ECONOMIST: The battle over trans athletes in American schools heats up
經濟學人：美國學校關於跨性別運動員的爭論升溫
Inclusivity bumps up against fairness
包容性與公平相衝突
Esmee silverman feels unusually nervous about the prospect of trying out for her high-school girls』 tennis team this autumn. That is not surprising: last year, she played for the boys』 team. For the past ten months the 18-year-old has been taking a combination of oestrogen and testosterone blockers as she transitions to becoming a woman. 「It’s a big emotional shift going from one team to another,」 she says, adding that she expects it to be made easier by the kindness she has been shown by girls her age.
esmee silverman對今年秋天參加高中女子網球隊的前景感到異常緊張。這並不奇怪:去年，她為男子隊效力。在過去的十個月裡，這個18歲的女孩一直在服用雌激素和睪丸素阻滯劑的組合，以過渡到成為一名女性。「從一個團隊到另一個團隊是一個巨大的情感轉變，」她說，並補充說，她希望她同齡的女孩表現出的善良會讓這種轉變變得更容易。
Ms Silverman is fortunate to live in Massachusetts, where transgender students can play sports as the gender with which they identify. Policies on this vary from state to state. While more than a dozen have introduced guidelines like those in Massachusetts, which also allow trans students to shower and change with members of their chosen gender, 11 states have policies that prevent this. Some say birth certificates are the final arbiters of sex; others, that transgender students must first have had gender reassignment surgery (which is generally restricted to over-18-year-olds). As an increasing number of teenagers reject the sex they are born with, these clashing approaches are sparking court cases.
西爾弗曼女士很幸運地生活在麻薩諸塞州，在那裡跨性別學生可以像他們所認同的性別一樣進行體育運動。各州對此的政策各不相同。雖然十幾個州已經引入了類似麻薩諸塞州的指導方針，也允許跨性別學生與他們選擇的性別成員一起洗澡和改變，但11個州有防止這種情況的政策。有人說出生證明是性別的最終仲裁者；其他人則認為變性學生必須首先接受變性手術(這通常只限於18歲以上的人)。隨著越來越多的青少年拒絕與生俱來的性別，這些衝突的方法引發了法庭訴訟。
In Idaho, the American Civil Liberties Union is battling a statewide law that bans transgender women and girls from female sports teams. They are representing Lindsay Hecox, a transgender woman who was denied a chance to join the women’s cross-country team at Boise State University. Last month, a federal judge issued a temporary injunction on that law.
在愛達荷州，美國公民自由聯盟正在與一項全州範圍的法律進行鬥爭，該法律禁止變性婦女和女孩加入女子運動隊。他們代表林賽·赫考克斯，一名變性婦女，被拒絕加入博伊西州立大學的女子越野隊。上個月，一名聯邦法官就該法律發布了臨時禁令。
In Connecticut, three female high-school athletes are challenging the policy of the state’s interscholastic athletic conference, which allows transgender girls to compete against females. They argue that it violates Title IX, a law passed to protect equal educational opportunities for the sexes, including in sports. In March the civil-rights division of the Department of Education said it did violate Title ix.
在康乃狄克州，三名女高中運動員正在挑戰該州校際體育會議的政策，該政策允許跨性別女孩與女性競爭。他們認為這違反了第九章，這是一項保護男女平等教育機會的法律，包括在體育方面。今年3月，教育部民權司稱其確實違反了《教育法案》離子交換。
These cases highlight the often irreconcilable nature of transgender rights and women’s rights. Those opposed to the inclusion of transgender women in women’s sports argue that it is unfair to allow people who have gone through puberty as men, and who tend to be bigger, stronger and faster, to compete against women.
這些案件突出了變性者權利和婦女權利往往不可調和的性質。那些反對將跨性別女性納入女性體育項目的人認為，允許那些像男性一樣經歷青春期、往往更大、更強壯、更快的人與女性競爭是不公平的。
Connecticut offers a vivid example of this. Since 2017 two transgender athletes—biological males who identify as women—have between them won 15 state championships that were once held by nine different girls. When they started racing as girls they had not begun hormone treatment. But research suggests that even those who have gone through testosterone suppression retain advantages of strength and muscle mass. 「It is so demoralising, running for second place,」 says 16-year-old Alanna Smith, a highly competitive sprinter and one of the girls challenging the state policy. 「I worry that women are going to become spectators of their own sports.」 Transgender boys, meanwhile, often attest that it becomes easier to compete against males once they have had 「top surgery」 (a mastectomy) and taken testosterone.
康乃狄克州提供了一個生動的例子。自2017年以來，兩名跨性別運動員——生來就是男性，他們之間的身份是女性——贏得了15次州冠軍，這些冠軍曾經由9名不同的女孩舉辦。當他們還是女孩的時候就開始比賽，他們還沒有開始激素治療。但研究表明，即使是那些經歷過睪酮抑制的人，也保留了力量和肌肉質量的優勢。16歲的嵐娜·史密斯是一名極具競爭力的短跑運動員，也是挑戰國家政策的女孩之一，她說:「競選第二名讓人非常沮喪。」。"我擔心女性會成為自己運動的觀眾。"與此同時，變性男孩經常證明，一旦他們做了「頂部手術」(乳房切除術)並服用睪酮，與男性競爭就變得更容易了。
Yet transgender activists argue that the law should regard transgender men and women as members of the gender with which they identify. They say it is discriminatory to exclude transgender women from women’s sports as well as deeply hurtful, especially for those at school. 「This debate frames these high-schoolers as Olympians,」 says A.T. Furuya, the youth programmes manager at glsen, which campaigns for the rights of lgbt school students. Furuya, a former high-school sports coach and one of a handful of people in America to have obtained 「non-binary」 as their legally designated gender, adds that 「These are kids who just want to play.」
然而，跨性別活動人士認為，法律應該將跨性別男女視為他們所認同的性別成員。他們說，將變性女性排除在女性運動之外是歧視性的，也是非常有害的，尤其是對在校學生而言。「這場辯論把這些高中生框定為奧林匹克運動員，」阿·特·古裡亞說，他是glsen的權利而運動男女同性戀、雙性戀和變性者在校學生。古屋是一名前高中體育教練，也是美國為數不多的獲得「非二進位」作為法定性別的人之一，他補充說，「這些孩子只是想玩。」
American exceptionalism美國例外論A similar debate is raging across the rich world. World Rugby, which currently follows the International Olympic Committee guidelines that allow transgender athletes to compete in women’s events if their testosterone levels are below a certain level, is considering banning trans women from the women’s game. That is partly because of fears that transgender women players could injure their teammates.
一場類似的辯論正在富裕國家展開。世界橄欖球聯盟目前遵循國際奧委會的指導方針，即如果變性運動員的睪酮水平低於一定水平，他們可以參加女子項目的比賽，該組織正在考慮禁止變性婦女參加女子比賽。這部分是因為擔心變性女運動員會傷害她們的隊友。
Strikingly absent from the discussion in America are women’s groups standing on the women’s side of the issue. Instead, many long-established women’s groups have aligned themselves with the transgender movement. 「Transgender girls are girls and transgender women are women,」 reads a statement from several rights groups in Connecticut, including the state chapter of Planned Parenthood. 「They are not and should not be referred to as boys or men, biological or otherwise」.
在美國的討論中，站在女性一邊的婦女團體明顯缺席。相反，許多歷史悠久的婦女團體已經與跨性別運動結盟。「跨性別女孩是女孩，跨性別婦女是婦女，」康乃狄克州幾個權利團體的一份聲明中寫道，其中包括計劃生育協會的州分會。「他們不是也不應該被稱為男孩或男人，無論是親生的還是其他的」。
Doriane Coleman, a law professor at Duke University, observes that it is 「extremely difficult」 to get the support of any civil-rights group for an agenda that does not include trans women in its definition of women. That is why the female athletes in both Connecticut and Idaho are represented by the same conservative Christian organisation, the Alliance Defending Freedom (adf). (Ms Coleman points out that the adf also has first-class lawyers.) In Britain, by contrast, the battle to preserve women’s spaces, from lavatories to prisons, is largely being fought by feminists.
杜克大學的法學教授多裡安·科爾曼認為，要獲得任何民權組織的支持，而該組織的議程中又不包括跨性別女性，這是「極其困難的」。這就是為什麼康乃狄克州和愛達荷州的女運動員都由同一個保守的基督教組織「捍衛自由聯盟」代表adf)。(科爾曼女士指出adf也有一流的律師。)相比之下，在英國，從廁所到監獄，保護女性空間的鬥爭主要是由女權主義者發起的。
The fact that progressives appear to have largely ceded this issue to conservatives reflects the way such issues have become polarised in America. In many countries, those who suggest that the law should not regard trans women as women in all respects are denounced as transphobic; in America, such attacks are particularly aggressive. Though polls suggest that a majority of Americans believe that trans women should not play in women’s sports teams, this is a view that is rarely heard publicly.
進步派似乎在很大程度上把這個問題讓給了保守派，這一事實反映出這些問題在美國已經變得兩極化。在許多國家，那些認為法律不應該在所有方面都將跨性別女性視為女性的人被指責為變性者；在美國，這種攻擊尤其具有攻擊性。儘管民意調查顯示，大多數美國人認為跨性別女性不應該參加女子運動隊，但這一觀點很少被公開聽到。
「Our discussion about this topic is insane—you can’t talk about it at all,」 says Natasha Chart, a board member of Women’s Liberation Front, which describes itself as a 「radical feminist organisation」. 「You face so much social opprobrium for speaking out that people don’t want to touch it.」
「我們對這個話題的討論是瘋狂的——你根本不能談論它，」娜塔莎·查特說，她是婦女解放陣線的董事會成員，該組織自稱為「激進的女權組織」。「你因直言不諱而面臨如此多的社會譴責，以至於人們不想碰它。」
How will the courts adjudicate? A landmark ruling on lgbt rights by the Supreme Court may offer a clue. In June, America’s highest court ruled in Bostock v Clayton County that gay, lesbian and transgender people were protected under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which bars discrimination in employment because of sex. That has raised the question of whether this reasoning could also be applied to Title IX.
法院將如何判決？對…的劃時代裁決男女同性戀、雙性戀和變性者最高法院的權利可能會提供線索。6月，美國最高法院裁定博斯託克訴克萊頓縣男女同性戀和變性者受到《民權法案》第七章的保護，該章禁止就業中基於性別的歧視。這就提出了這一推理是否也適用於第九編的問題。
Several lower courts have suggested it could. In August the judge who issued a temporary injunction on Idaho’s ban on trans athletes in women’s teams, cited Bostock. The same month, a federal appeals court ruled that school policies that forbid transgender students to use the lavatory of their gender identity violate the law. That judge said Bostock had guided his evaluation of claims under Title IX, because Congress had intended it and Title VII to be interpreted similarly.
幾個下級法院認為可以。8月，法官發布了一項臨時禁令，禁止愛達荷州女子隊的跨性別運動員參賽博斯託克。同月，一家聯邦上訴法院裁定，禁止跨性別學生使用性別廁所的學校政策違反了法律。那個法官說博斯託克指導了他對第九章下的權利主張的評估，因為國會曾打算對第九章和第七章進行類似的解釋。
Yet in Bostock, the Supreme Court explicitly said it was ruling only on discrimination in employment; it was not attempting to address 「bathrooms, locker rooms, or anything else of the kind」. This qualification suggested that the justices expect to consider such questions in the future. However the courts in Connecticut and Idaho rule, the issue seems likely to end up at the Supreme Court.
還在博斯託克最高法院明確表示，它只對就業歧視做出裁決；它並沒有試圖解決「浴室、更衣室或其他任何類似的問題」。這一限定意味著法官們希望在未來考慮這些問題。然而，康乃狄克州和愛達荷州的法院裁決，這個問題似乎可能會在最高法院結束。
本文章原文來自經濟學人，不代表公眾號立場
英文文章及圖片來源：
https://www.economist.com/united-states/2020/09/03/the-battle-over-trans-athletes-in-american-schools-heats-up
往期回顧：
【每日英語文章】脫歐進展
【每日英語文章】安倍經濟學
【每日英語文章】剛果維和部隊
【每日英語文章】英美烤豆
【每日英語文章】印度經濟
【每日英語文章】土耳其天然氣
【每日英語文章】痴呆症患者將激增
【每日英語文章】英國餐飲業
【每日英語文章】痴呆症
【每日英語文章】莫三比克
【每日英語文章】美元
【每日英語文章】美聯儲貨幣政策
【每日英語文章】加州火災
【每日英語文章】行走的機器人
【每日英語文章】男性化的共和黨
【每日英語文章】Roblox
長按二維碼，關注微信公眾號