It is well known that trans people are very present in the business world and some of them perform brilliantly in numerous spheres of activity. They can be found as the head of companies and at the origin of many organizations of all kinds – in short, they are dynamic and shine.
It is well known that trans people are very present in the business world and some of them perform brilliantly in numerous spheres of activity. They can be found as the head of companies and at the origin of many organizations of all kinds – in short, they are dynamic and shine. Martine Rothblatt is part of this prestigious list and is even in a class of her own, that of pioneer and fighter.
Born in a male body in Chicago in 1954, Martine Rothblatt grew up in San Diego and Los Angeles with a dentist father and a speech therapist mother. She spent her childhood with her head in books and clouds as she was raised in a religious Jewish family within a Hispanic environment.
Martine Rothblatt has a law degree from the University of California in Los Angeles and lived the first part of her life as a man. It was during this period, in 1979 to be precise, that she met the love of her life, her wife Beverlee Prator (alias “Bina”), whom she married in 1982. Together, they will have two children named Gabriel and Jenesis. It should be noted that Martine and Bina each had a child from a previous relationship and that they also adopted a fifth child.
It was in 1994 that – after the deep reflections required for this kind of decision, Martine Rothblatt chose to make a transition and feminize her name. Throughout this process, Martine was supported by her spouse, Bina.
Professionally, Martine Rothblatt began her amazing journey by founding the pharmaceutical company United Therapeutics Corp with the primary goal of finding a cure for her 7-year-old daughter Jenesis, who had developed pulmonary arterial hypertension – a rare disease that proves fatal within two years of diagnosis. Ms. Rothblatt will hire the person who will find the right treatment and, as a result, will become the head of a company whose primary focus is to decode the pharmacogenomic properties of drugs, manufacture anti-rejection transplantable organs and, first and foremost, generate and propose new treatments for people with rare diseases.
A few years later, this brilliant businesswoman will be at the origin of major startups such as GeoStar and Sirius Radio, a major company specializing in satellite operations, as well as Terasem, a transhumanist movement she created in 2004 with her life partner.
Still today, it is through this movement that she formulates her theory that any person will be able one day to be reincarnated in an artificial world.
On this subject, Martine Rothblott and her team created, in 2010, a robot in the image of her spouse and bearing the name Bina48. Impressive in its appearance and communication skills, it is technologically updated on a very regular basis.
Over the years, Martine Rothblatt has also written numerous articles and books on xenotransplantation (Your Life or Mine), cyberethics (Virtually Human) and “non-binary” (Transgender to Transhuman).
Today, this visionary woman earns an annual salary of $38 million, which is set according to a contract that aligns this amount with her firm’s share price. A true figurehead of transhumanism, Martine Rothblatt was the highest paid CEO in America in 2016.
Highlights
1954 – Birth of Martine Rothblatt in Chicago
1982 – She marries Bina
1990 – Founded the satellite communications operator Sirius
1994 – At age 40, she undergoes gender affirmation surgery
1995 – She publishes a report on “Gender Apartheid”
2004 – She launched the transhumanist movement Terasem