Lesbian Feminist Explains How The Equality Act Promotes Inequality

Julia Beck是一名lesbian feminist。她作为成员的Women’s Liberation Radio曾经邀请过Sheila Jeffreys 。Julia Beck的这篇发言非常动人，翻译无法传达她的感情，有条件的话请一定观看Youtube上的视频。

Julia Beck是来自马里兰州Baltimore的作家和组织者。她帮助制作女性解放电台新闻（Women’s Liberation Radio）的每月广播。2018年，她代表女同性恋参加了Baltimore Pride，并在Baltimore LGBTQ委员会的法律和政策委员会工作。Julia Beck在传统基金会（The Heritage Foundation）的这次活动中分享了她在巴尔的摩LGBTQ委员会中因重申性别的生物学现实而被终止职务的经历，并解释了为什么《平等法》（Equality Act）会加速女性的不平等。

Julia Beck is a writer and organizer from Baltimore, Maryland. She helps produce a monthly radio broadcast for Women’s Liberation Radio News. Last year, she represented lesbians at Baltimore Pride and on the Law and Policy Committee of Baltimore City’s LGBTQ Commission. Julia shared her experience being terminated from her position on the Baltimore LGBTQ Commission for reaffirming the biological reality of sex and explained why the Equality Act promotes inequality for women and girls in this event at The Heritage Foundation.

大家下午好。我的名字是Julia Beck。我住在Baltimore，我是一名女同性恋。你可能在想：“为什么一个女同性恋会在传统基金会发言？”（传统基金会开宗明义表明是美国保守派组织，其政治主张也符合保守派一贯的提倡）我也问自己同样的问题。但我的答案非常简单：没有我的位置。我在政治上无家可归。所以，请相信我感激有此机会分享我的故事。感谢组织者，感谢我的小组成员，以及在座的每一个人，感谢你们让这一切发生。

Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Julia Beck. I live in Baltimore City, and I am a lesbian. You might be thinking to yourself: “Why is a lesbian speaking of the Heritage Foundation?” and I ask myself the same thing. But my answer is pretty simple: there is no place for me. I am politically homeless. So, believe me when I say I am grateful for the opportunity to share my story. Thank you to the organizers, to my fellow panelists, and everyone here for making this happen.

我的故事既匪夷所思又荒诞不经，却也是司空见惯。我作为唯一的女同性恋被踢出了Baltimore市长的LGBTQ委员会，仅因我陈述了生物学事实。经过长达数月的猎巫行动，我被认定犯有暴力罪。你们问我的罪行？——使用男性人称代词谈论一个被定罪的男性强奸犯，他认定自己是“跨性别者”，希望别人用女性人称代词指称他。他由于他的“性别认同身份”（gender identity）被转移到女子监狱，并在那里又性侵了两名女子。不过这并不重要，我把一个男性强奸犯称为“他”，比他的强奸行为更具有犯罪性质。

My story is as unbelievable and absurd as it is commonplace. I got kicked off of the Baltimore mayor’s LGBTQ Commission as the only lesbian, simply for stating biological facts. After a months-long witch hunt, I was found guilty of violence. My crime? Using male pronouns to talk about a convicted male rapist, who identifies as “transgender” and prefers female pronouns. It doesn’t matter that he sexually assaulted two women in a women’s prison, after being transferred there on account of his “gender identity.” Oh no! It is far more criminal for me to call a male rapist “he” than it is for him to rape.

在LGBTQ委员会领头盘问我的那个人同样自认为“跨性别”，他是Baltimore跨性别联盟（Baltimore Transgender Alliance）的主席，并声称自己是一名女同性恋者。我觉得这几乎很好笑。几乎很好笑。因为他所做的一切使女子、女孩和女同性恋者的生活变得更糟。

The man who led my inquisition also identifies as “transgender.” He is the president of the Baltimore Transgender Alliance, and claims to be a lesbian. I find that almost funny. Almost funny. Because everything he does makes life for women, girls, and lesbians worse.

Julia Beck: I find that almost funny. Almost funny.

去年6月，在Pride Week期间，他的组织Baltimore Transgender Alliance赞助了一个公开活动：“吊死女同性恋者”。他倡导商业卖淫，而作为一个拥有信托基金的白男富二代，他在卖淫业上并无任何认知。他还因女性组织没有使用包容性的语言而阻碍她们的实践工作。

Last June during Pride Week, his organization the BTA sponsored a public event where lesbians would be “hung by their necks.” He advocates for commercial sex work, of which he has no experience as a white trust fund baby. He also inhibits the work of on-the-ground women organizations, for not using inclusive language.

我加入LGBTQ委员会是为了让女同性恋在我们的地方政府中有发言权，就我们缺少代表的问题向市长提出建议。我审查提案，在市政厅发言，并与委员会的每个人分享周详的笔记。经过几次会议后，我竞选成功了一个领导职位。我成为法律和政策委员会的两名联合主席之一，但这并未持续多久。在Baltimore Transgender Alliance主席指责我恐跨后，市长的联络员迅速安排了一次紧急会议，以评估我是否适合作为一个领导者。

I joined the LGBTQ Commission to give lesbians a voice in our local government, to advise the mayor on our under-represented issues. I was reviewing proposals, speaking at Town Halls, and sharing very detailed notes with everyone on my committee. After a few meetings, I ran for a leadership position and I won. I was one of two co-chairs on the law and policy committee, but that did not last long. After the BTA president accused me of transphobia, the mayor’s liaison swiftly scheduled an emergency meeting to assess my fitness as a leader.

会议的情况比你们能想象的更糟糕。我不被准许插话，我的委员会成员、Baltimore Transgender Alliance的代表和三位勇敢的朋友一一围着桌子发言。会上一个男同性恋说“生理性别已经过时了。”我盯着他问道：“如果性别是假的，我们怎么是同性恋？” 我没骗你们，这是真事。另一个男同性恋不同意字典上对女人的定义，即雌性成年人类。这些男人无法支持他们不堪一击的论点。

The meeting went worse than you can imagine. I was not allowed to talk out of turn. One by one, members of my committee, representatives of the BTA, and three brave friends went around the table speaking their minds. One gay man at the meeting said: “Biological sex was a thing of the past.” I looked at him and asked: “How can we be homosexual if sex is fake?” I kid you not. That really happened. Another gay man disagreed with the dictionary definition of woman as adult human female. These men could not support their flimsy arguments.

可是，下一位发言者令我心碎。刚从子宫切除术中幸存下来的她浑身颤栗，抱怨着热潮红。她说她不是、也从未做过女人：“我有外阴不代表我不是男人。它在那里，它是男性化的，它是男性，它是男人。”当她说这句话时，领头审讯我的男人打了个响指，好像我们在读诗一样。它是如此虚假和造作。他根本不关心她在“性别认同身份”（gender identity）下所遭受的一切。他打了响指，只因这让他看上去像个盟友。

The next speaker though, she broke my heart. She had just survived a hysterectomy, shaking and complaining of hot flashes. She said she was not and had never been a woman: “It doesn’t make me any less of a man that I have a vulva. It’s there and it’s masculine and it’s a male and it’s a man.” As she said this, my accuser snapped his fingers, as if we were at a poetry reading. It was so fake and performative. He didn’t care at all for what she had endured in the name of “gender identity.” He snapped because it made him look like an ally.

几个小时过去了，但我坚持认为，性别对我们的工作可能真的很重要，因为它对我的性取向肯定很重要。但他们早在那晚之前就已做出了决定，我被投票踢出了。会议清楚地表明了一件事：包容意味着欢迎所有的声音，除了女人的声音，除了女同性恋的声音。

Hours went by, but I insisted that sex might be actually important to our work, as it definitely is to my sexuality. But their decision was made long before that night, and I was voted out. The meeting made one thing crystal clear: inclusivity means all voices are welcome, except women’s, except lesbians’.

不幸的是，如此多人对性别（sex）和性别认同（gender）一头雾水，因此我想将它解释清楚。只有三种性取向：同性恋、异性恋、双性恋。所有字母汤（指LGBTQIA+）中的时髦新身份，如非二元性别、性别流动、泛性恋，实际上都不是性取向，跨性别也不是。然而，现在一切都与T有关，完全掩盖了L、G和B。T与缩写中的前三个字母截然对立，特别是与L。性取向是基于性别，而性别认同身份（gender identities）是基于刻板印象，与同性吸引毫无关系。事实上，性别认同损害和抹杀了同性恋者。人们不是被性别认同（genders）所吸引。但我认识的每一位女同性恋都遭遇过让男性侵入我们约会池和愈加逼仄空间的压力。为了认可他们的“性别认同身份” （gender identities），那些自称是跨女的男人试图破除“棉布天花板”，所指的是女同性恋者的内衣。在每一个左派空间里，“跨女是女人”这一完全不符合逻辑的说法如同老大哥的标语一样被念诵。没有人真正相信它，但说你不相信会危及你的事业、你的交际和你的生活。性别（sex）和性别认同（gender）截然不同。人们喜欢讲礼貌，说gender而不是sex，而且经常交替使用这两个词，好像它们是同义词，但它们的涵义是不同的，我们不能将它们混为一谈。

It’s unfortunate that so many people are truly confused about gender and sex, so I’d like to break it down right now. There are only three sexualities: homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual. All the hip new identities in the alphabet soup, like non-binary, gender fluid, pansexual, are not actually sexualities, neither is transgender. Yet everything is about the T now, entirely eclipsing the L,G and B. The T is diametrically opposed to the first three letters in the acronym, and especially to the L. Sexualities are based on sex, but gender identities are based on stereotypes. They have nothing to do with same-sex attraction. In fact, they undermine and erase homosexuals. People are not attracted to genders. Yet every lesbian I know has been pressured to accept males into our dating pools and dwindling spaces. In order to validate their “gender identity”, men who call themselves trans women try to break the “cotton ceiling” which refers to lesbians’ underwear. The completely illogical statement that trans women are women is recited like a big brother mantra in every leftist space. No one really believes it, but saying so will jeopardize your career, your community, and your life. Sex and gender are not the same. People like to be polite and say gender instead of sex, and often use the terms interchangeably as if they were synonyms, but they mean different things and we must not conflate them.

性别（sex）是生物学现实。Sex不是一个肮脏的词，它指的是两种生殖类别。即使是有性发育障碍，俗称双性人（intersex）的病人，也只可能是雄性或者雌性之一，不会两者兼而有之。否认这一事实意味着我们无法命名、解决和改正基于性别（sex-based）的压迫和剥削。许多好心人认为性别认同（gender identity）的概念是社会正义的下一前沿，但实际上，它是倒退的。性别认同（gender）是基于僵化的性别角色，使男性的主导地位和女性的从属地位顺理成章。关于女性或男性大脑的想法只能证明将女性作为下等人类对待是合理的。性别认同（gender）固化了性别歧视的刻板印象。像我一样不化妆、不穿高跟鞋的女人，不符合性别认同的女性气质，但这完全没有问题，女人不是因为化妆或穿高跟鞋才成为女人，我们的女性性别是女人身份的唯一限定因素。但是今天，许多年轻女孩被告知，如果她们不接受女性气质，她们就生错了身体。

Sex is a biological reality. It’s not a dirty word. It refers to the two reproductive classes and our species. Even people with disorders of sexual development, commonly called intersex conditions, are either one sex or the other. To deny this fact means we are unable to name, address, and fix systemic sex-based oppression and exploitation. Many well-intentioned people think that this concept of gender identity is the next frontier of social justice, but in reality, it is regressive. Gender is based on rigid sex roles. That legitimize male dominance and female subordination. The idea of a female or male brain only justifies treating women as subhuman. Gender cements sexist stereotypes. Women like me who don’t wear makeup or high heels do not conform to gendered expectations of femininity, and that’s okay. Women don’t need to wear makeup or high heels in order to be women. Our female sex is the one and only qualifier of womanhood. But today, many young girls are told that they are born in the wrong body if they do not embrace femininity.

过去，如果你不遵循传统性别角色，做一个无瑕的漂亮公主或凶恶的大男子主义男孩，那么保守派会试图改变你的个性，以图符合你的身体。但现在情况更糟。自由派正试图改变你的身体来匹配你的个性。作为一个女同性恋，采用基进女权主义分析，我想消灭这两种做法。我希望所有人都能爱自己，在她们生来所有的身体里，以她们想要的方式生活。玩卡车和喜欢蓝色的女孩、玩娃娃和喜欢粉色的男孩、患有自闭症的儿童、长大后可能成为同性恋的儿童，现在都因为违背性别刻板印象而被手术绝育。少女们束缚自己的乳房，注射异性荷尔蒙，并接受危险的侵入性手术。这些女孩中的许多人决定，作为男孩而不是女孩在这个世界上更容易行走。我不责怪她们。作为一名女人并不总是有趣的。但是，姐妹情谊的欣悦，对女性的爱，即使是作为朋友，是任何医生都无法提供的。如今疯狂的一切令我们正在失去整整一代的姐妹们。这就是为什么它是个人的，是令人愤怒的，是毁灭性的。我已经受够了。我来这里是因为我关心女人，我期望你们也能关心。[观众掌声]

It used to be that if you did not follow traditional gender roles, being the perfect pretty princess or mean macho boy, then conservatives would try to change your personality to match your body. But now it’s worse. Liberals are trying to change your body to match your personality. As a lesbian, using a radical feminist analysis, I want to do away with both. I want all people to love themselves and live however they want, in the bodies that they were born as. Girls who play with trucks and like the color blue, boys to play with dolls and like the color pink, children with autism, children who would likely grow up to be happy gay adults are now being sterilized for defying sex stereotypes. Teenage girls are binding their breasts, shooting up foreign hormones, and undergoing dangerous invasive surgeries. Many of these girls decide it’s easier to move through the world, seen as a boy rather than as a girl. And I don’t blame them. Being a woman is not always fun. But the joy of sisterhood, of loving women, even as friends, is something that no doctor can supply. We are losing an entire generation of sisters to this madness. That’s why it’s personal. It’s infuriating. It’s devastating. And I have had enough. I’m here because I care about women, and I expect that you do too. [Applause]