美国精英女子学院遭遇性别认同挑战

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.

八月的最后一个星期一，成百上千名年轻女性涌入卫尔斯理女子学院。许多人后面还跟着父母，拖着行李箱，装满了叠好了的毛巾和饰枕的盒子，以及超市经济装的大罐洗衣粉。在校园入口的干道上，欢迎2018届新同学的横幅在微风中招展，似乎在邀请新生们探索这个新环境 。坐落在校园各处的建筑都是以女性命名：玛格丽特·克莱普(Margaret Clapp)图书馆、贝茨·伍德·耐普(Betsy Wood Knapp)媒体技术中心，还有宿舍楼、实验室、学术厅，甚至停车库，无一例外。“没有什么事是女性办不到的”——这一信息还出现在一个被围栏围起来的建筑工地上。工地挂着“伊莲建筑公司”的标牌，这个公司是以一位女性命名，并由另一位女性管理。

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.

这是新生入学培训活动的第一天。在校园美丽的道路两旁，兴致勃勃的高年级学生领导们为大家指引方向，给新生打气。她们穿着粉色的T恤衫，上面印着今年新生入学培训的主旨：“自由探索”。这个口号可以有多种诠释，可能比校方想象的要多得多。三年级学生提摩西·包特莱特(Timothy Boatwright)是其中一位穿着T恤的向导。卫尔斯理位于波士顿西郊。像每一位被这个学院录取的学生一样，提摩西被当做女孩抚养成人。在申请学校时，他在申请表格上勾画了“女性”的选项。虽然他告诉他的高中朋友他是跨性人，但是在申请时他却隐瞒了这一点。原因之一是母亲帮助他提交了申请材料，而提摩西不想让她知道。另外，他对我说：“在申请女子学院的陈述文章里写自己为什么不是女性，这有点奇怪吧。”像别的许多跨性别学生一样，提摩西选择女子学院是因为觉得在这里，不论从生理还是心理上都会比较安全。

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.

从入学一开始，提摩西在自我介绍是说自己是一位“偏男性的跨性人”。在卫尔斯理，他要求所有人都以提摩西和男性代词称呼他，提摩西这个名字是他自己给自己取的。

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.

大多数情况下，提摩西的要求都得到了尊重。毕竟，他并不是卫尔斯理唯一的跨性别学生。学院今年录取的学生中，还有二十多人不认为自己是女性。在他们中间，有一半左右是跨性别男性——他们生为女性，却认为自己是男性，他们之中的一些人已经开始摄入睾酮来改变身体。这二十多人中剩下的那一半说自己是跨性人或是“性别酷儿”。他们拒绝接受性别这个概念，或是认为自己介于男性和女性之间。像提摩西一样，他们中的许多人说自己是跨性男。虽然他的性别身份和大多数同学不同，提摩西在新学校里大体还觉得舒适安逸。

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，已经上到大二的提摩西决定竞选学生自治协会的席位。在卫尔斯理，这是公开跨性身份的学生所竞选过的最高职位。提摩西竞选的职位是多元文化事务协调员，简称 “MAC”， 负责在师生和在校职员中推广一种“多元文化”。除了提摩西，另有三名非白人女生表示她们的参选意愿，但是在竞选开始之前却由于种种与提摩西的无关的原因退出选举。提摩西成了唯一的人选。这时有人在Facebook上开始了一个匿名活动，劝说学生们投弃权票。如果有足够弃权票，提摩西就得不到学校规定的最低票数。这样选举就得重新举行，而新的候选人也会有机会出现。“弃权活动”的论点很简单：在一个多种族的女子学院里竞选“多元”职位，没有比一位白人男性更不合适的人选了。

"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."

“我们并不是针对提摩西，”“弃权活动”的领头学生告诉我：“我认为他完全能够胜任。但是由一位白人男性担任领导职位这太不合适了 。这个活动也并不是只关注于那个特定职位。让男性参加竞选领导职位削弱了女校让女性做领导者的主旨。”

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."

在迎新期间，我与提摩西坐在长椅上，俯视校园内的静谧湖面。我问他对这种说法持何态度。他说他对MAC这个职位可以做出重要的贡献。毕竟，在卫尔斯理，“偏男性的跨性人”是一个少数文化群体；就人数来说，不会有比他们更少数的了。但是，提摩西也说他对担任领导职位感到有些矛盾。“男性家长制已经根深蒂固了，”他说，“我不想再推波助澜。”

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世纪，多数学院和大学只招收男性学生，支持女性接受高等教育的人士们只好自建大学。这些新兴学校的办学宗旨对当时社会的性别规范既提出了挑战，又加以维护。让女性们能够接受此前无缘的教育，这些学校存在本身就是一种激进的表现，但它们同时又是建立在传统观念的基础上：受过大学教育的女性被认为更有可能成为可亲的妻子和优秀的母亲，会培养出高素质的公民。但随着时间的推移，女性学院愈加专注培养事业成功的女性，但即使在60年代早期，卫尔斯理仍旧在教授学生如何把买来的食品杂货放进旅行车的后箱时不暴露自己的大腿。

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，人们开始重新审视社会性别规范。随着民权和女性解放的社会意识高涨，基于性别和种族的教育隔离开始显得日益过时。多数女性开始选择男女同校的学校，女子学院的入学率一落千丈。专收女性的学院数量由将近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.

面对性别意识的变迁，保留下来的女子学院中大多数重新定义自身的地位；随着女权主义者对社会中的性别歧视日益不满，女子学院们把自己打造为对抗性别歧视的灵丹妙药。它们宣称自己建立了一个独特的环境，所有的学生领袖都是女性，女性榜样无穷无尽，女性教授远多于男性，而且校园与学术生活中洋溢着浓厚的争取女性权益的信息。这些似乎都令学生们增强自信。女子学院们宣称，它们的本科学生更有可能选择传统上被男性主导的专业。卫尔斯理学院在这方面尤为突出：政府数据显示，它的学生毕业后在科学和工程领域获得的博士学位的比例超过了全美任何其他人文学院的女性学生。卫尔斯理的校友中包括两位国务卿，一位开创新时代的弦理论物理学家，一位NASA航天员，还有韩国的首位女性大使。

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.

由于女子学院挑战了关于女性的传统观念，它们也吸引了更高比例的认为自己是同性恋或双性恋的学生。如今，这些学院中有少数学生并不认为自己是女性，并且数量在不断增加。这也对“女子学院”的定义提出了疑问。跨性别学生推动这些学校弱化以女性为核心的信息。在卫尔斯理、史密斯(Smith)、曼荷莲(Mount Holyoke)等女子学院，这些学生及其支持者们成功地劝说学校管理层和其他学生们弃用“姐妹情谊”等言辞，他们认为此类言语虽有鼓动力，但也排除了其他少数性别人士。在很多学院，跨性别学生还赢得了长期由女生执掌的领袖地位：宿舍舍监，学生团体领袖和学生自治政府成员。在卫尔斯理，一位倾向男性的跨性别学生成为宿舍的主席。在加州米尔斯女子学院(Mills College)，学生自治政府主席也自认为是男性。

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.

女子学院们该如何应对？跨性别学生们指出，他们做的正是这些学院所鼓励的：打破性别藩篱，实现内心深处的愿望，不顾社会羁绊而奋勇向前。但是，如果完全接受他们淡化女性核心地位的要求，则会削弱女子学院的身份。一般来说，在男女同校的学校，女性的入学率和学业表现都高于男性，但在大学之后情况则截然相反：新毕业的女性学生在全职岗位上比同等情况的男性收入低很多，那些工作经验丰富的女性也往往被商业和政治高层职位拒于门外——这些都让女子学院的支持者们认为，帮助女性提高自信的4年本科教育仍旧有其作用。

"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."

“姐妹情谊就是我来卫尔斯理上学的原因，”一位最近毕业的物理专业学生说。她要求匿名，害怕因自己的观点而受到批评。“一家女子学院就是以女性身份引以为傲的地方，身边环绕女性。我感觉自己每天都深受鼓舞。你来到这里，理所当然地认为每位领袖都是女性：每个学生政府职位，每个报纸编辑，每个经济理事会成员，物理学会的每位会长。这是美妙无比的事情！这就是他们登广告给学生看的东西，但现在情况已经不再是这样了。如果情况都变了，女子学院的核心价值也就荡然无存。”

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.

几家学院对这种困境已经拿出了应对之策，但各有不同。弗吉尼亚州的一家小型女子学院霍林斯大学(Hollins University)几年前制定了一条政策，声称只为女性颁发学位。它还说，如果学生通过手术变形或开始荷尔蒙疗法变性，或者改用男性名字，学校将“帮助学生转学到其他学院。”曼荷莲和米尔斯(Mills)学院则做出决定，它们不但继续欢迎那些在校期间变性的学生，而且将继续招收那些自称为跨性为男性的学生，因为如果只欢迎前者而对后者关上大门，会显得过于专断。

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."

但是多数女子学院，包括卫尔斯理，只考虑女性学生的申请。如果学生被录取后声称自己为跨性人，这些学院或多或少都让学生们自行决定如何与跨性同学相处。去年秋天，当时已经服用睾酮变性7个月的卫尔斯理学院大四学生凯顿·穆罕默德(Kaden Mohamed)，在WGBH-TV电视台上看到一个关于女子学院学生人数下降的新闻访谈节目。节目嘉宾之一是另一位卫尔斯理大四学生劳拉·布鲁诺(Laura Bruno)，另一位则是瑞吉斯学院(Regis College)的院长，这家女子学院由于入学人数剧减，在2007年改制为男女同校的大学。主持人请劳拉描述她在“全女子学院”的经历，以及为何“有男性同校就学”会削弱这种感受。

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."

劳拉回答道：“我们向四周望去，只看到跟我们一样的女性，领导着校园的每一个组织，参与每一场课堂讨论。”

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?

凯顿是校园里一家学生咖啡馆的经理，与劳拉是泛泛之交。他对劳拉的言辞很不高兴，就给她发了封邮件，称她的回答“极度不尊重人。”他还说，“我不是一个女人，我是你的毕业班的一位跨性男同学，你在采访中完全忽视了我的存在… 你本来有机会向大家展示，卫尔斯理让'全女子学院'的涵义变得更加复杂，但你的回答却让过去和现在的好多校友无所适从。”

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.”

劳拉道了歉，说她本来没想边缘化任何人，而且实际上在采访前曾发誓不会暗示卫尔斯理所有的学生都是女性。但是她说，在采访的压力之下，她发现自己处于尴尬境地：她如何一方面声称女子学院如果招收男性学生会失去宝贵的精神内涵，但同时又认为女子学院可以招收那些自认为是男性的跨性学生？

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."

尽管这可能听起来自相矛盾，但杰西·奥斯丁(Jesse Austin)说，他选择来卫尔斯理上学，就是因为他从来都觉得身为女性不对劲。“我想，如果我真是任何一种类型的女性的话，我一定可以在那里找到自我。我知道卫尔斯理有很多女强人，她们培养出了很多女强人，任何领域的都有。”

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.

杰西2009年秋天入学，当时他的名字还是莎拉。18岁的莎拉穿紧身衬衫和牛仔裤，因为她在佐治亚州一个保守的小镇上长大，清楚这就是女孩应该的样子——尽管她从来都没觉得自己像个女孩。小时候，在排演戏剧的时候她总是选择男性角色， 她的朋友也都是男孩子。初中时，她的男孩朋友都弃她而去，因为她成了个社会负担：她女性化不足，没法向她献殷勤，又没有男性化到成为真的男孩。高中时，她在心存好意的女同学的劝告下留起头发，不再把头发向上梳，并且开始像其他女孩一样装扮，尽管其他人总是指出她的举止言行仍旧像个男孩。“我根本不知道你可以变换自己的性别，”杰西最近对我说。“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么问题。”

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.

莎拉在卫尔斯理第一年过半的时候，参加了一些跨性校友的讲座，包括一位正在变性过程中的校友。她边听边感觉到，自己一向为性别身份感到的高度不安忽然开始有了意义。“一切对我来说都变得异常清楚，”他对我说。“他们的话正是我所需要的。”随后两个礼拜，莎拉在互联网上搜寻关于如何变成男性的信息和视频。她了解到，与前辈不同的是，当今的跨性别青年人并不认为身体的变化是身份变化的前提。有些人会服用荷尔蒙，有些人会通过手术切除乳房，有些人则完全不接受医疗干预，认为这是毫无必要地伤害自己的身体，而且浪费钱财。她了解到性取向是独立于性别的：有些跨性男子对男性感兴趣，有些对女性感兴趣，有些则是双性恋。她还了解到有些跨性男子并不一定要隐藏自己生为女孩的事实，甚至愿意承认自己上了女子大学。

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，莎拉就把头发剪短，买了第一条男式牛仔裤。她告诉朋友们自己是个男人。到了第二个学期，他开始使用男性代词称呼自己，并且改名杰西，他母亲曾经考虑过给女儿起这个名字。他还参加了一个自认为或怀疑自己是跨性人的学生组织“兄弟会”。他们取这个名字是为了与校园里无处不在的“姐妹情谊”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.

当年夏天，杰西接受了性别治疗师的辅导。大学二年级初期，他开始每两周向大腿中注射睾酮，成为卫尔斯理最早的通过医疗办法变为男性的在校生之一。他成为“兄弟会”的管理员之一。尽管他感觉自己得到支持，但仍旧感到孤独：学校里所有其他的跨性男子都已经毕业了，“兄弟会”的其他成员并不确定自己是否自认为男性。在“兄弟会”之外，整个卫尔斯理仍旧是“姐妹情谊”和“女性赋权”的天下。经管如此，他仍旧说：“我把卫尔斯理当做家，自己的社区，我在那里感觉很好，归属感很强。”

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.

杰西决定在冬季假期时手术切除乳房，他的父母也同意支付手术费用。他在春季学期回到学校，但很快就请长假回家看护生病的父亲。一年半之后，2012年秋天，杰西重新入学卫尔斯理，但此时他和学校都已经发生了不少变化。在服用睾酮两年之后，杰西已经不再像是试图变装为男人的女人，他的嗓音低沉，胡须浓密，尽管他把胡子剪得很短。他的肩膀宽阔、肌肉饱满，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.

卫尔斯理也不一样了。学校里多了很多自认为跨性人的学生，成立了两个组织。“兄弟会”正式改名为“手足会”，除了那些自认为女性的学生，欢迎任何其他学生加入。杰西和其他一些跨性男学生仍旧以“兄弟会”的名义非正式聚会，但杰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.

总的来说，校园生活中从来没有过如此之多的跨性人。整个学校70位学生研究助理中至少有4位自认为跨性人。越来越多的学生组织会议开始之前首先询问大家希望用什么名字和代词称呼。在校园里，越来越多的学生在谈话中用“手足情谊”代替了“姐妹情谊”一词。即使是卫尔斯理最古老的传统“鲜花星期日”——这个传统仪式已经138年历史，为每位新入学的学生找一位高年级的“大姐”来提供指导支持——也对跨性别学生更加包容。尽管学校网站仍旧描述“鲜花星期日”为“姐妹情谊日”，但管理仪式的部门听从了跨性学生的意见，开始称呼每位参与者“手足”而非“姐妹”，或者简称“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.”

尽管校园里的跨性别学生越来越多，杰西仍旧很惹眼。当他刷自己的卫尔斯理身份卡进入朋友的宿舍时，看门人会拦住他说，“没有女生陪同你不能进去。”舍监们在学生宿舍楼的楼梯间看到他，会说同样的话。在他自己的宿舍楼，来探望女儿的家长们也会拦住他，问他为什么在女生宿舍里。由于学校里的卫生间不分男女而是“卫尔斯理学生专用”和“非卫尔斯理人士”，那些不认识他的学生有时也会指出他走错了卫生间。当他回答说自己是卫尔斯理学生时，有时人们会认为他说谎。

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.”

“每件事都跟过去大不一样了，”他提起那个学期时说。“我感觉男性身份非常明显，极度不自在。我感觉像个外人。我的嗓音刺耳——男性的嗓音，在一教室的女生中间非常突出——所以我在课堂讲话过多会感觉奇怪。我对卫尔斯理女校的身份感觉异常明显，尽管学校也在发生变化。”

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?

春季学期结束后，杰西退学了。“我仍旧把卫尔斯理当做一所女子学校，我仍旧认为这是个美妙的主意，”他说，“它只不过容不下我了，我感觉那是个我不应该踏足的地方。”

"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，有些女性学生认为卫尔斯理仍旧不够女性化。她们互相之间，并且向学校管理层抱怨说，“姐妹情谊”被绑架了。她们说“手足情”缺乏“姐妹情”包含的那种温暖、亲女性的意味，也缺乏历史渊源。其他人则对女子学校需要包容男性感到不满，认为这冲淡了对女性的关注和本来专属女子的领袖地位。其他人则担心这些变化是向男女同校走近了一步。尽管如此，也有很多人感到良心不安：作为一个遭受边缘化待遇而努力争取尊敬和力量的群体，女性怎么能够再去边缘化其他群体？

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，我们学院如此根深蒂固的传统即将改变，这让我害怕，”大二学生贝丝说。她要求只使用自己的中间名，因为她害怕冒犯她认识的人。“把'姐妹'改成'手足'听起来并没有包容更多的人，而是把'姐妹情谊'中的某些东西拿走了，为了其他人把我们这个安全的地方改变了。但是同时，我也因为自己有这种想法而感到内疚。”贝丝去见了住校生活主管克里斯·尼恩多夫(Kris Niendorf)。后者耐心地听她讲了自己的疑虑，然后问道：“手足情”这种说法让你的校园生活有何损失？仔细考虑过后，贝丝的结论是，她与同学们的情谊并非来自性别，而是她们在卫尔斯理共同的经历。

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.

卫尔斯理学院具体将如何解决跨性别学生的问题，尚不得而知。跨性别学生们说，除了确保在学校的每座教学楼都提供了男女通用卫生间以外，卫尔斯理学院还未能解决跨性别问题究竟对“卫尔斯理身份”有何影响。去年春天，阿历克斯·普恩(Alex Poon)赢得了卫尔斯理具有131年历史的“滚铁圈比赛”冠军，这是一项在四年级学生中举办的锻炼意志的比赛。阿历克斯的母亲曾是1982年的滚铁圈比赛冠军，很久以前就已经教会了自己的女儿滚铁圈的秘诀，因为她期待女儿们同样到自己的母校读书。（阿历克斯的一位姐姐是卫尔斯理2011年毕业生，另一位姐姐则去了布林茅尔女子学院[Bryn Mawr]女子学院读书）。阿历克斯曾做过女童子军，高中也在全女子学校就读。但是他的母亲不知道的是，他一直在用谷歌来搜索答案：为什么自己关于性别身份一直感到如此困惑。当他申请卫尔斯理学院的时候，他已经私下知道自己是跨性人，但仍然确认卫尔斯理是自己最佳的选择。首先，去卫尔斯理上学是家族传统；另外，这里也接受重新考虑自己性别的学生。在卫尔斯理上到大二的时候，他公开了自己的跨性身份。

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.

在滚铁圈比赛那一天，剪了短寸发型的阿历克斯戴了一顶帽子，第一个冲过了终点。校长H·金 ·波托姆利(H. Kim Bottomly)与阿历克斯拍了自拍照，两个人都笑容满面。一家本地小报报道了这次比赛，并且提到这是该校历史上首次由男学生赢得这一比赛。但是，学校网站上关于校史传统的页面仍旧把比赛描述得好像仍旧只有女生参加一样。“当年，大家宣称滚铁圈比赛的冠军将是同学中第一位结婚的学生；在注重地位的1980年代，她将成为同学中的第一位CEO ；现在，我们则说冠军将是最早获得幸福与成功的人，无论这对她来说意味着什么。”但是阿历克斯不是“她”，而他告诉我说，幸福和成功的涵义包括自己的男性身份能够得到认可。

"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."

这个页面并不是卫尔斯理网站上唯一仍旧标榜这是一家只收女生的学院的地方。网站上还说，“学校里所有最勇敢、最具挑动性、最成功的人士都是女性” ；“2,300名聪颖、独特的女性感受着2,300名聪颖、独特的女性团结在一起的力量”；“我们作为卫尔斯理女生共同的身份、精神和骄傲” 等等。跨性别学生说，这种信息让他们感觉自己仿佛并不存在。

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认我们的存在，”伊莱·科恩(Eli Cohen)说。他是一位卫尔斯理大四学生，已经服用睾酮将近一年。“哪怕对我说'我们不会迁就你们，因为男人在社会任何其他地方总是得到迁就'我也可以接受，至少不要假装我们不存在。”

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，有些教职工已经认可了跨性别学生的存在。女性与性别研究学科的教授们，以及其他一些教员，一般在每学期开始的时候都会问学生们希望别人以什么名字和代词称呼自己。住校生活主管克里斯·尼恩多夫会招募跨性别学生做助理研究员，同样也会招募任何其他少数群体学生。尼恩多夫还牵头请跨性别学生和校友做相关讲座。在本学期开始之前，在跨性别学生的倡议之下，尼恩多夫要求全校200位学生领袖参加尊重跨性别学生工作室，焦点是“如何建设更加包容的卫尔斯理学院”。过去几年，迎新活动中首先欢迎新生的6位高年级学生中，总会包括一位跨性别学生，他们共同向新生讲述如何勇敢面对人生挑战。

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，仍有许多跨性别学生认为学校可以做得更多。他们抱怨说，太多的教授们想当然地认为所有学生都是女性。学生们提供了各种课程中的很多例子，教授们请她们讲述“作为女性”的观点。在两年前一门关于西部片的课程上，一份论文作业提到西部片和小说都是以男性为目标受众，关注男人气概。教授们要求学生提供“作为女性读者或观众的视角。”这种语言冒犯了课堂上的三位跨性别学生。当有同学向教授指出问题时，一位教师改问学生“你们自己的性别身份如何改变你们对西部片的态度。”

"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."

有时，教授们也如履薄冰。已经在卫尔斯理教授社会学25年的托马斯·库什曼(Thomas Cushman)最初注意到学校里的跨性人群是在5年前。当时，他课上的一位学生来到他的办公室，自我介绍为跨性男性。他向库什曼指出，他在课堂上提到的每个范例都是指向女性，用到的每个泛指代词也都是女性代词，比如“问问你的同学她是否……”他对库什曼说，由于跨性别男性学生的存在，卫尔斯理已经不能再自称为一家“女子学院”，并且要求库什曼更多使用男性代词、男性例子，免得让跨性学生产生被排斥的感觉。库什曼说，他愿意按照每位学生的意愿使用相关代词，但他的底线是仍旧保持对女生的侧重。

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.

“我在这里的整个教学生涯，我都在被要求更多使用女性代词，以对抗性别主义的'他'。我认为强调女性的社会地位是很重要的，这需要加以特别指出，尤其是在女性被剥夺权利如此之久以后。这么说吧：我在一所女子学院教书，任何能强调突出女性身份的事情，我都会做。如果有人让我改变这一点，那可有点讽刺。我不认可卫尔斯理'历史上曾经是'一所女校，这里仍旧是女校。”

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!"

秋季学期迎新活动的第二天，伊莱·科恩返回校园，身穿紧身T恤衫和男式短裤，腰带扣挂着登山环，上面挂满了钥匙，回到这个让他有家一样感觉的校园，他很兴奋。四年来，他头一次没有参加迎新活动——他最初是作为新生参加， 后来两年是作为助理研究员。我们在璐璐·周·王(Lulu Chow Wang)校园活动中心闲聊，这里被学生们亲切地称为“璐璐”。我们看着兴奋的新生匆匆走过，手里拿着迎新日程表和新买的卫尔斯理校服。

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.

刚刚在12天前，伊莱做了乳房切除术，他说手术让他对自己的男性形象感到更加自信。他在9个月前开始服用睾酮，过去三个月的暑假，睾酮的效果尤其明显。他的下巴线条更加棱角分明，肢体健壮了，手臂和腿上的毛发颜色更深了。当然，现在他的胸部也平了。他的朋友们见到他时，都拥抱他并兴奋地说：“你好帅！”

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.

尽管伊莱在高中时就怀疑自己应该是个男孩，但只有在来到卫尔斯理之后，他才能想象自己某天将变成一个男人。到了大二，他把头发剪成短寸，开始穿男性衣装。他让朋友们称自己贝克特，发音类似父母给他起的女名，他还让我不要提这个名字。他的父母家离这里只有14英里，时不时会来看望他。宿舍门上的名牌仍旧是他的女名。他的朋友们也知道，每当父母来看他时，要用他的女名和女性代词来称呼他，他当时是一位助理研究员，并没有告诉自己的一年级学生他的男性名字，担心他们弄不清楚究竟用哪个名字称呼他。

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.

他整天都要提心吊胆，当贝克特让他感到精疲力尽，神经紧张。他一度灰心丧气，让朋友们干脆以女名称呼自己算了。他大二之后的暑假，在波士顿一家服务LGBT人群的医疗中心实习，他的很多同事都是跨性人士。他们的自信也让他重拾信心。当卫尔斯理的实习生协调办公室发邮件给实习生们，以“早上好，女士们”开头时，他回信说他并不自认为女性。协调负责人回信道歉，解释说这是因为她的文件记录一直显示他用的是女名。

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?

暑假结束时，他已经开始自我介绍为伊莱，这个名字跟他的女名一点也不像。伊莱终于鼓起勇气告诉父母。他的母亲用了一段时间才接受自己的独女变成了独子的事实，但还是接受了。

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.”

当我问伊莱跨性男是否属于卫尔斯理时，他说他也感到矛盾。“我并不一定觉得我们有权使用女性空间，但我也不会转学，因为我爱这里，爱这个环境。我知道这可能有点自私，可能很自私。”他也发问，如果卫尔斯理需要做出选择，底线究竟应该画在哪里？跨性男学生，还是偏男性的跨性学生？那些对自己的性别有疑问的学生呢？难道学生们不应该自由地探索，并且不必担心他们的决定会让自己变成“不受欢迎人士”吗？

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.' "

其他跨性学生也曾为这样的问题苦苦挣扎。去年12月，一位偏男性的跨性学生匿名写了一篇博客，让卫尔斯理的跨性学生群体为之震动。这位学生为“维护伤人的男性特权体制”表示道歉，说“我的想法已经改变了：我不认为跨性男性学生属于卫尔斯理…但这也不意味着我认为所有的跨性男性学生应该被开除，或者被拒绝录取。”他承认，自己也不知道卫尔斯理该如何处理跨性学生问题，但呼吁其他偏向男性的跨性学生“开始批评地讨论和思考我们被给予并占据的这个空间，这个我们从女性手中夺取的空间。”

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?"

这封信印发了迅猛的反响。“校园里的很多跨性学生在感情上感觉受到了威胁，”提摩西回忆道。他当时上大二。“一度让我们感到受欢迎的空间忽然不欢迎我们了。困难之处在于，因为是一位跨性学生自己提出这种说法，那些并不了解复杂情况的人可以说，'好吧，连跨性学生自己都说卫尔斯理不该有跨性学生，那我这么想也没错了。'”

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.

许多学生和校友，无论是同性恋、异性恋、跨性人还是其他人，都参与了讨论，有些人能够达成共识，其他人则很愤怒。有些人指责写博客的学生替女生说话，仿佛她们自己不会发声。其他人则指责他背叛了跨性男学生（他就此文拒绝发表评论）。但也有其他学生，包括几位跨性学生，对他能够鼓起勇气、对卫尔斯理饱受争议的性别身份问题而发起公开讨论感到高兴。“这种讨论很重要，”伊莱说。“我们为什么不能在不伤害或憎恨别人的情况下展开讨论呢？”

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."

在某种意义上，学生们早已就这个问题开始对话了，尽管并不直接。提摩西去年春天轻松连任学生政府的职位，赢得了三分之二的选票。考虑到卫尔斯理百分之八十五的学生都参与投票，他的连任意味着多数学生认为跨性男学生——包括跨性男学生领袖——是属于卫尔斯理的。

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.”

另外一个关于跨性学生的艰难话题是关于他们在校园里受到的异常关注。“女生们似乎给予这些学生额外的价值，”罗丝·莱顿(Rose Layton)说。她是一位同性恋，把跨性学生们当做校园情场的竞争对手。“她们跟跨性学生们打情骂俏，跟他们交往。不光是异性恋女生们，甚至同性恋人群也是这样。那些跨性男总是得到额外的认可。尽管我们是在一所女校，但现实是，在这样的社会环境里，男性和男人味总是能比女性获得更多关注。”

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.' ”

杰西·奥斯丁回到校园之后就注意到了这种矛盾。在服用睾酮将近两年之后，他已经拥有男性的身材，满脸胡子茬。“那是我这辈子头一次如此抢手！人们抢着和我约会。”跨性人的身体被认为是居中的选择，提摩西说。“无论你的性取向，跨性人总是被认为可以安全地与之调情、一起探索。但你感兴趣的并不是这个人，而是这种新鲜感。对于女同性恋来说，有一种安全感，或者是'我也许被这个人吸引，但他实际上是个女人，所以我并不算双性恋或异性恋'的感觉。对于异性恋来说，则是'我也许被这个女人的身体吸引， 但他是个男的，所以我不算同性恋或异性恋。'”

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.

凯顿·穆罕默德则说，当他去年暑假结束回到校园后，他感觉自己简直被物化为性对象了。服用了五个月的睾酮后，他的嗓音低沉，手臂肌肉有了线条，身材也魁梧了。他在跨性之前从来没受到过这么多关注。身体发生变化后，他不认识的学生都会来抚摸他的二头肌。有一次在学校酒吧，一位喝醉酒的卫尔斯理女生甚至抓了他还有另外一位变性男的下体。

"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."

“这简直是现实世界里情况的诡异逆转，”凯顿说。“在现实世界里，是女性遭到物化对待，被言语调戏，被性骚扰，被咸猪手。但在卫尔斯理，则是变性男遭受这种待遇。如果我刚刚对陌生女生上下其手，整个卫尔斯理校园都会同声谴责，因为她们会说这是性侵犯——那的确是性侵犯。但不知为何，如果是变性男在这里受到同等待遇，就不会被如此解读。这简直是免责金牌：忽然之间，谈论或触摸别人的身体不会有问题了，只要他们不是女人。”

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.

只要他们在申请入学时自称为女性，后来跨性为男性的学生仍够能被多数女校所接纳；但是跨性女——那些生为男性，但后来自认为是女性的人——却几乎没有任何可能进入女校大门。从某种角度讲，跨性女的身份比跨性男更加符合女校的要求。但是多数女子学院要求申请者所有的身份材料都证明她是女性。这对那些生为男性的十七八岁的跨性人来说要求太高了，因为他们中很少有人在高中就时就能确立跨性身份。（私立本科学校的入学政策豁免于美国教育法修正案第九条管辖，该条款规定那些接受联邦拨款的学校不得实施性别歧视。）两年前，来自康涅狄格州的跨性女高中生卡莉欧佩·黄(Calliope Wong)申请就读史密斯学院，但她的申请材料被退回，因为她的联邦助学金表格显示她是男性。她把拒绝信发到网上，引发了讨论热潮和史密斯学院的学生抗议。最终，史密斯同意只要求申请者的成绩单和推荐信证明她们身为女性，财务证明文件不需要如此证明；但那时候卡莉欧佩·黄已经决定在康涅狄格大学就读了。

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.

卫尔斯理从来没有录取过变性女学生，至少没有在明知对方身份的时候录取过。很多卫尔斯理学生，包括一些对校园里有变性男学生感到不舒服的人，认为只要学业表现符合要求，变性女学生应该也被录取，无论她们申请材料上显示的性别如何。

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."

其他人则对过早敞开学校大门感到担忧——包括一位跨性男在校生。他要求匿名，因为他知道自己的立场将受到批评。他说，卫尔斯理应该只接收那些已经开始用医学手段变性，或者合法修改了出生证明和驾驶执照上名字的跨性女生。“我知道这对一个刚刚开始申请大学的18岁学生来说是很高的要求，”他说。“但同时，卫尔斯理需要保持它作为一间让女生感到安全的学校的名声。如果那些仍具有男性身体，但认为自己是女性的人来到学校，但是过了一两年后又想当回男性，并且希望继续留在学校，那怎么办？那跟生为男性、也自认为男性的男人有什么区别？跨性男情况不一样；我们生为女性，知道女性受到何种待遇，我们身为女性时也受到过歧视。我们理解女性的遭遇。”

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.”

五月时，米尔斯学院成为首家破例的女子学院。它拓宽招生政策，接受那些自认为女性的变性女生申请，包括那些尚未以医学手段或合法变性的学生，甚至那些在成绩单和推荐信上仍被指为男性的学生。新的招生政策说明开头重申，米尔斯学院将保持女子学院的身份，并且欢迎那些生为女子的学生，无论他们自认为自己在性别光谱上身处何处，只要他们尚未合法变为男性。这项改革来自于一个教职工委员会两年来的研究。说明指出，米尔斯从来都与基于性别的压迫相斗争，并以此做为结语：“对跨性人群的包容，不是推翻上述宗旨，而是与时俱进。”

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."

米尔斯学院招生主任、校长与该委员会的联络人布莱恩·奥洛克(Brian O'Rourke)表示，学校将教育学生和教职工，让她们对跨性人更加包容。我问奥洛克，这是否包括削弱对女性学生的关注。“说实话我不知道，”他说。“一位曾在跨性问题上发表全国演讲的学生去年就读米尔斯，她向我们建议的前几件事之一就是，不要再说米尔斯是家女子学院，因为这个概念本身就是排他的。在学校讲堂，在她提出这个要求之后，你能听到大家的惊叹声。与此同时，我们仍旧组织了大量讨论，如何强调女性的领导地位，女性赋权，那些不认为自己是女性的学生也参与了。我们的答案是，我们还不确定。”

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.

上个月，曼荷莲学院宣布了重大政策变革：它将向所有学业符合要求的学生放开申请，无论他们的生理性别或自认性别，仅仅排除那些生为男性并且自认为是男性的学生。学院发表了一份清单，表示适合申请者包括任何生为女性的学生，无论她们自认为女性，男性，或是“其他”；还包括那些生为男性，但是自我认为女性或“其他”的学生，这个清单显示了传统的性别观念已经被颠覆到何种程度。校长琳·帕斯克莱拉(Lynn Pasquerella)说，她和学校管理层认为这是个民权问题，因而做出如此决定。

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."

但是帕斯克莱拉说，包容跨性学生的新政策并不包括改变学校宗旨。“我们首先，并且最重要的承诺是，我们是一家女子学院。”她对我说。“我不会停用'姐妹情'这样的词汇。”她提到，她两年前教授一门“批判种族理论”的课程，当时对她的学生说：“当我使用'姐妹情'这个词时，我认可校园里并不是每个人都自认为女性。它是一个修辞工具…但并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.”

我说，她的解释接近于使用男性的“他”来不确定地指代男性或女性。她提出另一组对比：女子学院与历史上曾经存在的黑人大学或学院有共通之处。“现在，即使一个学校里有少数几个非有色人种学生，我们不是仍旧可以合理地说这是一个有色人种学校？”她问道。“同样情况可以适用于女子学院。我们的宗旨肇始于让女性受教育，尽管我们认可并非每个学生都自认为女性，这仍旧是我们的身份所在，我们仍旧要这么讲话。”

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.

与此同时，卫尔斯理仍旧就它的身份问题苦苦挣扎。今年8月，学生处主任黛博拉·德梅斯(Debra DeMeis)告诉我说，校方仍旧没能想清楚，在性别已非二选一的当今社会，一家女子学院将如何存在。校长H·金 ·波托姆利和招生处主任珍妮佛·德夏莱(Jennifer C. Desjarlais)谢绝向我发表评论。但是在曼荷莲宣布改革政策几天后，波托姆利校长发表声明，说卫尔斯理也将开始考虑如何面对跨性学生问题。

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月的最后一个星期五，5000多名家长、校友和即将毕业的学生涌入卫尔斯理学院塞弗伦斯大楼附近的宽阔场地，这个大楼是以一位慷慨的1887年毕业生伊丽莎白·塞弗伦斯(Elisabeth Severance)命名的。在这个阳光明媚、天气宜人的早上，卫尔斯理即将举行第136届毕业仪式。在最后一个学士学位颁发之后，主持人请大家起立。按学校传统，两位毕业生领唱振奋人心的《美哉美国》(America, the Beautiful)。为方便那些不熟悉歌词的人，歌词印在毕业仪式手册中，其中包括这段副歌：“再为你戴上皇冠，凭着朋友情谊，跨越闪耀的海洋！”

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."

此歌的歌词是1880年毕业生凯瑟琳·李·贝茨(Katherine Lee Bates)创作的。这位神父的女儿打破了当年的性别羁绊，不但成为教授、作家和著名诗人，而且终生未婚，与自己的同性爱侣、卫尔斯理经济学系创始人凯瑟琳·科曼(Katherine Coman)共同生活了25年。当年一位同事讽刺地说“自由飞翔的未婚老女人（英文原文spinster亦有“纺纱人”之意——译者注 ）”不过是“锦绣人生的边缘，”已经53岁的贝茨反唇相讥道：“我一向认为花边才是最美的。”

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.

家长们、教授们和毕业生共同吟唱贝茨这首名诗，无数人因为他们与毕业生们和这所名校的联系而感到强烈自豪。卫尔斯理桃李满天下，培养出了无数成就斐然的毕业生。当数千人唱到“凭着朋友情谊”这句时，那些不知情的家长们继续唱到英文原文的brotherhood（“兄弟情谊”）这个词——尽管有些字面不符，这个词在诗中原意是泛指，也包括女性。但是卫尔斯理人们早已学到对性别词汇的敏感，因而数十年来，她们早已把歌中这个字改成“sisterhood ”(“姐妹情谊”)，并且是喊着唱出来，压过了其他人唱到的那个多年来排斥她们的词，把这句歌词变成了要求认可的宣言。这是毕业仪式中最具力量的时刻，每年都引来无数欢呼、掌声和眼泪。此刻让人感到女性们不朽的团结力量，并且在全美国最知名的歌曲中高呼女性地位的兴奋感——尽管等待她们的外部世界并不总是承认这一点。

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.

在过去几年，几位毕业生再次改变了这句歌词，他们认为“姐妹情谊”这个词，无论用意如何友善，仍旧是排他的，所以这一刻他们喊出的是“手足情”。另几位跨性男生认为这个词仍旧不够，于是他们喊出了最能代表他们的那个词“兄弟情，”这不是用性别主义的代词来指代全人类，而是代表一个微小的弱势群体，发出争取认可的呼声。

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.

说实话，在众声喧哗的那一刻，很难听出大家喊的是哪个词。唯一清楚的是，无论每个人喊的是什么，都是证明他们存在的重要宣言，尽管谁也听不到其他人在说什么。