@ItzyG@tech.lgbtIn 1968, at 30 years old, Lynn Conway transitioned. In doing so she lost her wife, her children, and her job at IBM. She continued on, living authentically as her true self and continued her career as an electral engineer. In 1978 she became an associate professor at MIT and taught a course in VLSI (very large scale integration) that became the basis of the Mead-Conway VLSI Design Methodology, changing how we design integrated circuits. In 1985 she became a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Michigan, and later the associate dean of engineering.
32 years after transitioning, Conway came out publicly as a transgender woman. Since than she has been a advocate for transgender people in the tech sector. In 2020 IBM formally apologized for firing Conway for being trans, over 50 years after the fact. Just a bit of #transHistory I learned today.
@psiie@mstdn.social@ItzyG Take that IBM! You lost out on an amazing engineer!
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I'm transgender and in tech :o. But I have to hide who I am.
I used to work at a place that ranked top50 LGBT places in the US and was openly gay there. I dont feel that comfortable where I work. Staritng to feel like it is right-leaning 
@psiie@mstdn.socialNot much has changed in the 2 months since posting this. I did come out to one coworder (the only other girl on the team) and shes cool with it. She has her own hardships shes dealing with so it was a bonding moment ^_^
I decided I will tell my team one by one once I start doing voice lessons. Which my intake appt. is soon. B/c at some point I'm going to go into the office and look/sound different. haha.
(It's mostly WFH atm)
@psiie @grinningcat @ItzyG part of the problem is that tech is so hostile to women in general, both cis and trans. And we all know corporations that put up a good front but really aren’t behind closed doors.
@SiteRelEnby@psiie What do you do? There are a lot of tech people on fedi who know the good companies and I've seen a good number of hiring/seeking posts.
@ItzyG we owe so much to Lynn. She and Carver made a science out of chip design.
@ItzyG Thanks for sharing this. Inspiring!
@ItzyG NYT article from 2020 on IBM’s apology to Conway. #TransHistory #LGBTQ
@ItzyG I just checked out her Wikipedia bio and WOW those are some amazing accomplishments in computer science.
Convenience link for anyone who wants it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_Conway
@reedlindwurm @ItzyG She built our world.
@ItzyG Her website is fascinating with lots of her story on it as well.
@ItzyG Congrats on your life and life’s work…. You have been an inspiration to many…
@ItzyG Thank you for sharing!
@Blanco@c.im@ItzyG Wonderful history.
@ItzyG I wish I could do more than favorite and boost this...
#LütziLebt 
@maxi@todon.eu@ItzyG A fee weeks ago I found her on #Wikipedia, under the category Transgender Scientists:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Transgender_scientists
Sadly the category is still almost empty (only 39 entries so far); there isn't even a subcategory of transgender computer scientists.
I'm sure there are many more (even 'important') transgender scientists out there. Perhaps many all of them are not out publicly (yet), but Wikipedia is also known to have a cis-male bias 
@ItzyG And just so we’re all clear on this: she is _not_ the Conway who invented Conway’s Game of Life.
@ItzyG Thanks for sharing this!
@ItzyG I just talked about her to my work's LGBT group for TDOV.
@skymtf@ItzyG One question, did she present as male after transitioning, or did she just idenify as a woman and never mentioned the transgender part
@ItzyG@skymtf The second. She completely transitioned, and kept her past a secret for most of her life. She actually talks about how tough it was to have to be stealth and the relief she had when she was able to be openly trans.
@skymtf@ItzyG so she was just stealth as in (passing women) or exterme boymoding. Sorry if I sound rude I don't intend too. Both sound equally hard!
@ItzyG@skymtf passing woman. Don't worry, a lot of these terms can be a bit confusing 
@skymtf@ItzyG still really hard though, I couldnt imagine. I am glad she was able to come out at somepoint.
@ItzyG
Agreed & another trans women people may not know as well.
I was lucky to attend #ComputerHistoryMuseum Fellows award event for Conway, still have her book with Carver Mead:
https://mstdn.social/@JohnMashey/109882464505602795
@ItzyG I want to design a shield just for her!
Not that I would without her say-so, I just want to.
@ItzyG as a black person the word "transitioned' has a different meaning so at first reading I thought she was dead. 
Glad to see what it means here though! Such an amazing story and inspirational life 
@ItzyG if that’s what she looks like at 84, I am incredibly impressed
@ItzyG Mead-Conway was THE textbook for VLSI when I was at university. A few years later it fell by the wayside as the silicon world shifted from NMOS to CMOS but for a brief shining moment it was seminal.
@ItzyG Hidden figures.
@ItzyG So she was at MIT my senior year. But I was not in Course 6...
@ItzyG
You coulda fooled me.
thank you for the transistory
@ItzyG A wonderful piece of history. Thank you.
I love slapping these stories in faces of people that pretend “This is just a trend!”
@denebeim@deepthot.org@ItzyG there's quite a bit more about her. I've been a fan for a long time.
While she was at IBM she did some very important patents and wrote some influential papers. After transitioning people would ask her if she was related to deadname.
@Aminorjourney@ItzyG Lynne is awesome. I remember when her website was one of a handful of cool resources online for those transitioning.
And now I feel old.
@ItzyG @danvpeterson I met her about 10 years ago, briefly. A CS professor at UM was getting an honorary chair, and the recipient gets to choose whom the chair is named after. He chose her name.
She came to the ceremony, and I saw her and recognized her from the photos (she retired a year before I started working here). It feels oddly appropriate to mention that I ran into her while we were both washing our hands in the women’s bathroom 
@marinaepelman @ItzyG That’s awesome, she sounds like a pretty amazing woman!
@ItzyG She would have been there when I was a student there. I didn't know. I didn't really know who any of our deans or their subordinates were though. The College of Engineering was HUGE.