Without Lynn Conway, you wouldn't have a mobile phone
The trans woman who pioneered the technology to make the device you're about to listen to this podcast on.
QueerAF | Inspiring LGBTQIA+ stories told by emerging queer creatives · QueerAF CIC
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Show Notes
Lynn Conway pioneered the technology that makes it possible to use the device you're about to listen to this podcast on now.
She even coined a term for why her story has been forgotten, ignored and erased.
With a contribution to computer science in almost parallel importance to Alan Turing, producer Chuck Copenspire explains the Connway Effect of why her story is only just beginning to be celebrated as well as the legacy that should be.
In this episode of the QueerAF podcast, producer Chuck Copenspire digs through precious archive material of Lynn, telling her story in her own words, mixed with interviews with her contemporaries and historians to ask: what is her legacy, and why has it so rare for people to know her work? Like Alan Turing, her work in computer science was pivotal to how the world works today.
Dig deeper into Lynn's work on the Successful Trans Men's Archive in the Trans+ History Week 2025 workbook:
https://www.wearequeeraf.com/trans-computing-pioneer-lynn-conway-knew-that-were-stronger-together/
Episode Credits: Produced by Chuck Copenspire. Executive production and mastering by Jamie Wareham. A QueerAF Production. Made with support from Publicis Groupe UK. With thanks to all of our guest's valuable time and archive material from: LGBTQ Digital Collaboratory, Trans Activism Oral History Project, Michigan Engineering, University of Victoria, PBS Origins and the Greater Victoria Public Library.
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