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Writer's pictureJennifer Bilek

From Transsexual to Transgender to Transhuman Part II

Updated: Oct 16, 2022


In part I of this post, I documented the meeting that launched a global project to drive the normalization of what has become a body-denying ideology known as transgenderism. Martine Rothblatt, along with three other transsexual lawyers in the early 90s, worked together to create an international legal framework for the cultural acceptance of sexual identities that were not embodied in biological reality.


Within a few years of the Conference on Transgender Law and Employment Policy (ICTLEP) driven by Rothblatt and Frye, two male lawyers in the US identified as transsexual and two more lawyers identified as transsexual in the UK, Rothblatt studied for a Ph.D. in medical ethics in London. He was granted a Ph.D. in 2001, based on his dissertation on the conflict between the private and public interest in xenotransplantation - any procedure that involves the transplantation, implantation, or infusion into a human recipient of live cells, tissues, or organs from a nonhuman animal source.


Rothblatt is a tenacious and accomplished individual. He’s worked in Washington, DC, in communications satellite law. He has worked for NASA, was the CEO of GeoStar and the creator of SiriusXM Satellite Radio


He also led the International Bar Association's biopolitical (an intersectional field between human biology and politics) project to develop a draft Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights for the United Nations (whose final version was adopted by UNESCO on November 11, 1997, and endorsed by the United Nations General Assembly on December 9, 1998).


Rothbaltt, a self-professed transhumanist, is highly invested in human immortality. He not only believes we can live indefinitely but has created an organization, Teresam Movement to promote the geoethical (world ethical) use of nanotechnology for human life extension. Teresam conducts educational programs and supports scientific research and development in cryogenics, biotechnology, and cyber consciousness.


Rithblatt has partnered with Ray Kurzweil of Google, promoting a screen adaptation of The Singularity Is Near.


Rothblatt authored a peer-reviewed essay in 2008, published for the Institute of Ethics and Emerging Technologies, entitled “Are We Transbemans Yet?” while he was still the head of United Therapeutics. The essay speculated about reinventing our species and coined a new term called beme. He wrote:

“The bottom line of this essay is that in an Information Age society, the “beme is mightier than the gene.” This means that transmissible units of character or existence are more important than genetic information. For example, most people’s love-mate is a person with whom they share no genetic commonality outside of that which is in the general gene pool of their community.  However, a lasting interpersonal relationship is only possible if the two partners share a strong appreciation for each other’s bemes – their characters, natures, and ideational units of existence. 

“To say the “beme is mightier than the gene” is to disagree with the socio-cultural implication of “blood is thicker than water.” Most people’s strongest relationship, that with their spouse, or with a best friend, is not a blood relationship. On the other hand, bemes are not like mere water. A person builds up his or her bemes over time and evolves them as appears most conducive to an enjoyable life. More apropos than “blood is thicker than water” is “minds are deeper than matter.”  


“This essay aims to open our eyes to the fact that because our society is now based upon bemes more than genes, it must logically re-conceptualize its species boundary.“


A man with enormous power and resources, one at the root of the "transgender" and human genome projects, a lawyer changing laws to accommodate his views, is calling on humanity to breach its species boundaries. This should give us all pause.



It is revelatory to see a year-by-year trajectory of Rothblatt's pursuits since he authored the first draft of the Transexual and Transgender Health Law Report in 1992.

Please make a small donation of $2.00 to access this report.

See Part I on this blog post here.



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