Lynn Conway, who died Sunday at 85, was a leader in the development of personal computers and microprocessor technology, and a symbol for generations of transgender individuals.

I have mixed feelings on the pronoun use, but having read some of her autobiographical writing I don’t think she would have taken much issue with it. This piece is more focused on her work in computer engineering, so I felt it was appropriate to post here.

  • bambooEnglish
    36·
    5 months ago

    You’re right, very weird use of pronouns in the obituary. I can only imagine that most of it was lifted from the article from 2000. That doesn’t excuse misgendering someone, they could have updated it for 2024.

    • binomialchickenEnglish
      22·
      5 months ago

      Some people see their pre-transition selves as being one gender, and only use their post-transition gender to inform their new pronouns later. It was written by a person that interviewed her and apparently held her in high respect. All we can see is that there is an abrupt change in the pronouns, where Lynn presumably could have considered herself to match the new pronouns. We don’t know without asking her if she was misgendered by the article, and we are a bit late for that.

      • bambooEnglish
        3·
        5 months ago

        Yes, I have no clue how she felt about the article from 2000, and obviously reading it with a 2024 lens is not fair to the original author. I am happy for her that the obituary didn’t deadname her like the original article did, and hope that she would have been ok with the pronouns used the way they did pre/post transition.