Lynn Conway
Lynn Conway
Computer Scientist, Electronical Engineer and Inventor
American feminine Trans who perfected the design of the microprocessors that marked the beginning of the Chips Pentium. Tenacious activist of the rights for trans people and fighter against social stigmas that affect the people who have lived a sex change, like her.
This engineer in electronics studied, while she was a man, in the University of Columbia and soon after worked in IBM where she works in the improvement of the Chips design and set the standard for the improvement of these systems. Her contribution gave origin to the supercomputers generation such as IBM, which created Deep Blue, the program that defeated the world champion of chess Garry Kasparov.
In that period, the engineer Robert Sanders married and had two daughters, but no longer was able to maintain the life as a man. He even tried to commit suicide but his wife supported him to make the correct decision. Robert soon became Lynn, but this transformation cost her to lose her job and to lose her daughters after a steep change in her wife. During decades she maintained silence about her discoveries, resigning herself not to receive the merit that corresponded to her findings.
Nevertheless, new born Lynn Conway, of around 30 years, also was dedicated to the advancement of computers and to the engineer Carver Mead of MIT. Together they developed the new methods of how to manufacture and structure of Chips that gave origin to the Pentium microprocessors.
In 1998, when with fame, her personal history began relevant to those in the scientific world, she needed to recount her past. In doing so, she took a risk by presenting her history. She was happy, living 13 years with her partner, Charly, who knew her history and who motivated her to tell her story. In doing so, Lynn Conway not only received the recognition that she deserved, but also, after 15 years she returned to see her daughters for the first time. She discovered she was now also a grandmother.
Her identity as woman also brought her some complications: “When I was inserted in the labor society as a woman I felt the weight of the prejudices that existed at the time towards the female engineers that worked in computer science, but that did not intimidate me ", she comments.
Lynn affirms that her life has been infinitely more satisfactory after her sex change. “My life like woman was happier than ever before. I became happy and more creative person, I believe that brought the success to my life. I see the future plenty of hopes because, although its obstacles, the life is a wonderful gift and I want to completely enjoy it until my last days ".
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