美国国家公共电台 NPR New Generation Of Transgender Americans Wants To Change Laws, Not Just Minds

 

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

LGBT Americans say discrimination is a problem, but there is disagreement over the cause. This comes from a poll conducted by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Respondents to this survey over the age of 50 tended to blame discrimination on individual prejudice, while younger generations pointed¹ to both individuals and biased³ laws. The two people we're going to meet now reflect those viewpoints. Martha Bebinger of member station WBUR introduces us.

MARTHA BEBINGER, BYLINE⁴: In a small colonial house in Springfield, Mass., Edanry Rivera and Louis Mitchell do-si-do around the kitchen.

LOUIS MITCHELL: I offered coffee first.

EDANRY RIVERA: All right. I was thinking you wanted some coffee too.

MITCHELL: Coffee is the lifeblood of my very existence.

RIVERA: (Laughter).

BEBINGER: Mitchell, a 57-year-old transgender man, owns this home. Rivera, a 27-year-old trans woman, rents a room. Many days, to avoid scoffs⁵, stares and physical threats, Rivera never leaves the house.

RIVERA: Once I step out there, it's war sometimes with people.

BEBINGER: To avoid war, Rivera works from home as a marketing⁶ writer. When she does go out, Rivera does not try to convince anyone in the grocery store checkout⁷ line or her Puerto Rican family that it's OK for her to wear a skirt. She lives with the pain of trading contact with her family for the joy of being herself.

RIVERA: I can't change people who are so deeply rooted in their values, so the only thing I can do is to focus on policy and legislation because we're always going to have a bias², but we need policy in place to reflect our values now in 2017.

BEBINGER: Values that are becoming transgender-friendly, Rivera says, at least among her generation.

RIVERA: Government needs to catch up.

MITCHELL: Yes.

RIVERA: Mitchell leans in. This United Church of Christ minister has been nodding often but wants to make sure Rivera understands why older trans men and women are more focused on individual prejudice.

MITCHELL: We've actually been around to see some policy changes.

BEBINGER: Mitchell, who's African-American, mentions the Civil Rights Act.

MITCHELL: And we've also seen where the policy changes have not necessarily made all of us safer.

BEBINGER: Is there a story that's in this?

MITCHELL: Ah, yeah.

RIVERA: (Laughter) Want to hear it.

MITCHELL: There's probably no shortage of stories. Well, in the first six months of my transition...

BEBINGER: From presenting as a black woman to a black man...

MITCHELL: I was probably pulled over 300 percent more in my first six months of transition than I had been in the previous 23 years of driving.

BEBINGER: Mitchell still plans driving routes carefully because he says civil rights laws do not protect him from officers who see black men as a threat. Mitchell says laws are vital, but not enough yet.

MITCHELL: In the meantime, I want to work on every heart that I can find to say, hey, it's me. You loved me yesterday. Why are you not loving me now?

BEBINGER: So for people who are over 50, the battleground was the personal battleground.

Rea Carey, who runs the National LGBTQ Task Force, says older adults have lived for decades without legal protections, fighting those daily personal battles.

REA CAREY: Who are my friends and neighbors and family, and are they going to support me when I come out?

BEBINGER: But Carey says coming of age in the last decade or two as LGBT is completely different.

CAREY: Their experience has been framed by working to get legal protections.

BEBINGER: There is one more reason Edanry Rivera says many transgender 20- or 30-somethings focus on government. They rely on it for health insurance, employment assistance and student loans.

RIVERA: So our dependence⁸ on the government is making us much more in tune⁹ as to the laws and policies in place that have put us there.

BEBINGER: Well, beware, says Louis Mitchell.

MITCHELL: More dependence on the government, and a less dependable government.

BEBINGER: Mitchell and Rivera do agree that after years of progress, they are now fighting to hold on to legal and lived rights they thought were secure. For NPR News, I'm Martha Bebinger in Boston.

(SOUNDBITE OF GIANTS' "WHISPERED EARS")

1 pointed   

adj.尖的，直截了当的

参考例句：

• He gave me a very sharp pointed pencil.他给我一支削得非常尖的铅笔。
• She wished to show Mrs.John Dashwood by this pointed invitation to her brother.她想通过对达茨伍德夫人提出直截了当的邀请向她的哥哥表示出来。

2 bias   

n.偏见，偏心，偏袒；vt.使有偏见

参考例句：

• They are accusing the teacher of political bias in his marking.他们在指控那名教师打分数有政治偏见。
• He had a bias toward the plan.他对这项计划有偏见。

3 biased   

a.有偏见的

参考例句：

• a school biased towards music and art 一所偏重音乐和艺术的学校
• The Methods: They employed were heavily biased in the gentry's favour. 他们采用的方法严重偏袒中上阶级。

4 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

5 scoffs   

嘲笑，嘲弄( scoff的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• [ Scoffs ] Why should a young girl like that love an old fart like me? 为什么一个那样的年轻女孩应该喜欢我这样的老家伙？
• The noise of the moment scoffs at the music of the Eternal. 瞬刻的喧声，讥笑着永恒的音乐。

6 marketing   

n.行销，在市场的买卖，买东西

参考例句：

• They are developing marketing network.他们正在发展销售网络。
• He often goes marketing.他经常去市场做生意。

7 checkout   

n.（超市等）收银台，付款处

参考例句：

• Could you pay at the checkout.你能在结帐处付款吗。
• A man was wheeling his shopping trolley to the checkout.一个男人正推着购物车向付款台走去。

8 dependence   

n.依靠，依赖；信任，信赖；隶属

参考例句：

• Doctors keep trying to break her dependence of the drug.医生们尽力使她戒除毒瘾。
• He was freed from financial dependence on his parents.他在经济上摆脱了对父母的依赖。

9 tune   

n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整

参考例句：

• He'd written a tune,and played it to us on the piano.他写了一段曲子，并在钢琴上弹给我们听。
• The boy beat out a tune on a tin can.那男孩在易拉罐上敲出一首曲子。