#Carver tauchte zum ersten Mal im Protokoll der 27. Sitzung des 21. Deutschen Bundestages am 24.09.2025 auf. Es wurde im Rahmen der Rede von Daniel Baldy (SPD) gesagt.

Video: https://de.openparliament.tv/media/DE-0210027074?q=Carver

@thetyee Great article!

#IndigenousPeople #gender #artists #carver #Haida #Canada

On a personal level, Conway gives a hefty share of the credit for her accomplishments to gender transition itself.

"I can’t explain any other way how I could have done what I did," she says.

"I actually became a really different person.”

“Being able to see a moment and be decisive and seize it, and make it happen,” she continues.

“Getting other people all fired up, and working together towards [a] shared mission… new capabilities I didn’t have before,
that completely enhanced my feeling of being alive."

That is why she believes that trans people are unusually likely to have ideas ahead of their time,
or to be at the forefront of new artistic or technological movements.

"We are highly empowered
– in ways that people may not understand
– because of the joyfulness we feel in having been able to do what we do in spite of the difficulties," she says.

Despite this, Conway is keen to be seen first and foremost as a talented engineer.

She urges me to read a recent interview with the pop star Kim Petras, who said:
"I just so happen to be transgender, but that’s not all I am... reaching equality is being able to be known as a great artist.”

Perhaps there is no contradiction. Conway appears to see transition as just one of many "profound" experiences that can give someone a risk-taking edge
or an unusual perspective,
likening it to a particularly immersive adventure sport.

Gender, race, disability, innovation and oppression: as ever for Conway, it’s all connected.

Today she is still drawing connections.

She regularly chats with academics and engineers across the world, sending LinkedIn messages to strangers she finds interesting.

She is well abreast of the microchip war between China and the West,
and sees in artificial intelligences such as ChatGPT the potential for another "unfolding" that multiplies ordinary people’s abilities.

"Things are changing so fast that every few years is sort of like decades," she says.

"Forces are clashing, and it’s either headed into something joyous or it’s going to go ‘boom’."

Humanity, she argues, is caught in a race between the escalating speed of change and our limited ability to predict and adapt to it.

The current backlash against trans rights is one manifestation of this dynamic;
the next may be over cybernetic "amplification" of our bodies and minds.

Nevertheless, Conway is hopeful for the future,
and for trans people’s role in it
– not least because transitioning is "just too much fun" to stop people from doing it.

"We’re going to watch the trans community become a powerful force
for novel and exciting views about life that have not surfaced before," she says.

"And people are going to want to listen to what we have to say
– not because we’re trans, but because we’re delivering goods.

"And [eventually] they forget you’re trans, and wonder ‘how did you get that way?’

And then you can tell them:
‘Well, I lived a pretty adventurous life.’"

#Carver #Mead #transitioning #Lynn #Conway #VLSI

It was only after her retirement, when research into IBM’s nearly-forgotten Project Y threatened to uncover her past,
that she began coming out to people beyond her inner circle.

She remains sensitive about how her story is described, wary of misrepresentation.

In 2000 she started writing about her experiences and compiling evidence of her work on her personal website,
making it a resource for people considering or beginning transition.

She engaged in activism, pressing the IEEE to include trans people in its code of ethics
and marshalling opposition to the theories of controversial sexologist Kenneth Zucker.

In the end, Conway believes, the danger made her stronger, and was eclipsed by the "dramatic, profound joy" of having transitioned.

To finally be comfortable in herself after so long in chains was like suddenly being able to fly
– and gave her a deep appreciation for what she had.

‘Things are changing so fast. Every few years is like decades’

Conway has thought deeply about what drives innovation.

She is scathing about the so-called "great man theory" of history, which credits paradigm shifts to the individual genius of powerful people.

"When you’ve been on the inside of all these tents and stuck your nose through all the peepholes... you start noticing that it’s madness all the way up," she says.

"The further up you go, the weirder it gets.

Instead, she argues, paradigm shifts come about through a complex "unfolding" process
in which many individuals exploit the possibilities unlocked by new technologies and ideas,
communicating with and learning from each other as they go.

One of her favourite examples
– and a major inspiration for her approach to VLSI
– was the intertwined march of railroads and telegraph wires across the US.

Rather than some grand plan, she describes it as an "exploratory process"
where groups who founded new settlements could quickly establish links back to the lands they’d left behind
and use them as a scaffold for further exploration.

#Carver #Mead #transitioning #Lynn #Conway #VLSI