52 Years Ago, IBM Fired a Brilliant Computer Engineer for Being Transgender
By: Liz Jin
Tags: History, Discrimination, Inequality, Women In Tech, Transgender

52 Years Ago, IBM Fired a Brilliant Computer Engineer for Being Transgender

Lynn Conway: Photo source.

Few people can say that their life’s work has impacted millions of people. 82-year-old computer engineer Lynn Conway is one of them. Her pioneering research in science and technology has touched everything from smartphones to national security. Thanks to her, we can more easily connect to the internet and power up our computers.

But just as her career at IBM was taking off in the late 1960s, she suffered a devastating setback. The company’s CEO fired her for being transgender — a grounds for termination that is illegal today and rightfully so.

The average person might have crumbled at this news, or the very least become bitter and resentful. But Lynn Conway is not the average person. In the face of blatant transphobia and discrimination, this extraordinary woman quietly forged a fulfilling life and career. Her life story is a stunning example of courage, resilience, and grace.

Early Life and Career at IBM

Lynn Conway was born on January 2, 1938, in Mount Vernon, NY. With a mind-blowing IQ of 155 (120–129 is considered very high intelligence), her exceptional aptitude and curiosity led her to study physics at MIT and enroll at Columbia University’s School of Engineering and Applied Science.

In 1964, IBM was the 7th largest corporation in the world; Photo source: Shutterstock.

In 1964, IBM hired a talented young engineer to join a team that was innovating computer chip design. This was an exciting time to work in the computer field as groundbreaking advances were being made on a routine basis.

Her professional life may have been flourishing, but her personal life was a different story. You see, Ms. Conway had been born a boy, but she had a girl’s gender identity. She did her best to conform to society’s expectations of her. She married a woman and had two children, all the while seeking out medical professionals who could help her transition from male to female.

Remarkably, Lynn’s immediate family and IBM’s direct supervisors were supportive of her decision. Her managers even encouraged her to take a leave of absence and then return to the company with a new identity once she had completed her transition.

Unfortunately, IBM’s then-CEO Thomas J. Watson, Jr. was not as open-minded. He was horrified upon learning that IBM had hired a transwoman, and he fired Ms. Conway in 1968 to avoid “scandalous publicity.”

Lynn in 1990; Photo source.

He may have spared IBM from “scandal,” but his hateful actions had devastating consequences for Lynn. She lost her prestigious job, and her subsequent loss of income negatively impacted her impending divorce. Not only was she denied visitation rights, but California’s Social Services also threatened her with a restraining order if she ever tried to see her children.

Arguably, the saddest consequence of her firing was that the family members and colleagues who had once supported her now lost confidence in her mission. Lynn went abroad for her gender reassignment surgery alone and returned home to an uncertain future.

Her comeback

Rather than wallow in self-pity, Lynn embraced her new identity as a woman and humbly started her career journey again from the bottom as a contractor.

It’s worth reiterating that, professionally, she had lost everything. It’s as if she had never worked at IBM. Her professional reputation was obliterated, as were her contributions to the projects she had worked on during her time there.

Lynn may have lost everything, but she possessed something even more potent: herself. She finally felt free as a woman, and she showed the world that when you stay true to yourself, you become unstoppable. She was still a brilliant engineer, and it took no time at all for the tech world to take notice.

Lynn at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center; Photo source.

In 1973, she was recruited by the world-renown Xerox Palo Alto Research Center and once again immersed herself in the computer chip design research that she loved. Her innovations around Very Large Scale Integrated (VSLI) chip design and a subsequent textbook on VLSI systems became the gold standard for universities and tech companies worldwide.

Her star only continued to rise. She was sought after by the U.S. Department of Defense to oversee their machine intelligence technology. Soon after that, she joined the University of Michigan faculty in Ann Arbor as an esteemed professor of computer science and electrical engineering and the associate dean of engineering.

Her personal life thrived as well. She met her loving husband Charlie, an engineer, in 1987, and the two have been together ever since.

Lynn and her husband Charles “Charlie” Rogers; Photo source.

Lynn finally shares her story with the world and receives an apology from IBM

After the scarring experience of being fired by IBM, Lynn understandably hid the fact that she was transgender except when it was absolutely necessary (e.g., obtaining government security clearances).

In 1999, the same year Lynn retired from being a professor, computer historians began investigating her early research projects at IBM. Lynn knew that it was only a matter of time before she would be “outed.”

With her husband’s support, she proactively set up a website that detailed her transgender journey and the reasons she left IBM. She explained her goal as wanting to “illuminate and normalize the issues of gender identity and the processes of gender transition.”

In 2020, 52 years after IBM fired her, the company invited Lynn to a company-wide virtual event where they apologized and sought forgiveness. At this same event, IBM awarded her their Lifetime Achievement Award, a rare honor given to those who have changed the world through their technological inventions.

The number of accolades that Lynn has accumulated over the years is too large to enumerate here. After decades of transforming the world with her scientific discoveries, she continues to change the world for the better as a transgender activist, fighting for equal opportunities and employment protection for transgender people.

Lynn received an honorary doctorate from the University of Michigan Ann Arbor; Photo source.

Conclusion

It would be naïve to look at Lynn’s meteoric rise to success and assume that her life was smooth-sailing post her gender reassignment surgery. The laws may have evolved since the 1960s to protect transgender employees (although legal loopholes exist). But we still live in a world where, tragically, transgender individuals are harassed, beaten, raped, and killed every day just for being who they are.

Lynn’s happiness was hard-won and a direct result of her unwavering positivity and resilience. I can only imagine the private hardships and daily indignities that she had to suffer as a transgender woman, starting with her unjust termination from IBM. Rather than blame IBM, she took the high road and resolved to make her life as meaningful and happy as possible.

On her website are listed inspirational quotes from giants in the technology and literary fields. The last quote is her own, and it aptly summarizes her awe-inspiring mentality: If you want to change the future, start living as if you’re already there. Our future is more bright, more connected, and more inclusive because of this incredible woman.

If you want to change the future, start living as if you’re already there. — Lynn Conway

Sources: