Dolly the Sheep and the Trans Billionaire.

Martine Rothblatt, the richest transwoman in the world, has turned the company that made Dolly the Sheep into a money-making machine. He wants to replace humans with cyborgs. Should we be worried?

The richest transwoman in the world hit the headlines again this week after American journalist Megyn Kelly denounced Martine Rothblatt’s claim he is a woman.

“He knows nothing about being a woman & will never be one no matter his costume," she raged. And quite right too.

One reason I’ve avoided writing about Rothblatt, the satellites to pharma tycoon, is that so much has been written about him before. Not least by super-sleuth Jennifer Bilek who pointed out his leading role in the trans lobby’s pivot in the 1990s to focus on changes in the law.

The other reason I didn’t write about him was his story is often presented as a simple moral tale. In this black and white telling Rothblatt is Dr Evil. It’s easy to see why. He and his wife Bina Aspen did set up their own actual religion. Terrasem in case you’re wondering.

They are also passionate believers in transhumanism the theory that humans must be replaced by technological avatars or cyborgs. So confident are they that robots are the future the Rothblatts even commissioned a robot of Bina. As you do.

Needs some work if you ask me.

Criticising all this felt too easy. Like shouting “boo hiss!”.

Then a couple of months ago as I poked around the worldy widey weby late one evening I came across Rothblatt’s connection with Dolly the Sheep. How on earth had I managed to miss that he’d bought Revivicor, the company that produced Dolly? Here’s Dolly looking pleased with herself that no one can afford to turn her into lamb chops.

Even more importantly Rothblatt’s purchase of Revivicor, I discovered, is the reason Forbes announced in July this year he was now not a multi-millionaire as I assumed…but a full-blown billionaire.

Billions more are predicted to be on the way. It was time for me to take a closer look at perhaps the most controversial trans activist of all.

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I started this article with comments from Megyn Kelly. She was responding to a post by the brilliant Wesley Yang who drew attention to the fact Martine Rothblatt is now on the board of one of the finest medical institutions on the planet: the Mayo Clinic.

The three hospitals run by the Mayo are regularly voted the best in the United States. As a Brit I naturally have to point out its founder William Worrall Mayo was born in 1819 in Salford in England. His mentor John Dalton was a giant of science who among other things invented the Periodic Table. It’s from Dalton that Mayo seems to have picked up his scientific rigour. Both men, it is safe to assume, knew what a woman was. Whether the Mayo still does is another question.

Among the fields in which the Mayo is considered the highest-ranking out of all the hospitals in the United States is gynaecology.

It rather matters then that when it comes to gynaecological issues the Mayo now routinely refers not to women but to…. people. For example when discussing high risk pregnancy it refers to… pregnant people.

Strangely, on its list of risk factors for pregnancy such as obesity, diabetes, alcohol and smoking the Mayo does not include the danger a woman might face if treated by a doctor who doesn’t know only adult human females get pregnant.

Is this the result of the sinister influence of Rothblatt? It certainly can’t help he’s been appointed to the Board. But here’s the thing…

All sorts of hospitals have adopted this insane language and the ideology that inspires it which have no transwomen on their Board. The problem, of course, is that Rothblatt is no ordinary transwomen. He is hugely wealthy. I mean, humungously. And he’s about to get even more so.

This is the story then of one of the strangest trans activists of all. He made two fortunes before he bought the company that invented Dolly the Sheep. The products he has created from its technology have already begun to revolutionise medicine. They are right now netting him hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

Whether we like it or not this is going to give Rothblatt immense power and influence. Even more than when the gender critical movement began to describe him as “the father of the transgender empire”. What is he likely to do with this power?

From the robot he has been building of his wife to the apocalyptic religion he founded Rothblatt’s vision of the future is one in which human biology is considered old fashioned, endlessly manipulable and …eminently replaceable.

Is there anything we can do to halt his onward march towards the Singularity, the moment transhumanists like Rothblatt hope is imminent? When genetic medicine and AI make the abolition of not just the gender binary possible…but human biology itself.

Let’s find out.