Martine Rothblatt is an entrepreneur, attorney, author, and transgender activist worth over $1.1 billion. Rothblatt is the founder, chairperson, and chief executive officer of the biomedical company United Therapeutics ¹ as well as the creator of Sirius Satellite Radio. ²

In 1981, Rothblatt earned a master’s degree and law degree from the University of California Los Angeles. Rothblatt’s thesis was on broadcast satellites, which led to the creation of SiriusXM Radio. Rothblatt had sexual reassignment surgery in 1994 and “[became] a vocal advocate for transgender rights and has led efforts to establish appropriate health law standards for the transgender community, and to resist discriminatory legislation.” ³

Personal Life

Martine Rothblatt was born in Chicago in 1954 as Martin Rothblatt. Rothblatt’s mother, Rosa Lee Rothblatt, was a speech therapist, and Rothblatt’s father, Harold Rothblatt, was a dentist. ³

In 1982, Rothblatt married Bina Aspen, and they adopted each other’s children and had two more. In 1994, Rothblatt had sexual reassignment surgery and began to express progressive ideologies surrounding gender. ³

Rothblatt’s daughter, Jenesis Rothblatt, survived a lethal lung disease thanks to medicine created by Martine’s company, and Jenesis is now a manager at United Therapeutics. ³ Martine’s son, Gabriel Rothblatt, is a political activist who unsuccessfully ran as a Democrat for the U.S. House from Florida in 2014.  ⁴

Education

Martine Rothblatt started college at UCLA in the early 1970s and took a hiatus to travel around the world. Rothblatt returned after a few years of traveling and in 1977 Rothblatt graduated summa cum laude with a degree in communications. After graduation, Rothblatt decided to stay in school and began a thesis on international direct-broadcast satellites. In 1981, Rothblatt earned her J.D. and MBA from UCLA. In 1982, Rothblatt began studying astronomy at the University of Maryland but stopped in 1986. ⁵

In 2001, Rothblatt earned a Ph.D. in medical ethics from the Royal London College of Medicine and Dentistry, for which Rothblatt now is a board member. ⁶

Professional Life

Law and Satellites

In 1981, Martine Rothblatt started her first job as an attorney for the Washington D.C.-based law firm Covington and Burling, where Rothblatt represented the broadcast television industry in front of the Federal Communications Commission. Rothblatt left Covington and Burling in 1982 for further education. During this time, Rothblatt continued working as an attorney part time and, “assisted the National Academy of Sciences in protecting the radio astronomy ‘quiet bands’ used for deep space research, and advocated NASA’s interests in its tracking and data relay satellites.” ³

Rothblatt also worked with the Spanish International Network to help create satellite communications that Rothblatt had first proposed in graduate school. In 1986, Rothblatt stopped practicing law to become the CEO of the satellite company Geostar. In 1990, Rothblatt left Geostar to create WorldSpace, a global satellite radio network, and Sirius Satellite Radio, which is now known as SiriusXM. Rothblatt stepped down as chair and CEO of SiriusXM in 1992. ³

Biotechnology

In 1994, Martine Rothblatt started the PPH Cure Foundation to fund research toward a cure for Jenesis Rothblatt’s lethal lung disease. In 1996, Rothblatt felt she could do better research and created the biotechnology company United Therapeutics. In 1997, Rothblatt left all other businesses to become the chairman and CEO of United Therapeutics full time. In 2004, Rothblatt founded the Terasem Movement Foundation which promotes extending human life through mind uploading and nanotechnologies. Rothblatt later created a battery-powered electric helicopter in 2016 through a United Therapeutics subsidiary, Lung Technology PBC. ³

Books

In 1996, Martine Rothblatt released a book titled Apartheid of Sex: A Manifesto on the Freedom of Gender in which Rothblatt “makes a case for the adoption of a new sexual model that accommodates every shade of gender identity.” ³

In 1997, Rothblatt released a book titled Unzipped Genes discussing sequencing of the human genome. In 2011, Rothblatt released a book titled From Transgender to Transhuman: A Manifesto on the Freedom of Form in which Rothblatt described in detail mind uploading and nanotechnologies. In 2014, Rothblatt released Virtually Human, a book that “explores what the not-too-distant future will look like when cyberconsciousness becomes part of our daily lives.” ³

1. “Dr. Martine Rothblatt: CEO: United Therapeutics Leadership.” United Therapeutics. Accessed December 16, 2024. https://www.unither.com/about-us/leadership/martine-rothblatt.
2.  “Martine Rothblatt.” Forbes. Accessed December 16, 2024. https://www.forbes.com/profile/martine-rothblatt/.
3. “Martine Rothblatt, Ph.D.” Academy of Achievement. Accessed December 16, 2024. https://achievement.org/achiever/martine-rothblatt-ph-d/.
4. “Gabriel Rothblatt.” Ballotpedia. Accessed December 16, 2024. https://ballotpedia.org/Gabriel_Rothblatt.
5.  ^[1] “Martine Rothblatt, Ph.D.” Academy of Achievement. Accessed December 16, 2024. https://achievement.org/achiever/martine-rothblatt-ph-d/.
6.  ^[1] “Martine Rothblatt, Ph.D., J.D.” Mayo Clinic. Accessed December 16, 2024. https://www.mayoclinic.org/documents/martine-rothblatt-ph-d-j-d/doc-20536747.