Reactions toward China's best-known sexologist's disclosures about her personal life are testament to the growing acceptance of other people's private lives.
公眾對中國最著名的性學家李銀河公開其個人生活的反應說明了社會對他人私生活的包容度正不斷提升。

Li Yinhe has been leading the life of a pioneer in more ways than one. For one, she is China's No.1 sexologist - at least in terms of name recognition - and she is also frequently in the headlines because of many other things.
在中國，李銀河在諸多方面都是一個先鋒式的人物。首先，她是中國首屈一指的性學家，至少從知名度來看是如此的。此外她因各種事情常常見諸新聞頭條，頗具爭議性。

Li was the wife of Wang Xiaobo, a trail-blazing author who was among the first to live outside the state-sponsorship system. Besides his magnum opus - The Trilogy of Ages, i.e. Golden Age, Silver Age and Bronze Age - he penned many influential essays championing independence of thinking and helped his wife with her field investigation of sex-related topics. The fruits of their joint study surfaced in his literary works as well, for example, East Palace, West Palace.
李銀河的丈夫王小波是中國首批獨立于國家資助體系之外的作家之一。除了時代三部曲，即《黃金時代》、《白銀時代》、《青銅時代》之外，他還寫了眾多富有影響力的文章，倡導人們獨立思考。他還幫助李銀河在性學領域進行性相關主題的調查研究。他們夫妻合作的成果同樣也體現在他自己的作品中，如《東宮西宮》。

Since Wang died of a heart attack on April 11, 1997, Li has been holding up his banner and carrying on his legacy in a spirit similar to that of the surviving wives of Richard Wagner and Amadeus Mozart.
自從王小波1997年4月11日因心臟病逝世后，李銀河就象理查德·瓦格納和莫扎特的妻子一樣，繼承丈夫的思想衣缽。

Li herself published many tomes in the 1990s, which are groundbreaking in the area of sex research in China. But she did not catch public attention until she swerved from the purely academic to being something of an activist. She has been relentlessly promoting personal liberties in the private arena, calling for the legalization of gay marriages, etc, even though her voice is usually met with silence from legislators and all kinds of nasty words from the online public.
李銀河自己在1990年代也發表過一些作品，在當時的中國性學領域具有開創性。不過，她并未引起人們的注意。直到后來她從純學術領域轉向社會活動領域，才逐漸被人知曉。多年來，盡管立法者一再無視她的聲音，網絡上對她充滿污言穢語，李銀河也一直堅持不懈倡導私人生活領域的個人自由，提倡同性婚姻合法化。

Considering the ferocity of the feedback in the past decade, Li must have been mentally prepared when she announced recently the most striking news about her own private life. On December 18, she wrote in her microblog that she has a domestic partner who is physically female but psychologically male.
有鑒于在過去十年中，公眾如猛虎般的態度，在公開其私人生活時，她必定做好了思想準備。2014年12月18日，李銀河在其微博上公布其生活伴侶是一個生理為女性，心理為男性的人。

"I'm not a lesbian, not that I'm morally superior," she wrote. "Seventy percent of China's homosexual population ends up getting married to the opposite sex because of outside pressure. I married Wang Xiaobo out of love and it was consensual."
“我并非是同性戀，而且我并沒有覺得我在道德上更優越感?！彼龑懙?，“不像中國七成同性戀都會出于環境壓力勉強與異性結婚那樣，我跟王小波因愛而婚，雙方自愿”。

Li goes on to define the new person in her life as a "transsexual", the "T" in LGBT. "They are different from lesbians in that they identify themselves as male, so they are attracted to heterosexual females, not to lesbians."
她表示，她的伴侶是一個“跨性別戀者”，就是LGBT（女同性戀、男同性戀、雙性戀和跨性別戀者）中的T（跨性別戀者）。"這些跨性別戀者與女同性戀者不同的是，雖然在生理上是女性，他們對自己的性別認同是男性，因此，他們對于異性戀者的女性具有性吸引力，而對女同性戀者沒有性吸引力。"

Forestalling gossip
為制止流言蜚語

This fine detail is probably murky to a lot of non-professionals. Rumors of her sexuality had been swirling for a while and she had written about it in detail in her upcoming autobiography. She decided to release this chapter ahead of time to forestall any more gossips, some of which are "vicious", she said.
這個小細節對于非專業人士而言，可能是模糊的。外界對她的性取向的傳言有了一陣子，她在自己即將出版的自傳中詳細寫了這部分內容。她決定提前公開這一章節的內容，以制止流言蜚語，因為她認為這些流言中有些到了“惡毒”的程度。

Li describes how she first met this "man", who pursued her not long after her husband's death. For me, the revelation of this small detail shows either her naivete or her integrity. She could have been vague about the time they first met because to be wooed even when she was still in mourning would not cast her in a sympathetic light.
李銀河在微博中寫到她與這個“男人”的初次見面。他在王小波死后不久就開始追求李銀河。對我而言，這個細節顯示出了她的天真或正直。李銀河本可以不用清楚交代她與其伴侶的初次見面時間，因為她被這個“男人”追求的時候還處于悼念亡夫期間。

But then, that is typical Li Yinhe, whose lack of Chinese-style tact has made many uncomfortable, even those who support her.
但這就是李銀河本來的樣子啊。她少了點中國人的圓滑，也因此令很多人感到不悅，即便是那些支持她的人也會如此。

I had assumed that one has to undergo a sex-change surgery to be categorized as the other sex, but it seems that psychology alone would count in this case. I'm no expert on such issues, so I tend to trust Li. Homosexual or not, she has the right to live her life as she sees fit.
我認為，一個人只有通過變性手術才能劃分為另一個性別，但在這個案例中，心理性別轉變也能算作是性別身份轉變。我并非是這方面的專家，因此，我相信李銀河的說法。無論是否是同性戀，她都有權選擇過自己認為合適的生活。

But some online responses laugh at her for propagating sex-related knowledge. For them, these are "the birds and bees" that should not be addressed openly. Of course, Li is not the only one in China who advocates sex education, but there is always a segment of society that is suspicious and the top researcher's private life, now in the daylight, dovetails nicely with their suspicions.
然而，一些網友因為李銀河宣傳性知識而嘲笑譏諷她。對這些人來說，不應該公開討論這些性事。當然了，李銀河并非是中國唯一一個在倡導性教育的人，但社會上總有那么一部分人疑神疑鬼，現在這位研究者的私人生活公之于眾，正好迎合了這些人的懷疑。