Top 20 Things That Owe Their Existence to Queers
Filed By Guest Blogger | September 09, 2011 8:00 AM
http://www.bilerico.com/2011/09/top_20_things_that_owe_their_existence_to_queers.phpEditors' Note: Guest blogger Jeremy Redlien is the author/creator of the blog Queering the Closet and holds a B.S. in Philosophy, with a minor in Mathematics from SUNY Oneonta.
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10 - The Computer
Queer to thank: Alan Turring
Honorable Mentions: Lynn Conway, Mary Ann Horton, Sophie Wilson, Audrey Tang, Kate Craig-Wood
Lynn Conway is a computer engineer who first worked at IBM, but was fired in 1968 when she transitioned into a woman. She is credited with having developed numerous computer science innovations, many whose names make no sense to me, such as generalised dynamic instruction handling and Mead & Conway revolution in VLSI design.
Mary Ann Horton is a computer scientist and trans activist whose innovations aided the developement of Usenet and later the Internet itself. Sophie Wilson is a trans woman who designed the Acorn Micro Computer. Audrey Tang, who transitioned from a man to a woman in 2005, is a Taiwanese free software programmer, who taught herself Perl at age 12 and is considered to be one of the "ten greats of Taiwanese computing." Kate Craig-Wood is a British innovater, co-founder and managing director of Memset, the first British carbon neutral ISP. She is a proponent of greater energy efficiency in electronic technology. Kate Craig-Wood transitioned in 2005.
