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考研英语阅读题源来源广泛,取自《经济学人》、《纽约时报》、《新闻周刊》、《卫报》、《Nature》、《华盛顿邮报》、《The Scientist》等等【了解更多题源】,因此考生可以多关注一下此类文章。下面新东方在线分享一些考过的题源文章,并附上详细解析,本阶段复习,大家可以看看。
From Newsweek
By Lynn Waddell and
Arian Campo-Flores
Mar.12, 2007
A Case of Gender Blues
After a lifetime of agonizing over his gender identity, Steven Stanton
decided to become a woman about two years ago. "It wasn't something I wanted to
do,” says Stanton, 48, the city manager of Largo, Fla. "It was something I had
to do.” He started hormonal therapy ,gradually shedding body hair and losing
muscle mass. He began to feel breast pain when he went jogging—a problem he
remedied by following a doctor's recommendation to wear a sports bra. On trips
away from home, he began venturing out dressed as a woman. Although he confided
all this to his wife and a small circle of friends, he knew that one day he'd
have to tell the townspeople he served. So he prepared meticulously for that
moment—aiming for May, when his 13-year-old son would be away—and created a
detailed eight-page plan. "When you tell somebody this, it's devastating," he
says. "It is like an element of betrayal."
Stanton's plan foundered two weeks ago when the St. Petersburg Times
published an article about his plans for a sex change. In the ensuing upheaval,
church leaders condemned him and angry residents demanded his ouster. At a
tumultuous meeting last Tuesday, city commissioners voted 5-2 to begin the
process of firing Stanton, who has received mostly solid reviews in 14 years as
city manager. "I do not feel he has the integrity, nor the trust, nor the
respect, nor the confidence to continue," said Commissioner Mary Gray Black. Now
on paid administrative leave, Stanton has until Tuesday to decide whether to
appeal. Civil rights and transgender groups have rushed to his defense. "It's
been a long time since I've seen that degree of just flagrant discrimination,"
says Karen Doering, senior counsel for the National Center for Lesbian Rights
and now Stanton's lawyer.
Stanton has struggled with his identity since he was a child. He used to
try on his sister's dresses and continued accumulating women's clothes over the
years. When he married in 1990, he hoped to stifle his yearnings and eventually
tried counseling. But "you go and try to get fixed," he said at last week's
commission meeting, "and you learn you can't get fixed." In 2003, while city
leaders were debating a human-rights ordinance that would protect transsexuals,
the then Commissioner Pat Burke criticized Stanton for not lobbying hard enough
for the measure (it didn't end up passing, but the town did adopt an internal
policy barring discrimination on the basis of gender identity). Stanton, who was
possibly wary of accusations of favoritism, responded by confiding his secret to
Burke. when he showed her photos of himself in drag, she laughed affectionately
and offered him fashion tips. "It was a light dress, and it didn't work.” she
says.
Stanton's case comes at a time when the transgender community is gaining
acceptance. There's "a growing trend among mental-health professionals to get
the social environment to adapt to the person rather than force the person to
conform to gender stereotypes," says psychiatrist Jack Drescher. Federal
civil-rights law offers no explicit protection for transgender workers, but
eight states (not including Florida) and the District of Columbia do. In the
corporate world, 122 of the Fortune 500 companies now have no discrimination
policies that include gender identity, according to the Human Rights
Campaign.
Yet Stanton's experience shows the limits of such acceptance. The Largo
city commission could vote to finalize his firing as early as Tuesday. Stanton,
who initially refused to take legal action, is now contemplating it. "I never
anticipated so many people calling up from the community saying, `Please,
promise me that you'll fight this'." As Stanton told his son, "Being courageous
is being willing to stand when others are willing to sit" After years of
battling himself, perhaps he's ready to take on a broaden struggle.
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