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.
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.
It’s fine how they’ve used it because it’s referring to the time before transition, so it’s just being accurate and also means the story makes more sense.
A lot of trans people would disagree. Just because someone was forced to conform to their biological sex for years doesn’t mean they felt that way on the inside.
Every trans person I know, without exception, prefers to refer to their pre-transition selves by their current pronouns and would take issue with the suggestion that they were still a boy/girl before becoming a girl/boy.
One analogy to consider is when someone comes out of the closet as non-hetero.
Say you know a man called Joe Schmoe who used to live “in the closet” but eventually came out and said he was gay, he’d always been gay, and he’s ready to publicly proclaim his sexuality. You wouldn’t then look at a photo of Joe taken back before he came out and say “this is a picture of heterosexual Joe Schmoe” because he wasn’t heterosexual, he was a gay man who wasn’t yet able to outwardly live that particular truth. Past Joe was still gay, not straight, and it remains correct to refer to him as gay no matter when in his life you’re talking about. The error of his previous misidentification has been corrected, and his labels thoroughly (and retroactively) updated to reflect that.
Similarly, it’s correct to always refer to a trans person as their true gender, preferred pronouns, and preferred name, even if you’re referring to a time in their life when they were not yet living that truth. Lynn Conway was correctly identified as a woman with she/her pronouns, and this article does her a disservice through its mixed-up pronoun use.
can confirm
Agreed, this is generally true, though personally as a trans woman, I prefer to refer to my child self with gender neutral terms. Others can refer to my child self with my current pronouns, or with gender neutral pronouns.
prefers to refer to their pre-transition selves by their current pronouns
so “I/me/mine”, right? :*P
Hah, got me there on a technicality.
An example though would be one friend I have who was telling me recently about a story from back when we were in high school. When quoting someone who was talking about her, she chose to use her current pronouns and current name even though realistically those wouldn’t have been used at that time. Even if it’s less “accurate” in a historical context, it’s a positive affirmation to be able to say “this is who I have always been, even if I couldn’t share it publicly at the time.”
And it also helps those in the present who may have never known her back then and might wonder who she was referring to. A bit like how one might talk about the childhood of Lady Gaga and not the childhood of Stefani Germanotta.
Also in the case you described when she talks to someone who didn’t know her pre-transition it would be a forced outing using the old pronouns and deadname.
I did get the point, just felt like you walked right into that one ;) As for pronouns, I believe each person is different & one should ask them before assuming - but I also think “misgendering” someone in past tense regarding a time before their transition, before being informed about their preferences, shouldn’t be met with the same disdain as the “vanilla misgendering”. In general none of us should be getting our panties in a wrinkle over other people’s way of addressing us unless there’s malicious intent (and even then, getting angry about it is just going to ruin our own day, chances are not theirs if they are that inconsiderate.
I know there is variance among the community. Of my three trans friends 2 prefere being referred to by their post transition gender in the past tense and once preferes they/them.
A coworker who came out requested he/him until after they took time off for treatment and then she/her afterwards.
When asked if he wanted his name updated on an award plaque while away he said no. So when she returned we had only updated her door name plate and info in the company directory.
What they “felt on the inside” is not the same as what they actually were at the time though. Referring to them as he or she is just a statement of fact at the time.
We had this same thing when Ellen Page became Elliot Page. Then there was an attempt to retroactively change all references and make them Elliot Page, even though the work he did before was as Ellen Page.
It’s not transphobic to acknowledge the person they were before transition.
How about letting transgender people decide that?
I for one want to be referred to by my chosen pronouns even in the past pre-transition.
Exactly, why didn’t they just ask Lynn Conway for her preference when writing the article?
Well played
I’m okay with it too. It adds context. If they referred to her as “she” describing the period she was a married father with kids it could be confusing.
Because there’s several comment chains about the use of pronouns and I wasn’t quite sure where to add this, I decided to do a top level comment. She wrote an autobiographical retrospective of her transition on her University of Michigan faculty page twenty years ago about a transition that started long before that (and her main faculty page is a fascinating time capsule of trans history). When I came out as trans in 2012 her page was already a bit dated and the start of my transition, as I experienced it, was firmly in the bad old days. Conway was part of a much older generation of trans people, and there were narratives we had to force ourselves into in order to access healthcare, especially the ideas that we always knew and the idea of being born in the wrong body, and (in her generation but not mine) the idea that you had to be heterosexual post-transition. For some, it fit well enough, but for others it was an act for the doctors just to get life saving healthcare.
The obituary I posted reads like it was written twenty years ago and would have been incredibly respectful back then. It’s narratively in line with the framework of stories trans people had available to explain their lived experiences in the generation Lynn Conway was part of, and ones that Conway herself used extensively in her autobiographical work. I’m glad public understanding has grown and the narrative frameworks available have expanded. I feel like the obituary is in line with her own lived experiences as she understood them.
Thanks for posting her faculty page, I hope anyone who feels conflicted about the obituary reads it! It sounds like the obituary author knew her well and wrote from a place of mutual understanding and respect.
I cite Conway’s Law (and it’s reverse corollary) multiple times a week. I’m sorry to hear this, but her contributions were many and 85 is not a bad run. I hope she was happy and fulfilled, in the end.
Well, TIL! Darn famous computer scientists sharing last names. This Conway is still an icon.
They’re like Popes. Once they’re at the top they get to pick a new name
It’s an interesting question as far as dead naming as well. Normally it’s just a dick move or an accident because of old habits. But in the case of people who did important work that might be published under an old name it can be useful to get them the credit.
I’m a computer engineer so I looked up her work to see if I was familiar with it. I was wondering if I would need to lookup her dead name to find her important work. In her case her big book (which I recognized immediately and have on my shelf) was published after her transition so it wasn’t necessary.
If it had been written pre transition it would have been a shame to not know she was the author.
I have that textbook in a box somewhere
