Profile: Lynn Conway
Lynn Conway is a pioneering computer chip researcher and inventor who has been a leading expert in her field for more than 40 years. She is also a woman who transitioned from male to female in the late 1960s.
When Conway began the transition process, she was fired from her job at IBM, despite her many brilliant innovations. Conway decided to go “stealth” — completely disassociating herself from her accomplished past in order to avoid discrimination.
Taking on a new a name and a new life meant Conway had to start from the very bottom. But armed with a newfound happiness due to her transition, Conway quickly rose through the ranks, and by 1978 she was on the cusp of international fame. That year, the Department of Defense began a top-secret program to build on her work, and Conway’s textbook was being adopted by universities all over the world. Throughout the 1980s, Conway’s success continued. She received tenure as a professor emeritus at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and in 1987, she met and married her husband Charlie.
During this period, Conway made sure to keep her story a closely guarded secret, telling only her very close friends, lest a repeat of her experience occur. But Conway’s past eventually caught up with her. In 1999, eager young researchers looking to find the story behind some of history’s most important computer innovations linked Conway with the work she had done at IBM.
Despite her fears, Conway learned that in 1999, the world was a changed place. People were ready to accept her in ways that had seemed impossible in the 1960s. She decided that her experience would show everyone that it was possible for a transsexual to lead a very successful life. (And in 2002, her former employer, IBM, added gender identity to its non-discrimination clause.)
Conway is now very open about her history. She maintains a website detailing her story and profiling other successful transsexual people. Her story helps educate Americans, from parents looking to understand their transsexual children to employers who are wondering what to do when their employee is transitioning.