So this extraordinary brain, it's so extraordinary, it's mystical, right? Well, this extraordinary brain was telling me 24 hours a day, Martin, you are female, you are a woman, you're a girl. Why do you keep walking around like a boy or a man?
I am Diane von Furstenberg. Join me for intimate conversations with extraordinary women about the journey of life and survival. This is In Charge. I am so excited for you to meet one of the women I admire the most. Today we are in Silver Spring, Maryland to share an intimate conversation with Martine Rothblatt at United Therapeutics. Martine co-founded Sirius XM and sold her stake in the company to save her daughter's life. Martine's story is one of absolute innovation, determination, and survival. I know no one who has accomplished as much as you have both in the trajectory of your career, of your inventions, and the unbelievable journey of your life.
Thank you so much, D. I couldn't wish for a better person to talk with than you. And we are here in your extraordinary offices.
Yes, this is part of the headquarters of United Therapeutics. These are zero-carbon footprint offices that create all of the heating, cooling, and electricity right from the exact place where we are. These are also the offices, Dion, where our company created the medicine that first saved the life of our daughter Genesis and so many other people with different life-threatening illnesses. So today, our company has been in business for over 20 years. We have this one scientist, her name's Leila, who's in charge of growing cells. She's extraordinary. Many other scientists had figured out how to grow millions of cells. She figured how to grow billions, then hundreds of billions, and now over a trillion.
So what do you do with cells?
We use them to create transplantable organs. It's back to the beginning that my daughter, but for the luck that I was able to come up with this medicine, the chances of her getting a transplant were one in a thousand probably. And unfortunately, every single day, hundreds of people die because they cannot get an organ transplant. By growing these cells, I'm able to grow specifically cardiac cells, lung cells, and grow organs that can then in sometime in the 2020s will be approved by the FDA to be transplanted into people. And my personal mission, my gratitude back to the universe for giving me all the good fortune it has given me is to create an unlimited supply of transplantable organs.
Wow. I don't think I mean I I I it's extraordinary. I mean how do you how do you define yourself? I mean how do you define a person who has touched so many lives, saved so many lives and is now growing cells that are making transplant possible organs. I mean how do you define yourself? Who are you?
I define myself just as a regular person. I can tell from looking at you that you don't believe that, but it's true. I see myself as a regular person that I try to do the best that I can each day. I love life and I feel extremely fortunate. And so often times the what I do I see myself as like the end point of thousands of years of evolution of women who have given birth and died. Given birth and died. And I often ask myself if my ancestors were sitting here in front of me, what would they say to me? What would the women say who had to just give birth until they died from child birth, work in a field, starve half the time, freeze almost all the time, had nothing to look forward to other than I'm going to make another generation if all I do is make another generation. And that's gone on for millennia. Women have literally carried humanity not only in their bellies, but on their backs. And here we are in 2020 and I say to myself almost every day, what would my great-great-grandmother Jenny say to me? What would even ones that I don't even know say to me the same thing every single day?
Martin, first and of all, enjoy your life. We did not suffer for countless thousands of years. My mother used to say for you to have every benefit at your beck and call and not enjoy your life. Enjoy your life.
So we have established that you are a visionary, an inventor, a catalyst in a huge scale. In a huge scale. So that's incredible. And we could stop here, but there's something else that is super extraordinary about your life. So take us in that incredible journey that is so mysterious to so many of us.
Sure. So, I think I looked like a man and I think I was perceived as a man and I did all the things that men are supposed to do. But in the first 40 years, in my heart, in my soul, I never saw myself as a man, nor did I see myself as a little boy. I saw myself as a little girl. And as I went into teenage and beyond, then I always saw myself as a woman. So this extraordinary brain, it's so extraordinary, it's mystical, right? Well, this extraordinary brain was telling me 24 hours a day, Martin, you are female, you are a woman, you're a girl. Why do you keep walking around like a boy or a man?
But did it scare you at first?
I I don't know. I can't say it scared me. I'd say it confused the heck out of me.
Did you share it with anyone?
No, I didn't because I absolutely knew that it was unacceptable to share that. I was in an environment where, you know, people would, you know, regularly make fun of gay people and I didn't even really know how to explain to people that I was a woman attracted to women. I had no friend that I could trust that knowledge to.
Of course. But did you actually know that clearly?
No. As a teenager, I did for sure.
Yeah. So, you felt like a woman. You felt there was a woman inside you.
I knew I was a woman, right? I knew I was a gay woman, but I knew that every single person knew that I was a straight man. I mean, is that a So I I I personally, you know, I always The title of my life would have been that great book by Robert Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land, right? Because that's that's who I was. I was a stranger in a strange land.
I know. But the thing that is different about you is that somehow everything that happens to you, which by the way I relate to very much, everything you turn into a positive. You're not saying it as a victim. You were terrified. You were afraid. You were fearful. You know because you know how I always say the most important relationship in life is the one you have with yourselves and your mantra is be fearless, right? And that's how you are in charge. So clearly you were always in charge of yourself because you knew that secret that you could not share with anyone. It was a secret that you were not shame you had no shame about it.
So you really truly accepted who you were and therefore you were always in charge.
I was always in charge and that's a good way to phrase it. You know, listening to you talk I realized that in a way perhaps I was calculating which has a little bit of a negative tinge to it, but it's it's accurate. I was calculating all the time that if I came out as a transgendered woman that there would be negative consequences. I would lose friends. I would lose family. I would lose job opportunities. I would lose my life. And that's what I kept calculating that. So I stayed in the closet which is not unique to me. I mean pretty much anybody before they come out that's why they don't come out is because they know there are going to be these consequences. But I never felt shame. I, you know, I loved my every part of my body and I never hated any part of my body. It was only by the time I got to my 20s and 30s that I was able to find books and literature that actually explained this to me and explained that it's just normal human variation. When I got into my 20s, I learned about these tribal people in India and other parts of the world where there's a third gender and they're accepted in their community. So this was very, you know, ratifying for me, validating for me. So when you ask who am I, I would say I am also a person that will play the odds. I never look for 100% assurance. I don't even believe that there's such a thing as 100% assurance. Every one of my businesses were risky. There was a probability of success. I've launched satellites only to see them stop working as soon as they've gotten to orbit. I've developed drugs only to see them fail in clinical trials. So I run the probabilities and I saw the probabilities were very high that I could change my body to conform with how I mentally saw myself and that in the coming of the turn of the millennium, the 1990s, there would be enough acceptance of transgendered people, perhaps I would have to move to Colorado and live a, you know, a small, quiet life. Frankly, I never imagined that I would end up being as accepted as I am in the dominant heterosexual cisgender society as I am and and be one of the highest paid women CEO in the world.
Very happy about that, too. I mean, really, you truly are a woman in charge. So, when did you feel in charge the first time?
Nobody ever asked me that question. So, I'm That's okay. I mean, I could tell you mine if that helps. Yes.
Okay. So, I felt in charge for the first time when my mother put me in a train by myself. She from Brussels to Paris and it was 5 hours or 6 hours at the time. was a long time and I was maybe 8 years old and I know I was worried but of course I would never admit that I was because I was also so proud. I was so proud and I felt in charge and I know that to this day every time I go I have I love going alone. I just feel in charge. So that's mine.
That's a beautiful story. Thank you for sharing it. It seems like I've felt in charge many, many times in my life. The first time I felt in charge probably was in 10th grade and my father made an ultimatum. My hair was halfway down my back and my father said, 'Either cut your hair or get out of the house. This is my house. these are my rules. Cut your hair or get out of the house.' And I said, 'Okay, I'll leave the house.' And he said, 'You're going to end up as a high school dropout and you're going to come back here begging to be let in.' And I said, 'No, I won't.' So, I walked out of the house. I got a job on Melrose Avenue and it was in a Persian carpet store where I had to like roll and unroll these carpets and customers want to look at the one at the bottom. So I had to like take, you know, 30 of these off and show that one to the customer. I rented the upstairs single apartment of an antique shop on Melrose with two other friends who they actually both were high school dropouts. And I kept going to high school and I kept going to school. I went to school. I went to work. Came home. Hung out with my friends. And finally one day I was at school and the principal's office came and said, 'Your father is here, wants to talk to you.' This was like three or four months later. He said, 'I'm really impressed with what you've done. Please come back home and you can keep your hair as long as you like.' He was a dentist. He says, 'I have a job opening in our dental lab that you'll be paid. I forgot the exact amount, but let's say like five times the minimum wage that I was getting, but you'll be working in the dental office. You'll have to cut your hair.' So, I said, 'Okay, I'll come back.' But, I felt in charge because I supported myself as a 15-year-old. And I I could have done that indefinitely.
That's good. I have other questions. Biggest influence on you. Your father or your mother?
Your mother was a comedian, right?
Yes. She is a very very positive person. She will see the positive in anything.
She loves making people happy. Her whole purpose in life is making people happy. My father's whole purpose in life was just doing the practical things that needed to be done. Are your parents still alive?
My mother is. My father passed away about 20 years ago.
And is your mother's super proud of you?
