沒有什麼事是女性辦不到的”——這一信息還出現在一個被圍欄圍起來的建築工地上。工地掛着“伊蓮建築公司”的標牌，這個公司是以一位女性命名，並由另一位女性管理。

It was the first day of orientation, and along the picturesque paths there were cheerful upper-class student leaders providing directions and encouragement. They wore pink T-shirts stamped with this year's orientation theme: "Free to Explore" — an enticement that could be interpreted myriad ways, perhaps far more than the college intended. One of those T-shirted helpers was a junior named Timothy Boatwright. Like every other matriculating student at Wellesley, which is just west of Boston, Timothy was raised a girl and checked "female" when he applied. Though he had told his high-school friends that he was transgender, he did not reveal that on his application, in part because his mother helped him with it, and he didn't want her to know. Besides, he told me, "it seemed awkward to write an application essay for a women's college on why you were not a woman." Like many trans students, he chose a women's college because it seemed safer physically and psychologically.

這是新生入學培訓活動的第一天。在校園美麗的道路兩旁，興致勃勃的高年級學生領導們爲大家指引方向，給新生打氣。她們穿着粉色的T恤衫，上面印着今年新生入學培訓的主旨：“自由探索”。這個口號可以有多種詮釋，可能比校方想象的要多得多。三年級學生提摩西·包特萊特(Timothy Boatwright)是其中一位穿着T恤的嚮導。衛爾斯理位於波士頓西郊。像每一位被這個學院錄取的學生一樣，提摩西被當做女孩撫養成人。在申請學校時，他在申請表格上勾畫了“女性”的選項。雖然他告訴他的高中朋友他是跨性人，但是在申請時他卻隱瞞了這一點。原因之一是母親幫助他提交了申請材料，而提摩西不想讓她知道。另外，他對我說：“在申請女子學院的陳述文章裏寫自己爲什麼不是女性，這有點奇怪吧。”像別的許多跨性別學生一樣，提摩西選擇女子學院是因爲覺得在這裏，不論從生理還是心理上都會比較安全。

From the start, Timothy introduced himself as "masculine-of-center genderqueer." He asked everyone at Wellesley to use male pronouns and the name Timothy, which he'd chosen for himself.

從入學一開始，提摩西在自我介紹是說自己是一位“偏男性的跨性人”。在衛爾斯理，他要求所有人都以提摩西和男性代詞稱呼他，提摩西這個名字是他自己給自己取的。

For the most part, everyone respected his request. After all, he wasn't the only trans student on campus. Some two dozen other matriculating students at Wellesley don't identify as women. Of those, a half-dozen or so were trans men, people born female who identified as men, some of whom had begun taking testosterone to change their bodies. The rest said they were transgender or genderqueer, rejecting the idea of gender entirely or identifying somewhere between female and male; many, like Timothy, called themselves transmasculine. Though his gender identity differed from that of most of his classmates, he generally felt comfortable at his new school.

大多數情況下，提摩西的要求都得到了尊重。畢竟，他並不是衛爾斯理唯一的跨性別學生。學院今年錄取的學生中，還有二十多人不認爲自己是女性。在他們中間，有一半左右是跨性別男性——他們生爲女性，卻認爲自己是男性，他們之中的一些人已經開始攝入睾酮來改變身體。這二十多人中剩下的那一半說自己是跨性人或是“性別酷兒”。他們拒絕接受性別這個概念，或是認爲自己介於男性和女性之間。像提摩西一樣，他們中的許多人說自己是跨性男。雖然他的性別身份和大多數同學不同，提摩西在新學校裏大體還覺得舒適安逸。

Last spring, as a sophomore, Timothy decided to run for a seat on the student-government cabinet, the highest position that an openly trans student had ever sought at Wellesley. The post he sought was multicultural affairs coordinator, or "MAC," responsible for promoting "a culture of diversity" among students and staff and faculty members. Along with Timothy, three women of color indicated their intent to run for the seat. But when they dropped out for various unrelated reasons before the race really began, he was alone on the ballot. An anonymous lobbying effort began on Facebook, pushing students to vote "abstain." Enough "abstains” would deny Timothy the minimum number of votes Wellesley required, forcing a new election for the seat and providing an opportunity for other candidates to come forward. The “Campaign to Abstain” argument was simple: Of all the people at a multiethnic women's college who could hold the school's "diversity" seat, the least fitting one was a white man.

去年春天，已經上到大二的提摩西決定競選學生自治協會的席位。在衛爾斯理，這是公開跨性身份的學生所競選過的最高職位。提摩西競選的職位是多元文化事務協調員，簡稱 “MAC”， 負責在師生和在校職員中推廣一種“多元文化”。除了提摩西，另有三名非白人女生表示她們的參選意願，但是在競選開始之前卻由於種種與提摩西的無關的原因退出選舉。提摩西成了唯一的人選。這時有人在Facebook上開始了一個匿名活動，勸說學生們投棄權票。如果有足夠棄權票，提摩西就得不到學校規定的最低票數。這樣選舉就得重新舉行，而新的候選人也會有機會出現。“棄權活動”的論點很簡單：在一個多種族的女子學院裏競選“多元”職位，沒有比一位白人男性更不合適的人選了。

"It wasn't about Timothy," the student behind the Abstain campaign told me. "I thought he'd do a perfectly fine job, but it just felt inappropriate to have a white man there. It's not just about that position either. Having men in elected leadership positions undermines the idea of this being a place where women are the leaders."

“我們並不是針對提摩西，”“棄權活動”的領頭學生告訴我：“我認爲他完全能夠勝任。但是由一位白人男性擔任領導職位這太不合適了 。這個活動也並不是只關注於那個特定職位。讓男性參加競選領導職位削弱了女校讓女性做領導者的主旨。”

I asked Timothy what he thought about that argument, as we sat on a bench overlooking the tranquil lake on campus during orientation. He pointed out that he has important contributions to make to the MAC position. After all, at Wellesley, masculine-of-center students are cultural minorities; by numbers alone, they're about as minor as a minority can be. And yet Timothy said he felt conflicted about taking a leadership spot. "The patriarchy is alive and well," he said. "I don't want to perpetuate it."

在迎新期間，我與提摩西坐在長椅上，俯視校園內的靜謐湖面。我問他對這種說法持何態度。他說他對MAC這個職位可以做出重要的貢獻。畢竟，在衛爾斯理，“偏男性的跨性人”是一個少數文化羣體；就人數來說，不會有比他們更少數的了。但是，提摩西也說他對擔任領導職位感到有些矛盾。“男性家長制已經根深蒂固了，”他說，“我不想再推波助瀾。”

In the 19th century, only men were admitted to most colleges and universities, so proponents of higher education for women had to build their own. The missions at these new schools both defied and reinforced the gender norms of the day. By offering women access to an education they'd previously been denied, the schools' very existence was radical, but most were nevertheless premised on traditional notions: College-educated women were considered more likely to be engaging wives and better mothers, who would raise informed citizens. Over time, of course, women's colleges became more committed to preparing students for careers, but even in the early 1960s, Wellesley, for example, taught students how to get groceries into the back of a station wagon without exposing their thighs.

在19世紀，多數學院和大學只招收男性學生，支持女性接受高等教育的人士們只好自建大學。這些新興學校的辦學宗旨對當時社會的性別規範既提出了挑戰，又加以維護。讓女性們能夠接受此前無緣的教育，這些學校存在本身就是一種激進的表現，但它們同時又是建立在傳統觀念的基礎上：受過大學教育的女性被認爲更有可能成爲可親的妻子和優秀的母親，會培養出高素質的公民。但隨着時間的推移，女性學院愈加專注培養事業成功的女性，但即使在60年代早期，衛爾斯理仍舊在教授學生如何把買來的食品雜貨放進旅行車的後箱時不暴露自己的大腿。

By the late 1960s, however, gender norms were under scrutiny. Amid the growing awareness of civil rights and women's liberation, academic separation based on gender, as with race, seemed increasingly outdated. As a vast majority of women opted for coed schools, enRollment at women's colleges tumbled. The number of women's colleges dropped to fewer than 50 today from nearly 300.

但是，到了60年代晚期，人們開始重新審視社會性別規範。隨着民權和女性解放的社會意識高漲，基於性別和種族的教育隔離開始顯得日益過時。多數女性開始選擇男女同校的學校，女子學院的入學率一落千丈。專收女性的學院數量由將近300所降到不到50所。

In response to shifting ideas about gender, many of the remaining women's colleges redefined themselves as an antidote to the sexism that feminists were increasingly identifying in society. Women's colleges argued that they offered a unique environment where every student leader was a woman, where female role models were abundant, where professors were far more likely to be women and where the message of women's empowerment pervaded academic and campus life. All that seemed to foster students'confidence. Women's colleges say their undergrads are more likely to major in fields traditionally dominated by men. Wellesley alumnae in particular are awarded more science and engineering doctorates than female graduates of any other liberal-arts college in the nation, according to government data. Its alums have become two secretaries of state; a groundbreaking string theorist; a NASA astronaut; and Korea's first female ambassador.

面對性別意識的變遷，保留下來的女子學院中大多數重新定義自身的地位；隨着女權主義者對社會中的性別歧視日益不滿，女子學院們把自己打造爲對抗性別歧視的靈丹妙藥。它們宣稱自己建立了一個獨特的環境，所有的學生領袖都是女性，女性榜樣無窮無盡，女性教授遠多於男性，而且校園與學術生活中洋溢着濃厚的爭取女性權益的信息。這些似乎都令學生們增強自信。女子學院們宣稱，它們的本科學生更有可能選擇傳統上被男性主導的專業。衛爾斯理學院在這方面尤爲突出：政府數據顯示，它的學生畢業後在科學和工程領域獲得的博士學位的比例超過了全美任何其他人文學院的女性學生。衛爾斯理的校友中包括兩位國務卿，一位開創新時代的弦理論物理學家，一位NASA航天員，還有韓國的首位女性大使。

As women's colleges challenged the conventions of womanhood, they drew a disproportionate number of students who identified as lesbian or bisexual. Today a small but increasing number of students at those schools do not identify as women, raising the question of what it means to be a "women's college." Trans students are pushing their schools to play down the women-centric message. At Wellesley, Smith, Mount Holyoke and others, they and their many supporters have successfully lobbied to scrub all female references in student government constitutions, replacing them with gender-neutral language. At Wellesley, they have pressed administrators and fellow students to excise talk of sisterhood, arguing that that rhetoric, rather than being uplifting, excludes other gender minorities. At many schools, they have also taken leadership positions long filled by women: resident advisers on dorm floors, heads of student groups and members of college government. At Wellesley, one transmasculine student was a dorm president. At Mills College, a women's school in California, even the president of student government identifies as male.

由於女子學院挑戰了關於女性的傳統觀念，它們也吸引了更高比例的認爲自己是同性戀或雙性戀的學生。如今，這些學院中有少數學生並不認爲自己是女性，並且數量在不斷增加。這也對“女子學院”的定義提出了疑問。跨性別學生推動這些學校弱化以女性爲核心的信息。在衛爾斯理、史密斯(Smith)、曼荷蓮(Mount Holyoke)等女子學院，這些學生及其支持者們成功地勸說學校管理層和其他學生們棄用“姐妹情誼”等言辭，他們認爲此類言語雖有鼓動力，但也排除了其他少數性別人士。在很多學院，跨性別學生還贏得了長期由女生執掌的領袖地位：宿舍舍監，學生團體領袖和學生自治政府成員。在衛爾斯理，一位傾向男性的跨性別學生成爲宿舍的主席。在加州米爾斯女子學院(Mills College)，學生自治政府主席也自認爲是男性。

What's a women's college to do? Trans students point out that they're doing exactly what these schools encourage: breaking gender barriers, fulfilling their deepest yearnings and forging ahead even when society tries to hold them back. But yielding to their request to dilute the focus on women would undercut the identity of a women's college. While women in coed schools generally outpace men in enrollment and performance, the equation shifts after college: Recent female graduates working full time earn far less than their male counterparts, and more experienced women are often still shut out of corporate and political leadership — all of which prompts women's-college advocates to conclude that a four-year, confidence-building workshop still has its place.

女子學院們該如何應對？跨性別學生們指出，他們做的正是這些學院所鼓勵的：打破性別藩籬，實現內心深處的願望，不顧社會羈絆而奮勇向前。但是，如果完全接受他們淡化女性核心地位的要求，則會削弱女子學院的身份。一般來說，在男女同校的學校，女性的入學率和學業表現都高於男性，但在大學之後情況則截然相反：新畢業的女性學生在全職崗位上比同等情況的男性收入低很多，那些工作經驗豐富的女性也往往被商業和政治高層職位拒於門外——這些都讓女子學院的支持者們認爲，幫助女性提高自信的4年本科教育仍舊有其作用。

"Sisterhood is why I chose to go to Wellesley," said a physics major who graduated recently and asked not to be identified for fear she'd be denounced for her opinion. "A women's college is a place to celebrate being a woman, surrounded by women. I felt empowered by that every day. You come here thinking that every single leadership position will be held by a woman: every member of the student government, every newspaper editor, every head of the Economics Council, every head of the Society of Physics. That's an incredible thing! This is what they advertise to students. But it's no longer true. And if all that is no longer true, the intrinsic value of a women's college no longer holds."

“姐妹情誼就是我來衛爾斯理上學的原因，”一位最近畢業的物理專業學生說。她要求匿名，害怕因自己的觀點而受到批評。“一家女子學院就是以女性身份引以爲傲的地方，身邊環繞女性。我感覺自己每天都深受鼓舞。你來到這裏，理所當然地認爲每位領袖都是女性：每個學生政府職位，每個報紙編輯，每個經濟理事會成員，物理學會的每位會長。這是美妙無比的事情！這就是他們登廣告給學生看的東西，但現在情況已經不再是這樣了。如果情況都變了，女子學院的核心價值也就蕩然無存。”

A few schools have formulated responses to this dilemma, albeit very different ones. Hollins University, a small women's college in Virginia, established a policy several years ago stating it would confer diplomas to only women. It also said that students who have surgery or begin hormone therapy to become men — or who legally take male names — will be “helped to transfer to another institution." Mount Holyoke and Mills College, on the other hand, recently decided they will not only continue to welcome students who become trans men while at school but will also admit those who identify on their applications as trans men, noting that welcoming the former and not the latter seemed unjustifiably arbitrary.

幾家學院對這種困境已經拿出了應對之策，但各有不同。弗吉尼亞州的一家小型女子學院霍林斯大學(Hollins University)幾年前制定了一條政策，聲稱只爲女性頒發學位。它還說，如果學生通過手術變形或開始荷爾蒙療法變性，或者改用男性名字，學校將“幫助學生轉學到其他學院。”曼荷蓮和米爾斯(Mills)學院則做出決定，它們不但繼續歡迎那些在校期間變性的學生，而且將繼續招收那些自稱爲跨性爲男性的學生，因爲如果只歡迎前者而對後者關上大門，會顯得過於專斷。

But most women's colleges, including Wellesley, consider only female applicants. Once individuals have enrolled and announced that they are trans, the schools, more or less, leave it to the students to work out how trans classmates fit into a women's college. Two of those students hashed it out last fall after Kaden Mohamed, then a Wellesley senior who had been taking testosterone for seven months, watched a news program on WGBH-TV about the plummeting number of women's colleges. One guest was Laura Bruno, another Wellesley senior. The other guest was the president of Regis College, a women's school that went coed in 2007 to reverse its tanking enrollment. The interviewer asked Laura to describe her experience at an "all-female school” and to explain how that might be diminished "by having men there." Laura answered, "We look around and we see only women, only people like us, leading every organization on campus, contributing to every class discussion."

但是多數女子學院，包括衛爾斯理，只考慮女性學生的申請。如果學生被錄取後聲稱自己爲跨性人，這些學院或多或少都讓學生們自行決定如何與跨性同學相處。去年秋天，當時已經服用睾酮變性7個月的衛爾斯理學院大四學生凱頓·穆罕默德(Kaden Mohamed)，在WGBH-TV電視臺上看到一個關於女子學院學生人數下降的新聞訪談節目。節目嘉賓之一是另一位衛爾斯理大四學生勞拉·布魯諾(Laura Bruno)，另一位則是瑞吉斯學院(Regis College)的院長，這家女子學院由於入學人數劇減，在2007年改製爲男女同校的大學。主持人請勞拉描述她在“全女子學院”的經歷，以及爲何“有男性同校就學”會削弱這種感受。

Kaden, a manager of the campus student cafe who knew Laura casually, was upset by her words. He emailed Laura and said her response was "extremely disrespectful.” He continued: "I am not a woman. I am a trans man who is part of your graduating class, and you literally ignored my existence in your interview. . . . You had an opportunity to show people that Wellesley is a place that is complicating the meaning of being an 'all women's school,' and you chose instead to displace a bunch of your current and past Wellesley siblings."

勞拉回答道：“我們向四周望去，只看到跟我們一樣的女性，領導着校園的每一個組織，參與每一場課堂討論。”

Laura apologized, saying she hadn't meant to marginalize anyone and had actually vowed beforehand not to imply that all Wellesley students were women. But she said that under pressure, she found herself in a difficult spot: How could she maintain that women's colleges would lose something precious by including men, but at the same time argue that women's colleges should accommodate students who identify as men?

凱頓是校園裏一家學生咖啡館的經理，與勞拉是泛泛之交。他對勞拉的言辭很不高興，就給她發了封郵件，稱她的回答“極度不尊重人。”他還說，“我不是一個女人，我是你的畢業班的一位跨性男同學，你在採訪中完全忽視了我的存在… 你本來有機會向大家展示，衛爾斯理讓'全女子學院'的涵義變得更加複雜，但你的回答卻讓過去和現在的好多校友無所適從。”

Although it may seem paradoxical, Jesse Austin said he chose to attend Wellesley because being female never felt right to him. “I figured if I was any kind of woman, I'd find it there. I knew Wellesley would have strong women. They produce a ton of strong women, strong in all sorts of ways.”

勞拉道了歉，說她本來沒想邊緣化任何人，而且實際上在採訪前曾發誓不會暗示衛爾斯理所有的學生都是女性。但是她說，在採訪的壓力之下，她發現自己處於尷尬境地：她如何一方面聲稱女子學院如果招收男性學生會失去寶貴的精神內涵，但同時又認爲女子學院可以招收那些自認爲是男性的跨性學生？

When Jesse arrived on campus in the fall of 2009, his name was Sara. Eighteen years old, Sara wore form-fitting shirts and snug women's jeans, because growing up in a small, conservative town in Georgia, she learned that that's what girls were supposed to do — even though she never felt like a girl. As a child, Sara had always chosen to be male characters in pretend plays, and all her friends were boys. In middle school, those boys abandoned her because she was a social liability: not feminine enough to flirt with and not masculine enough to really be one of the guys. In high school, at the urging of well-intentioned female classmates, she started wearing her hair down instead of pulled back and began dressing like they did, even though people kept pointing out that she still acted and carried herself like a boy. "I had no idea that gender was something you could change," Jesse told me recently. "I just thought I needed to make myself fit into these fixed places: There are boys, and there are girls. I knew I didn't fit; I just didn't know what was wrong with me."

儘管這可能聽起來自相矛盾，但傑西·奧斯丁(Jesse Austin)說，他選擇來衛爾斯理上學，就是因爲他從來都覺得身爲女性不對勁。“我想，如果我真是任何一種類型的女性的話，我一定可以在那裏找到自我。我知道衛爾斯理有很多女強人，她們培養出了很多女強人，任何領域的都有。”

Around the middle of Sara's first year at Wellesley, she attended a presentation by trans alums, including one who was in the process of transitioning. As Sara listened, the gender dysphoria she'd always felt suddenly made sense. "It was all so clear to me," Jesse told me. "All I needed were the words." Sara spent the next two weeks scouring the Internet for videos and information on becoming a man. She learned that unlike previous generations, today's trans young adults don't consider physical transformation a prerequisite for identity. Some use hormones; some have their breasts removed in “top” surgery; some reject medical interventions altogether, as unnecessary invasions and expense. She discovered that sexual orientation is independent of gender: Some trans men are attracted to women, some to men, some to both. And she learned that trans men aren't necessarily determined to hide the fact they were raised as girls, or that they once attended a women's college.

傑西2009年秋天入學，當時他的名字還是莎拉。18歲的莎拉穿緊身襯衫和牛仔褲，因爲她在佐治亞州一個保守的小鎮上長大，清楚這就是女孩應該的樣子——儘管她從來都沒覺得自己像個女孩。小時候，在排演戲劇的時候她總是選擇男性角色， 她的朋友也都是男孩子。初中時，她的男孩朋友都棄她而去，因爲她成了個社會負擔：她女性化不足，沒法向她獻殷勤，又沒有男性化到成爲真的男孩。高中時，她在心存好意的女同學的勸告下留起頭髮，不再把頭髮向上梳，並且開始像其他女孩一樣裝扮，儘管其他人總是指出她的舉止言行仍舊像個男孩。“我根本不知道你可以變換自己的性別，”傑西最近對我說。“我只是想，自己需要符合那些固定的角色：男孩或者女孩。我知道自己格格不入，只是不知道自己究竟出了什麼問題。”

Soon after, Sara cut her hair short and bought her first pair of men's jeans. Sara told friends she was a man. By second semester, he was using male pronouns and calling himself Jesse, the other name his mother had considered for her daughter. He also joined a tiny campus group for students who knew or suspected they were trans men. It was called Brothers, a counterweight to the otherwise ubiquitous message of sisterhood.

莎拉在衛爾斯理第一年過半的時候，參加了一些跨性校友的講座，包括一位正在變性過程中的校友。她邊聽邊感覺到，自己一向爲性別身份感到的高度不安忽然開始有了意義。“一切對我來說都變得異常清楚，”他對我說。“他們的話正是我所需要的。”隨後兩個禮拜，莎拉在互聯網上搜尋關於如何變成男性的信息和視頻。她瞭解到，與前輩不同的是，當今的跨性別青年人並不認爲身體的變化是身份變化的前提。有些人會服用荷爾蒙，有些人會通過手術切除乳房，有些人則完全不接受醫療干預，認爲這是毫無必要地傷害自己的身體，而且浪費錢財。她瞭解到性取向是獨立於性別的：有些跨性男子對男性感興趣，有些對女性感興趣，有些則是雙性戀。她還了解到有些跨性男子並不一定要隱藏自己生爲女孩的事實，甚至願意承認自己上了女子大學。

That summer, Jesse saw a gender therapist, and early in his sophomore year, he began injecting testosterone into his thigh every two weeks, making him one of the first students to medically transform into a man while at Wellesley. He became the administrator of Brothers. Though he felt supported, he also felt alone; all the other trans men on campus had graduated, and the other students in Brothers were not even sure they identified as men. Outside Brothers, everything at Wellesley was still sisterhood and female empowerment. Nevertheless, he said, “I thought of Wellesley as my home, my community. I felt fine there, like I totally belonged.”

很快，莎拉就把頭髮剪短，買了第一條男式牛仔褲。她告訴朋友們自己是個男人。到了第二個學期，他開始使用男性代詞稱呼自己，並且改名傑西，他母親曾經考慮過給女兒起這個名字。他還參加了一個自認爲或懷疑自己是跨性人的學生組織“兄弟會”。他們取這個名字是爲了與校園裏無處不在的“姐妹情誼”信息相抗衡。

Jesse decided he wanted to have top surgery over winter break, and his parents agreed to pay for it. He returned for spring semester but only briefly, taking a sudden leave of absence to go home and help care for his ill father. When Jesse re-enrolled at Wellesley a year and a half later, in fall 2012, much had changed in Jesse and at school. Having been on testosterone for two years at that point, Jesse no longer looked like a woman trying to pass as a man. His voice was deep. His facial hair was thick, though he kept it trimmed to a stubble. His shoulders had become broad and muscular, his hips narrow, his arms and chest more defined.

當年夏天，傑西接受了性別治療師的輔導。大學二年級初期，他開始每兩週向大腿中注射睾酮，成爲衛爾斯理最早的通過醫療辦法變爲男性的在校生之一。他成爲“兄弟會”的管理員之一。儘管他感覺自己得到支持，但仍舊感到孤獨：學校裏所有其他的跨性男子都已經畢業了，“兄弟會”的其他成員並不確定自己是否自認爲男性。在“兄弟會”之外，整個衛爾斯理仍舊是“姐妹情誼”和“女性賦權”的天下。經管如此，他仍舊說：“我把衛爾斯理當做家，自己的社區，我在那裏感覺很好，歸屬感很強。”

Wellesley was different, too. By then, a whole crowd of people identified as trans — enough for two trans groups. Brothers had officially become Siblings and welcomed anyone anywhere on the gender spectrum except those who identified as women. Meanwhile, Jesse and some transmasculine students continued to meet unofficially as Brothers, though Jesse was the only one on testosterone.

傑西決定在冬季假期時手術切除乳房，他的父母也同意支付手術費用。他在春季學期回到學校，但很快就請長假回家看護生病的父親。一年半之後，2012年秋天，傑西重新入學衛爾斯理，但此時他和學校都已經發生了不少變化。在服用睾酮兩年之後，傑西已經不再像是試圖變裝爲男人的女人，他的嗓音低沉，鬍鬚濃密，儘管他把鬍子剪得很短。他的肩膀寬闊、肌肉飽滿，臀部修窄，手臂和胸部肌肉也更加有型。

Over all, campus life had a stronger trans presence than ever. At least four of the school's 70 R.A.s did not identify as women. Student organizations increasingly began meetings by asking everyone to state preferred names and pronouns. Around campus, more and more students were replacing "sisterhood” with "siblinghood" in conversation. Even the school's oldest tradition, Flower Sunday — the 138-year-old ceremony that paired each incoming student with an upper-class Big Sister to support her — had become trans-inclusive. Though the school website still describes Flower Sunday as "a day of sisterhood," the department that runs the event yielded to trans students' request and started referring to each participant as a Big or Little “Sister/Sibling" — or simply as Bigs and Littles.

衛爾斯理也不一樣了。學校裏多了很多自認爲跨性人的學生，成立了兩個組織。“兄弟會”正式改名爲“手足會”，除了那些自認爲女性的學生，歡迎任何其他學生加入。傑西和其他一些跨性男學生仍舊以“兄弟會”的名義非正式聚會，但傑西是唯一一位服用睾酮的。

And yet even with the increased visibility of trans students on campus, Jesse stood out. When he swiped his Wellesley ID card to get into friends' dorms, the groundskeepers would stop him and say, "You can't go in there without a woman to escort you." Residential directors who spotted him in the dorm stairwells told him the same thing. In his own dorm, parents who were visiting their daughters would stop him to ask why he was there. Because bathrooms in the dorms are not labeled “women” or “men” but rather “Wellesley only” and “non-Wellesley,” students who didn't know Jesse would call him out for using the “Wellesley only” bathroom instead of the one for visitors. When he tried to explain he was a Wellesley student, people sometimes thought he was lying.

總的來說，校園生活中從來沒有過如此之多的跨性人。整個學校70位學生研究助理中至少有4位自認爲跨性人。越來越多的學生組織會議開始之前首先詢問大家希望用什麼名字和代詞稱呼。在校園裏，越來越多的學生在談話中用“手足情誼”代替了“姐妹情誼”一詞。即使是衛爾斯理最古老的傳統“鮮花星期日”——這個傳統儀式已經138年曆史，爲每位新入學的學生找一位高年級的“大姐”來提供指導支持——也對跨性別學生更加包容。儘管學校網站仍舊描述“鮮花星期日”爲“姐妹情誼日”，但管理儀式的部門聽從了跨性學生的意見，開始稱呼每位參與者“手足”而非“姐妹”，或者簡稱“老生”或“新生”。

"Everything felt very different than it had before," he said of that semester. "I felt so distinctly male, and I felt extremely awkward. I felt like an outsider. My voice was jarring — a male voice, which is so distinct in a classroom of women — so I felt weird saying much in class. I felt much more aware of Wellesley as a women's place, even though the college was starting to change.”

儘管校園裏的跨性別學生越來越多，傑西仍舊很惹眼。當他刷自己的衛爾斯理身份卡進入朋友的宿舍時，看門人會攔住他說，“沒有女生陪同你不能進去。”舍監們在學生宿舍樓的樓梯間看到他，會說同樣的話。在他自己的宿舍樓，來探望女兒的家長們也會攔住他，問他爲什麼在女生宿舍裏。由於學校裏的衛生間不分男女而是“衛爾斯理學生專用”和“非衛爾斯理人士”，那些不認識他的學生有時也會指出他走錯了衛生間。當他回答說自己是衛爾斯理學生時，有時人們會認爲他說謊。

Once spring semester ended, Jesse withdrew. "I still think of Wellesley as a women's place, and I still think that's a wonderful idea," he said. "It just didn't encompass me anymore. I felt it was a space I shouldn't tread in.”

“每件事都跟過去大不一樣了，”他提起那個學期時說。“我感覺男性身份非常明顯，極度不自在。我感覺像個外人。我的嗓音刺耳——男性的嗓音，在一教室的女生中間非常突出——所以我在課堂講話過多會感覺奇怪。我對衛爾斯理女校的身份感覺異常明顯，儘管學校也在發生變化。”

Some female students, meanwhile, said Wellesley wasn't female enough. They complained among themselves and to the administration that sisterhood had been hijacked. "Siblinghood," they argued, lacked the warm, pro-women connotation of "sisterhood," as well as its historic resonance. Others were upset that even at a women's college, women were still expected to accommodate men, ceding attention and leadership opportunities intended for women. Still others feared the changes were a step toward coeducation. Despite all that, many were uneasy: As a marginalized group fighting for respect and clout, how could women justify marginalizing others?

春季學期結束後，傑西退學了。“我仍舊把衛爾斯理當做一所女子學校，我仍舊認爲這是個美妙的主意，”他說，“它只不過容不下我了，我感覺那是個我不應該踏足的地方。”

"I felt for the first time that something so stable about our school was about to change, and it made me scared," said Beth, a junior that year, who asked to be identified by only her middle name because she was afraid of offending people she knew. "Changing 'sister' to 'sibling 'didn't feel like it was including more people; it felt like it was taking something away from sisterhood, transforming our safe space for the sake of someone else. At the same time, I felt guilty feeling that way." Beth went to Kris Niendorf, the director of residential life, who listened sympathetically and then asked: Why does "sibling” take away from your experience? After thinking about it, Beth concluded that she was connected to her classmates not because of gender but because of their shared experiences at Wellesley. "That year was an epiphany for me. I realized that if we excluded trans students, we'd be fighting on the wrong team. We'd be on the wrong side of history."

但是，有些女性學生認爲衛爾斯理仍舊不夠女性化。她們互相之間，並且向學校管理層抱怨說，“姐妹情誼”被綁架了。她們說“手足情”缺乏“姐妹情”包含的那種溫暖、親女性的意味，也缺乏歷史淵源。其他人則對女子學校需要包容男性感到不滿，認爲這沖淡了對女性的關注和本來專屬女子的領袖地位。其他人則擔心這些變化是向男女同校走近了一步。儘管如此，也有很多人感到良心不安：作爲一個遭受邊緣化待遇而努力爭取尊敬和力量的羣體，女性怎麼能夠再去邊緣化其他羣體？

Exactly how Wellesley will resolve the trans question is still unclear. Trans students say that aside from making sure every academic building on campus has a unisex bathroom, Wellesley has not addressed what gender fluidity means for Wellesley's identity. Last spring, Alex Poon won Wellesley's 131-year-old hoop-rolling race, an annual spirit-building competition among seniors. Alex's mother was the hoop-rolling champion of the Class of '82 and had long ago taught her daughters the ways of the hoop, on the assumption that they would one day attend her alma mater. (One of Alex's older sisters was Wellesley Class of '11; another went to Bryn Mawr.) Alex was a former Girl Scout who attended an all-girls high school. But unknown to his mother, he was using Google to search for an explanation for his confusing feelings. By the time Alex applied to Wellesley, he secretly knew he was trans but was nonetheless certain Wellesley was a good fit. For one thing, going there was a family tradition; for another, it was a place where gender could be reimagined. In his sophomore year at Wellesley, he went public with his transgender status.

“我第一次感到，我們學院如此根深蒂固的傳統即將改變，這讓我害怕，”大二學生貝絲說。她要求只使用自己的中間名，因爲她害怕冒犯她認識的人。“把'姐妹'改成'手足'聽起來並沒有包容更多的人，而是把'姐妹情誼'中的某些東西拿走了，爲了其他人把我們這個安全的地方改變了。但是同時，我也因爲自己有這種想法而感到內疚。”貝絲去見了住校生活主管克里斯·尼恩多夫(Kris Niendorf)。後者耐心地聽她講了自己的疑慮，然後問道：“手足情”這種說法讓你的校園生活有何損失？仔細考慮過後，貝絲的結論是，她與同學們的情誼並非來自性別，而是她們在衛爾斯理共同的經歷。

On hoop-rolling day, Alex — wearing a cap backward on his buzz-cut hair — broke through the finish-line streamer. President H. Kim Bottomly took a selfie with him, each with a wide smile. A small local newspaper covered the event, noting that for the first time in the school's history, the winner was a man. And yet the page on Wellesley's website devoted to school traditions continues to describe the race as if it involves only women. "Back in the day, it was proclaimed that whoever won the Hoop Roll would be the first to get married. In the status-seeking 1980s, she was the first to be C.E.O. Now we just say that the winner will be the first to achieve happiness and success, whatever that means to her." But Alex isn't a her, and he told me that his happiness and success includes being recognized for what he is: a man.

衛爾斯理學院具體將如何解決跨性別學生的問題，尚不得而知。跨性別學生們說，除了確保在學校的每座教學樓都提供了男女通用衛生間以外，衛爾斯理學院還未能解決跨性別問題究竟對“衛爾斯理身份”有何影響。去年春天，阿歷克斯·普恩(Alex Poon)贏得了衛爾斯理具有131年曆史的“滾鐵圈比賽”冠軍，這是一項在四年級學生中舉辦的鍛鍊意志的比賽。阿歷克斯的母親曾是1982年的滾鐵圈比賽冠軍，很久以前就已經教會了自己的女兒滾鐵圈的祕訣，因爲她期待女兒們同樣到自己的母校讀書。（阿歷克斯的一位姐姐是衛爾斯理2011年畢業生，另一位姐姐則去了布林茅爾女子學院[Bryn Mawr]女子學院讀書）。阿歷克斯曾做過女童子軍，高中也在全女子學校就讀。但是他的母親不知道的是，他一直在用谷歌來搜索答案：爲什麼自己關於性別身份一直感到如此困惑。當他申請衛爾斯理學院的時候，他已經私下知道自己是跨性人，但仍然確認衛爾斯理是自己最佳的選擇。首先，去衛爾斯理上學是家族傳統；另外，這裏也接受重新考慮自己性別的學生。在衛爾斯理上到大二的時候，他公開了自己的跨性身份。

That page is not the only place on the site where Wellesley markets itself as a school of only female students. Elsewhere, it crows that "all the most courageous, most provocative, most accomplished people on campus are women.” The student body, it says, is "2,300 smart, singular women feeling the power of 2,300 smart, singular women together" on a campus where "our common identity, spirit and pride as Wellesley women" are celebrated. Those sorts of messages, trans students say, make them feel invisible.

在滾鐵圈比賽那一天，剪了短寸髮型的阿歷克斯戴了一頂帽子，第一個衝過了終點。校長H·金 ·波託姆利(H. Kim Bottomly)與阿歷克斯拍了自拍照，兩個人都笑容滿面。一家本地小報報道了這次比賽，並且提到這是該校歷史上首次由男學生贏得這一比賽。但是，學校網站上關於校史傳統的頁面仍舊把比賽描述得好像仍舊只有女生參加一樣。“當年，大家宣稱滾鐵圈比賽的冠軍將是同學中第一位結婚的學生；在注重地位的1980年代，她將成爲同學中的第一位CEO ；現在，我們則說冠軍將是最早獲得幸福與成功的人，無論這對她來說意味着什麼。”但是阿歷克斯不是“她”，而他告訴我說，幸福和成功的涵義包括自己的男性身份能夠得到認可。

"I just wish the administration would at least acknowledge our existence," said Eli Cohen, a Wellesley senior who has been taking testosterone for nearly a year. "I'd be more O.K. with 'We're not going to cater to you, because men are catered to everywhere else in life,' rather than just pretending we don't exist."

這個頁面並不是衛爾斯理網站上唯一仍舊標榜這是一家只收女生的學院的地方。網站上還說，“學校裏所有最勇敢、最具挑動性、最成功的人士都是女性” ；“2,300名聰穎、獨特的女性感受着2,300名聰穎、獨特的女性團結在一起的力量”；“我們作爲衛爾斯理女生共同的身份、精神和驕傲” 等等。跨性別學生說，這種信息讓他們感覺自己彷彿並不存在。

Some staff and faculty members, however, are acknowledging the trans presence. Women-and-gender-studies professors, and a handful of others, typically begin each semester asking students to indicate the names and pronouns they prefer for themselves. Kris Niendorf, director of campus and residential life, recruits trans students who want to be R.A.s., as she does with all minorities. Niendorf also initiated informational panels with trans students and alums. And before this school year began, at the urging of trans students, Niendorf required all 200 student leaders to attend a trans-sensitivity workshop focused on how to "create a more inclusive Wellesley College." For the last few years, orientation organizers have also included a trans student as one of the half-dozen upper-class students who stand before the incoming first-years and recount how they overcame a difficult personal challenge.

“我只是希望校方能至少承認我們的存在，”伊萊·科恩(Eli Cohen)說。他是一位衛爾斯理大四學生，已經服用睾酮將近一年。“哪怕對我說'我們不會遷就你們，因爲男人在社會任何其他地方總是得到遷就'我也可以接受，至少不要假裝我們不存在。”

And yet many trans students feel that more needs to be done. They complain that too many professors assume all their students are women. Students provided numerous examples in courses across subject areas where they've been asked their viewpoint "as a woman." In a course on westerns two years ago, an essay assignment noted that western films and novels were aimed at male audiences and focused on masculinity. The professors asked students for their perspective "as a female reader or watcher" — wording that offended the three trans students in class. When a classmate pointed out the problematic wording to the professors, the instructors asked everyone instead "to explore how your own gender identity changes how you approach westerns."

但是，有些教職工已經認可了跨性別學生的存在。女性與性別研究學科的教授們，以及其他一些教員，一般在每學期開始的時候都會問學生們希望別人以什麼名字和代詞稱呼自己。住校生活主管克里斯·尼恩多夫會招募跨性別學生做助理研究員，同樣也會招募任何其他少數羣體學生。尼恩多夫還牽頭請跨性別學生和校友做相關講座。在本學期開始之前，在跨性別學生的倡議之下，尼恩多夫要求全校200位學生領袖參加尊重跨性別學生工作室，焦點是“如何建設更加包容的衛爾斯理學院”。過去幾年，迎新活動中首先歡迎新生的6位高年級學生中，總會包括一位跨性別學生，他們共同向新生講述如何勇敢面對人生挑戰。

At times, professors find themselves walking a fine line. Thomas Cushman, who has taught sociology at Wellesley for the last 25 years, first found out about Wellesley's trans population five years ago, after a student in one of his courses showed up at Cushman's office and introduced himself as a trans male. The student pointed out that every example Cushman gave in class referred to women, and every generic pronoun he used was female, as in "Ask your classmate if she. . . . " He told Cushman that Wellesley could no longer call itself a "women's college," given the presence of trans men, and he asked Cushman to use male pronouns and male examples more often, so trans students didn't feel excluded. Cushman said he would abide by whatever pronoun individual students requested for themselves, but he drew the line at changing his emphasis on women.

但是，仍有許多跨性別學生認爲學校可以做得更多。他們抱怨說，太多的教授們想當然地認爲所有學生都是女性。學生們提供了各種課程中的很多例子，教授們請她們講述“作爲女性”的觀點。在兩年前一門關於西部片的課程上，一份論文作業提到西部片和小說都是以男性爲目標受衆，關注男人氣概。教授們要求學生提供“作爲女性讀者或觀衆的視角。”這種語言冒犯了課堂上的三位跨性別學生。當有同學向教授指出問題時，一位教師改問學生“你們自己的性別身份如何改變你們對西部片的態度。”

"All my life here,” Cushman told me, "I've been compelled to use the female pronoun more generously to get away from the sexist 'he.' I think it's important to evoke the idea that women are part of humanity. That should be affirmed, especially after being denied for so long. Look, I teach at a women's college, so whenever I can make women's identity central to that experience, I try to do that. Being asked to change that is a bit ironic. I don't agree that this is a 'historically' women's college. It is still a women's college."

有時，教授們也如履薄冰。已經在衛爾斯理教授社會學25年的托馬斯·庫什曼(Thomas Cushman)最初注意到學校裏的跨性人羣是在5年前。當時，他課上的一位學生來到他的辦公室，自我介紹爲跨性男性。他向庫什曼指出，他在課堂上提到的每個範例都是指向女性，用到的每個泛指代詞也都是女性代詞，比如“問問你的同學她是否……”他對庫什曼說，由於跨性別男性學生的存在，衛爾斯理已經不能再自稱爲一家“女子學院”，並且要求庫什曼更多使用男性代詞、男性例子，免得讓跨性學生產生被排斥的感覺。庫什曼說，他願意按照每位學生的意願使用相關代詞，但他的底線是仍舊保持對女生的側重。

On the second day of orientation this fall, Eli Cohen arrived on campus in a muscle T and men's shorts, with a carabiner full of keys hanging from his belt loop. He was elated to be back to the place that felt most like home. It was the first time in four years that Eli had not been part of orientation — first as a newcomer and then two years as an R.A. We hung out in the Lulu Chow Wang Campus Center, known affectionately as Lulu, and watched the excited first-years flutter by, clutching their orientation schedules and their newly purchased Wellesley wear.

“我在這裏的整個教學生涯，我都在被要求更多使用女性代詞，以對抗性別主義的'他'。我認爲強調女性的社會地位是很重要的，這需要加以特別指出，尤其是在女性被剝奪權利如此之久以後。這麼說吧：我在一所女子學院教書，任何能強調突出女性身份的事情，我都會做。如果有人讓我改變這一點，那可有點諷刺。我不認可衛爾斯理'歷史上曾經是'一所女校，這裏仍舊是女校。”

Just 12 days earlier, Eli underwent top surgery, which he said gave him a newfound self-assurance in his projection of manhood. It had been nine months since he started testosterone, and the effects had become particularly noticeable over the three-month summer break. His jaw line had begun to square, his limbs to thicken and the hair on his arms and legs to darken. And of course now his chest was a flat wall. As his friends caught sight of him for the first time in months, they hugged him and gushed, "You look sooo good!"

秋季學期迎新活動的第二天，伊萊·科恩返回校園，身穿緊身T恤衫和男式短褲，腰帶扣掛着登山環，上面掛滿了鑰匙，回到這個讓他有家一樣感覺的校園，他很興奮。四年來，他頭一次沒有參加迎新活動——他最初是作爲新生參加， 後來兩年是作爲助理研究員。我們在璐璐·周·王(Lulu Chow Wang)校園活動中心閒聊，這裏被學生們親切地稱爲“璐璐”。我們看着興奮的新生匆匆走過，手裏拿着迎新日程表和新買的衛爾斯理校服。

Though Eli secretly suspected in high school that he was a boy, it wasn't until after he arrived at Wellesley that he could imagine he might one day declare himself a man. By his second year, he had buzz-cut his hair and started wearing men's clothes. He asked his friends to call him Beckett, which is similar to his female birth name, which he asked me not to mention. His parents live only 14 miles away and dropped by for short visits. He left his girl nameplate on his dorm door. His friends understood that whenever his parents arrived, everyone was to revert to his female name and its attendant pronouns. He was an R.A. at the time and decided not to reveal his male name to his first-year students, figuring it was too complicated to explain which name to use when.

剛剛在12天前，伊萊做了乳房切除術，他說手術讓他對自己的男性形象感到更加自信。他在9個月前開始服用睾酮，過去三個月的暑假，睾酮的效果尤其明顯。他的下巴線條更加棱角分明，肢體健壯了，手臂和腿上的毛髮顏色更深了。當然，現在他的胸部也平了。他的朋友們見到他時，都擁抱他並興奮地說：“你好帥！”

Given how guarded he had to be, being Beckett was exhausting and anxiety-inducing. Demoralized, he eventually told his pals to just use his birth name. The summer after his sophomore year, he got an internship at a Boston health center serving the L.G.B.T. community, and many of his co-workers were trans. Their confidence gave him confidence. When the Wellesley office that coordinates internships sent out an email to all interns that began, "Good morning, ladies . . . ," he emailed back to say he did not identify as a woman. The coordinator apologized and explained that all the names on her paperwork from Wellesley were female.

儘管伊萊在高中時就懷疑自己應該是個男孩，但只有在來到衛爾斯理之後，他才能想象自己某天將變成一個男人。到了大二，他把頭髮剪成短寸，開始穿男性衣裝。他讓朋友們稱自己貝克特，發音類似父母給他起的女名，他還讓我不要提這個名字。他的父母家離這裏只有14英里，時不時會來看望他。宿舍門上的名牌仍舊是他的女名。他的朋友們也知道，每當父母來看他時，要用他的女名和女性代詞來稱呼他，他當時是一位助理研究員，並沒有告訴自己的一年級學生他的男性名字，擔心他們弄不清楚究竟用哪個名字稱呼他。

By summer's end, he began introducing himself as Eli, a name utterly unlike his birth name. Eli mustered the courage to tell his parents. It took a little while for his mother to accept that her only daughter was actually a son, but she came around.

他整天都要提心吊膽，當貝克特讓他感到精疲力盡，神經緊張。他一度灰心喪氣，讓朋友們乾脆以女名稱呼自己算了。他大二之後的暑假，在波士頓一家服務LGBT人羣的醫療中心實習，他的很多同事都是跨性人士。他們的自信也讓他重拾信心。當衛爾斯理的實習生協調辦公室發郵件給實習生們，以“早上好，女士們”開頭時，他回信說他並不自認爲女性。協調負責人回信道歉，解釋說這是因爲她的文件記錄一直顯示他用的是女名。

When I asked Eli if trans men belonged at Wellesley, he said he felt torn. “I don't necessarily think we have a right to women's spaces. But I'm not going to transfer, because this is a place I love, a community I love. I realize that may be a little selfish. It may be a lot selfish.” Where, he wondered, should Wellesley draw a line, if a line should even be drawn? At trans men? At transmasculine students? What about students who are simply questioning their gender? Shouldn't students be “free to explore" without fearing their decision will make them unwelcome?

暑假結束時，他已經開始自我介紹爲伊萊，這個名字跟他的女名一點也不像。伊萊終於鼓起勇氣告訴父母。他的母親用了一段時間才接受自己的獨女變成了獨子的事實，但還是接受了。

Other trans students have struggled with these questions, too. Last December, a transmasculine Wellesley student wrote an anonymous blog post that shook the school's trans community. The student wrote to apologize for "acting in the interest of preserving a hurtful system of privileging masculinity." He continued: "My feelings have changed: I do not think that trans men belong at Wellesley. . . . This doesn't mean that I think that all trans men should be kicked out of Wellesley or necessarily denied admission.” He acknowledged he didn't know how Wellesley could best address the trans question, but urged fellow transmasculine classmates to "start talking, and thinking critically, about the space that we are given and occupying, and the space that we are taking from women.”

當我問伊萊跨性男是否屬於衛爾斯理時，他說他也感到矛盾。“我並不一定覺得我們有權使用女性空間，但我也不會轉學，因爲我愛這裏，愛這個環境。我知道這可能有點自私，可能很自私。”他也發問，如果衛爾斯理需要做出選擇，底線究竟應該畫在哪裏？跨性男學生，還是偏男性的跨性學生？那些對自己的性別有疑問的學生呢？難道學生們不應該自由地探索，並且不必擔心他們的決定會讓自己變成“不受歡迎人士”嗎？

The reactions were swift and strong. "A lot of trans people on campus felt emotionally unsafe," recalled Timothy, a sophomore that year. "A place that seemed welcoming suddenly wasn't. The difficulty was that because it was a trans person saying it, people who don't have enough of an understanding to appreciate the nuance of this can say, 'Well, even a trans person says there shouldn't be trans people at Wellesley, so it's O.K. for me to think the same thing, too.' "

其他跨性學生也曾爲這樣的問題苦苦掙扎。去年12月，一位偏男性的跨性學生匿名寫了一篇博客，讓衛爾斯理的跨性學生羣體爲之震動。這位學生爲“維護傷人的男性特權體制”表示道歉，說“我的想法已經改變了：我不認爲跨性男性學生屬於衛爾斯理…但這也不意味着我認爲所有的跨性男性學生應該被開除，或者被拒絕錄取。”他承認，自己也不知道衛爾斯理該如何處理跨性學生問題，但呼籲其他偏向男性的跨性學生“開始批評地討論和思考我們被給予並佔據的這個空間，這個我們從女性手中奪取的空間。”

Students and alums — queer and straight, trans and not — weighed in, sometimes in agreement but other times in anger. Some accused the blogger of speaking on behalf of women as if they were unable to speak for themselves. Others accused him of betraying transmasculine students. (He declined to comment for this article.) But other students, including several transmasculine ones, were glad he had the courage to start a public discussion about Wellesley's deeply conflicted identity. "It's a very important conversation to have," Eli said. "Why can't we have this conversation without feeling hurt or hated?"

這封信印發了迅猛的反響。“校園裏的很多跨性學生在感情上感覺受到了威脅，”提摩西回憶道。他當時上大二。“一度讓我們感到受歡迎的空間忽然不歡迎我們了。困難之處在於，因爲是一位跨性學生自己提出這種說法，那些並不瞭解複雜情況的人可以說，'好吧，連跨性學生自己都說衛爾斯理不該有跨性學生，那我這麼想也沒錯了。'”

In some ways, students are already having that conversation, though perhaps indirectly. Timothy ended up easily winning his seat on the student government last spring, capturing two-thirds of the votes. Given that 85 percent of the student body cast ballots in that race, his victory suggests most students think that transmasculine students — and transmasculine leaders — belong at Wellesley.

許多學生和校友，無論是同性戀、異性戀、跨性人還是其他人，都參與了討論，有些人能夠達成共識，其他人則很憤怒。有些人指責寫博客的學生替女生說話，彷彿她們自己不會發聲。其他人則指責他背叛了跨性男學生（他就此文拒絕發表評論）。但也有其他學生，包括幾位跨性學生，對他能夠鼓起勇氣、對衛爾斯理飽受爭議的性別身份問題而發起公開討論感到高興。“這種討論很重要，”伊萊說。“我們爲什麼不能在不傷害或憎恨別人的情況下展開討論呢？”

Another difficult conversation about trans students touches on the disproportionate attention they receive on campus. “The female-identified students somehow place more value on those students," said Rose Layton, a lesbian who said she views trans students as competitors in the campus dating scene. "They flirt with them, hook up with them. And it's not just the hetero women, but even people in the queer community. The trans men are always getting this extra bit of acknowledgment. Even though we're in a women's college, the fact is men and masculinity get more attention and more value in this social dynamic than women do."

在某種意義上，學生們早已就這個問題開始對話了，儘管並不直接。提摩西去年春天輕鬆連任學生政府的職位，贏得了三分之二的選票。考慮到衛爾斯理百分之八十五的學生都參與投票，他的連任意味着多數學生認爲跨性男學生——包括跨性男學生領袖——是屬於衛爾斯理的。

Jesse Austin noticed the paradox when he returned to campus with a man's build and full swath of beard stubble after nearly two years on testosterone. “That was the first time in my life I was popular! People were clamoring to date me.”

另外一個關於跨性學生的艱難話題是關於他們在校園裏受到的異常關注。“女生們似乎給予這些學生額外的價值，”羅絲·萊頓(Rose Layton)說。她是一位同性戀，把跨性學生們當做校園情場的競爭對手。“她們跟跨性學生們打情罵俏，跟他們交往。不光是異性戀女生們，甚至同性戀人羣也是這樣。那些跨性男總是得到額外的認可。儘管我們是在一所女校，但現實是，在這樣的社會環境裏，男性和男人味總是能比女性獲得更多關注。”

Trans bodies are seen as an in-between option, Timothy said. “So no matter your sexuality, a trans person becomes safe to flirt with, to explore with. But it's not really the person you're interested in, it's the novelty. For lesbians, there's the safety of 'I may be attracted to this person, but they're "really" a woman, so I'm not actually bi or straight.' And for straight people, it's 'I may be attracted to a woman's body, but he's a male, so I'm not really lesbian or bi.' ”

傑西·奧斯丁回到校園之後就注意到了這種矛盾。在服用睾酮將近兩年之後，他已經擁有男性的身材，滿臉鬍子茬。“那是我這輩子頭一次如此搶手！人們搶着和我約會。”跨性人的身體被認爲是居中的選擇，提摩西說。“無論你的性取向，跨性人總是被認爲可以安全地與之調情、一起探索。但你感興趣的並不是這個人，而是這種新鮮感。對於女同性戀來說，有一種安全感，或者是'我也許被這個人吸引，但他實際上是個女人，所以我並不算雙性戀或異性戀'的感覺。對於異性戀來說，則是'我也許被這個女人的身體吸引， 但他是個男的，所以我不算同性戀或異性戀。'”

Kaden Mohamed said he felt downright objectified when he returned from summer break last year, after five months of testosterone had lowered his voice, defined his arm muscles and reshaped his torso. It was attention that he had never experienced before he transitioned. But as his body changed, students he didn't even know would run their hands over his biceps. Once at the school pub, an intoxicated Wellesley woman even grabbed his crotch and that of another trans man.

凱頓·穆罕默德則說，當他去年暑假結束回到校園後，他感覺自己簡直被物化爲性對象了。服用了五個月的睾酮後，他的嗓音低沉，手臂肌肉有了線條，身材也魁梧了。他在跨性之前從來沒受到過這麼多關注。身體發生變化後，他不認識的學生都會來撫摸他的二頭肌。有一次在學校酒吧，一位喝醉酒的衛爾斯理女生甚至抓了他還有另外一位變性男的下體。

"It's this very bizarre reversal of what happens in the real world," Kaden said. "In the real world, it's women who get fetishized, catcalled, sexually harassed, grabbed. At Wellesley, it's trans men who do. If I were to go up to someone I just met and touch her body, I'd get grief from the entire Wellesley community, because they'd say it's assault — and it is. But for some reason, when it's done to trans men here, it doesn't get read the same way. It's like a free pass, that suddenly it's O.K. to talk about or touch someone's body as long as they're not a woman."

“這簡直是現實世界裏情況的詭異逆轉，”凱頓說。“在現實世界裏，是女性遭到物化對待，被言語調戲，被性騷擾，被鹹豬手。但在衛爾斯理，則是變性男遭受這種待遇。如果我剛剛對陌生女生上下其手，整個衛爾斯理校園都會同聲譴責，因爲她們會說這是性侵犯——那的確是性侵犯。但不知爲何，如果是變性男在這裏受到同等待遇，就不會被如此解讀。這簡直是免責金牌：忽然之間，談論或觸摸別人的身體不會有問題了，只要他們不是女人。”

While trans men are allowed at most women's colleges if they identify as female when applying, trans women — people raised male who go on to identify as women — have found it nearly impossible to get through the campus gates. Arguably, a trans woman's identity is more compatible with a women's college than a trans man's is. But most women's colleges require that all of an applicant's documentation indicate the candidate is female. That's a high bar for a 17- or 18-year-old born and raised male, given that so few come out as trans in high school. (Admissions policies at private undergraduate schools are exempt from Title IX, which bans gender discrimination at schools receiving federal funds.) Two years ago, Calliope Wong, a high-school trans woman from Connecticut, applied to Smith College, but her application was returned because her federal aid form indicated she was male. She posted the rejection letter online, catalyzing a storm on the Internet and student rallies at Smith. Smith eventually agreed to require that the applicant be referred to as female only in the transcript and recommendation letters, but not on financial-aid documents; by then, however, Wong had decided to attend the University of Connecticut.

只要他們在申請入學時自稱爲女性，後來跨性爲男性的學生仍夠能被多數女校所接納；但是跨性女——那些生爲男性，但後來自認爲是女性的人——卻幾乎沒有任何可能進入女校大門。從某種角度講，跨性女的身份比跨性男更加符合女校的要求。但是多數女子學院要求申請者所有的身份材料都證明她是女性。這對那些生爲男性的十七八歲的跨性人來說要求太高了，因爲他們中很少有人在高中就時就能確立跨性身份。（私立本科學校的入學政策豁免於美國教育法修正案第九條管轄，該條款規定那些接受聯邦撥款的學校不得實施性別歧視。）兩年前，來自康涅狄格州的跨性女高中生卡莉歐佩·黃(Calliope Wong)申請就讀史密斯學院，但她的申請材料被退回，因爲她的聯邦助學金錶格顯示她是男性。她把拒絕信發到網上，引發了討論熱潮和史密斯學院的學生抗議。最終，史密斯同意只要求申請者的成績單和推薦信證明她們身爲女性，財務證明文件不需要如此證明；但那時候卡莉歐佩·黃已經決定在康涅狄格大學就讀了。

For its part, Wellesley has never admitted a trans woman, at least not knowingly. Many Wellesley students, including some who are uncomfortable having trans men on campus, say that academically eligible trans women should be admitted, regardless of the gender on their application documents.

衛爾斯理從來沒有錄取過變性女學生，至少沒有在明知對方身份的時候錄取過。很多衛爾斯理學生，包括一些對校園裏有變性男學生感到不舒服的人，認爲只要學業表現符合要求，變性女學生應該也被錄取，無論她們申請材料上顯示的性別如何。

Others are wary of opening Wellesley's doors too quickly — including one of Wellesley's trans men, who asked not to be named because he knew how unpopular his stance would be. He said that Wellesley should accept only trans women who have begun sex-changing medical treatment or have legally changed their names or sex on their driver's licenses or birth certificates. "I know that's a lot to ask of an 18-year-old just applying to college," he said, "but at the same time, Wellesley needs to maintain its integrity as a safe space for women. What if someone who is male-bodied comes here genuinely identified as female, and then decides after a year or two that they identify as male — and wants to stay at Wellesley? How's that different from admitting a biological male who identifies as a man? Trans men are a different case; we were raised female, we know what it's like to be treated as females and we have been discriminated against as females. We get what life has been like for women."

其他人則對過早敞開學校大門感到擔憂——包括一位跨性男在校生。他要求匿名，因爲他知道自己的立場將受到批評。他說，衛爾斯理應該只接收那些已經開始用醫學手段變性，或者合法修改了出生證明和駕駛執照上名字的跨性女生。“我知道這對一個剛剛開始申請大學的18歲學生來說是很高的要求，”他說。“但同時，衛爾斯理需要保持它作爲一間讓女生感到安全的學校的名聲。如果那些仍具有男性身體，但認爲自己是女性的人來到學校，但是過了一兩年後又想當回男性，並且希望繼續留在學校，那怎麼辦？那跟生爲男性、也自認爲男性的男人有什麼區別？跨性男情況不一樣；我們生爲女性，知道女性受到何種待遇，我們身爲女性時也受到過歧視。我們理解女性的遭遇。”

In May, Mills College became the first women's college to broaden its admissions policy to include self-identified trans women, even those who haven't legally or medically transitioned and even if their transcripts or recommendation letters refer to them as male. The new policy, which begins by affirming Mills's commitment to remaining a women's college, also welcomes biological females who identify anywhere on the gender spectrum, as long as they haven't become legally male. The change grew out of two years of study by a committee of faculty and staff, which noted that Mills has always fought gender-based oppression and concluded, “Trans inclusiveness represents not an erasure but an updating of this mission.”

五月時，米爾斯學院成爲首家破例的女子學院。它拓寬招生政策，接受那些自認爲女性的變性女生申請，包括那些尚未以醫學手段或合法變性的學生，甚至那些在成績單和推薦信上仍被指爲男性的學生。新的招生政策說明開頭重申，米爾斯學院將保持女子學院的身份，並且歡迎那些生爲女子的學生，無論他們自認爲自己在性別光譜上身處何處，只要他們尚未合法變爲男性。這項改革來自於一個教職工委員會兩年來的研究。說明指出，米爾斯從來都與基於性別的壓迫相鬥爭，並以此做爲結語：“對跨性人羣的包容，不是推翻上述宗旨，而是與時俱進。”

Mills also aims to educate students, staff and faculty members to be more trans inclusive, said Brian O'Rourke, who oversees enrollment at the college and was the president's liaison to the committee. I asked O'Rourke if that included reducing the focus on women in the classroom. "I honestly don't know," he said. "We had a national speaker on trans issues join us on campus about a year ago, and one of the things she suggested is that we stop referring to Mills as a women's college, because that concept is exclusionary. In the auditorium, there was an audible gasp. We've had a lot of conversations about how to stress women's leadership and women's empowerment and at the same time, include people who may not identify as women. The answer is: We don't know yet."

米爾斯學院招生主任、校長與該委員會的聯絡人布萊恩·奧洛克(Brian O'Rourke)表示，學校將教育學生和教職工，讓她們對跨性人更加包容。我問奧洛克，這是否包括削弱對女性學生的關注。“說實話我不知道，”他說。“一位曾在跨性問題上發表全國演講的學生去年就讀米爾斯，她向我們建議的前幾件事之一就是，不要再說米爾斯是家女子學院，因爲這個概念本身就是排他的。在學校講堂，在她提出這個要求之後，你能聽到大家的驚歎聲。與此同時，我們仍舊組織了大量討論，如何強調女性的領導地位，女性賦權，那些不認爲自己是女性的學生也參與了。我們的答案是，我們還不確定。”

Last month, Mount Holyoke College announced a more far-reaching policy: It would admit all academically qualified students regardless of their anatomy or self-proclaimed gender, except for those biologically male at birth who still identify as male. In a list that reflects just how much traditional notions of gender have been upended, Mount Holyoke said eligible candidates now include anyone born biologically female, whether identified as woman, man, neither or "other" and anyone born biologically male who identifies as a woman or "other." The school president, Lynn Pasquerella, said she and her officers made the decision after concluding it was an issue of civil rights.

上個月，曼荷蓮學院宣佈了重大政策變革：它將向所有學業符合要求的學生放開申請，無論他們的生理性別或自認性別，僅僅排除那些生爲男性並且自認爲是男性的學生。學院發表了一份清單，表示適合申請者包括任何生爲女性的學生，無論她們自認爲女性，男性，或是“其他”；還包括那些生爲男性，但是自我認爲女性或“其他”的學生，這個清單顯示了傳統的性別觀念已經被顛覆到何種程度。校長琳·帕斯克萊拉(Lynn Pasquerella)說，她和學校管理層認爲這是個民權問題，因而做出如此決定。

But Pasquerella said accommodations for trans students will not include changing the school's mission. "We're first and foremost committed to being a women's college,” she told me. "I'm not going to stop using the language of sisterhood." She mentioned she taught a class in critical race theory two years ago and told her students, "When I use the term 'sisterhood,' I'm using it in a way that acknowledges the fact that not everybody here identifies as a woman. It is a rhetorical device . . . , but it is not intended to exclude anybody."

但是帕斯克萊拉說，包容跨性學生的新政策並不包括改變學校宗旨。“我們首先，並且最重要的承諾是，我們是一家女子學院。”她對我說。“我不會停用'姐妹情'這樣的詞彙。”她提到，她兩年前教授一門“批判種族理論”的課程，當時對她的學生說：“當我使用'姐妹情'這個詞時，我認可校園裏並不是每個人都自認爲女性。它是一個修辭工具…但並不意味着排斥任何人。”

I said her explanation seemed like the one for using "he" as a generic pronoun for a male or female. She offered a different analogy, noting the parallel between women's colleges and historically black colleges and universities. “Isn't it still legitimate to speak of being a community of color even if you have half a dozen students who aren't individuals of color?” she asked. “The same might be said about women's colleges. Our mission was built upon education for women, and while we recognize that not everyone identifies this way, this is who we are and how we talk about things.”

我說，她的解釋接近於使用男性的“他”來不確定地指代男性或女性。她提出另一組對比：女子學院與歷史上曾經存在的黑人大學或學院有共通之處。“現在，即使一個學校裏有少數幾個非有色人種學生，我們不是仍舊可以合理地說這是一個有色人種學校？”她問道。“同樣情況可以適用於女子學院。我們的宗旨肇始於讓女性受教育，儘管我們認可並非每個學生都自認爲女性，這仍舊是我們的身份所在，我們仍舊要這麼講話。”

Meanwhile, Wellesley continues to struggle with its own identity. In August, Debra DeMeis, the dean of students, told me the administration had not yet worked out how to be a women's college at a time when gender is no longer considered binary. President H. Kim Bottomly and Jennifer C. Desjarlais, the dean of admissions, declined to talk to me. But a few days after Mount Holyoke's announcement, Bottomly released a statement saying that Wellesley would begin to think about how to address the trans question.

與此同時，衛爾斯理仍舊就它的身份問題苦苦掙扎。今年8月，學生處主任黛博拉·德梅斯(Debra DeMeis)告訴我說，校方仍舊沒能想清楚，在性別已非二選一的當今社會，一家女子學院將如何存在。校長H·金 ·波託姆利和招生處主任珍妮佛·德夏萊(Jennifer C. Desjarlais)謝絕向我發表評論。但是在曼荷蓮宣佈改革政策幾天後，波託姆利校長髮表聲明，說衛爾斯理也將開始考慮如何面對跨性學生問題。

On the last Friday in May, some 5,000 parents, alumnae and soon-to-be graduates streamed onto the rolling field near Severance Hall, named after Elisabeth Severance, a generous 1887 alumna. It was a gorgeous, temperate morning for Wellesley's 136th annual commencement, and once the last baccalaureate degree was conferred, the audience was asked to stand. As is the school's tradition, two graduates led an uplifting rendition of "America, the Beautiful." The lyrics, for those who needed them, were printed in the commencement program, including the chorus: “And crown thy good, with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea!"

5月的最後一個星期五，5000多名家長、校友和即將畢業的學生涌入衛爾斯理學院塞弗倫斯大樓附近的寬闊場地，這個大樓是以一位慷慨的1887年畢業生伊麗莎白·塞弗倫斯(Elisabeth Severance)命名的。在這個陽光明媚、天氣宜人的早上，衛爾斯理即將舉行第136屆畢業儀式。在最後一個學士學位頒發之後，主持人請大家起立。按學校傳統，兩位畢業生領唱振奮人心的《美哉美國》(America, the Beautiful)。爲方便那些不熟悉歌詞的人，歌詞印在畢業儀式手冊中，其中包括這段副歌：“再爲你戴上皇冠，憑着朋友情誼，跨越閃耀的海洋！”

Those words were penned by Katharine Lee Bates, an 1880 graduate of Wellesley who defied the expectations of her gender, and not just by becoming a professor, published author and famous poet. A pastor's daughter, she never married, living instead for 25 years with Katharine Coman, founder of Wellesley's economics department, with whom she was deeply in love. When a colleague described "free-flying spinsters" as a "fringe on the garment of life,” Bates, then 53, answered: "I always thought the fringe had the best of it."

此歌的歌詞是1880年畢業生凱瑟琳·李·貝茨(Katherine Lee Bates)創作的。這位神父的女兒打破了當年的性別羈絆，不但成爲教授、作家和著名詩人，而且終生未婚，與自己的同性愛侶、衛爾斯理經濟學系創始人凱瑟琳·科曼(Katherine Coman)共同生活了25年。當年一位同事諷刺地說“自由飛翔的未婚老女人（英文原文spinster亦有“紡紗人”之意——譯者注 ）”不過是“錦繡人生的邊緣，”已經53歲的貝茨反脣相譏道：“我一向認爲花邊纔是最美的。”

As parents, professors and graduates joined in the singing of Bates's most famous poem, many felt an intense pride in their connection to the graduates and this remarkable college, which has sent forth so many women who leave impressive marks on the world. As the hundreds of voices rounded the curve on “And crown thy good with . . . ," the unknowing parents continued to “brotherhood," the word that was always supposed to stand in for women too, but never really did. Wellesley women long ago learned that words matter, and for decades, this has been the point in the song when their harmonious choral singing abruptly becomes a bellow as they belt out "sisterhood," drowning out the word that long excluded them and replacing it with a demand for recognition. It's one of the most powerful moments of commencement, followed every year by cheers, applause and tears, evoked by the rush of solidarity with women throughout time, and the thrill of claiming in one of the nation's most famous songs that women matter — even if the world they're about to enter doesn't always agree.

家長們、教授們和畢業生共同吟唱貝茨這首名詩，無數人因爲他們與畢業生們和這所名校的聯繫而感到強烈自豪。衛爾斯理桃李滿天下，培養出了無數成就斐然的畢業生。當數千人唱到“憑着朋友情誼”這句時，那些不知情的家長們繼續唱到英文原文的brotherhood（“兄弟情誼”）這個詞——儘管有些字面不符，這個詞在詩中原意是泛指，也包括女性。但是衛爾斯理人們早已學到對性別詞彙的敏感，因而數十年來，她們早已把歌中這個字改成“sisterhood ”(“姐妹情誼”)，並且是喊着唱出來，壓過了其他人唱到的那個多年來排斥她們的詞，把這句歌詞變成了要求認可的宣言。這是畢業儀式中最具力量的時刻，每年都引來無數歡呼、掌聲和眼淚。此刻讓人感到女性們不朽的團結力量，並且在全美國最知名的歌曲中高呼女性地位的興奮感——儘管等待她們的外部世界並不總是承認這一點。

In the last few years, a handful of graduates have changed that word once again, having decided that "sisterhood," no matter how well intended, is exclusionary, and so they instead call out "siblinghood." A few trans men find even that insufficient, and in that instant, they roar the word that represents them best: "brotherhood," not as a sexist stand-in for all humankind, but as an appeal from a tiny minority struggling to be acknowledged.

在過去幾年，幾位畢業生再次改變了這句歌詞，他們認爲“姐妹情誼”這個詞，無論用意如何友善，仍舊是排他的，所以這一刻他們喊出的是“手足情”。另幾位跨性男生認爲這個詞仍舊不夠，於是他們喊出了最能代表他們的那個詞“兄弟情，”這不是用性別主義的代詞來指代全人類，而是代表一個微小的弱勢羣體，發出爭取認可的呼聲。

In truth, it's difficult to distinguish in the cacophony each of the words shouted atop one another. What is clear is that whatever word each person is hollering is immensely significant as a proclamation of existence, even if it's hard to make out what anyone else is saying.

說實話，在衆聲喧譁的那一刻，很難聽出大家喊的是哪個詞。唯一清楚的是，無論每個人喊的是什麼，都是證明他們存在的重要宣言，儘管誰也聽不到其他人在說什麼。