Mary Ann Horton
Encyclopedia
Mary Ann Horton, formerly Mark R. Horton (born November 21, 1955), is a Usenet
and Internet
pioneer. Horton contributed to Berkeley UNIX (BSD), including the vi
editor and terminfo
database, and led the growth of Usenet in the 1980s.
Horton is a computer professional and a transgender
educator and activist.
, and raised in the Pacific Northwest
. Finding an interest in computer programming
in 1970, Horton moved to San Diego County in 1971, and quickly fell in love with California
. She graduated from San Dieguito High School in 1973. Earning a BSCS from the University of Southern California
in 1976, Horton went on to obtain an MSCS at the University of Wisconsin, and transfer to the University of California at Berkeley in 1978, earning a Ph.D.
in Computer Science
in 1981.
Horton was introduced to UNIX
at Wisconsin, creating an enhanced UNIX text editor called hed. At Berkeley, she contributed to the development of Berkeley UNIX, including the vi
text editor, uuencode
, w
and load averages, termcap
, and curses
. Her Ph.D. dissertation was the creation of a new type of syntax directed editor with a textual interface. This technology was later used to create computer-aided software engineering
tools.
In 1980, Horton brought Usenet
's A News
system to Berkeley and began to champion its growth from a 10 site network. To Usenet's original dialup UUCP
technology, she added support for Berknet and ARPANET
, and added a gateway between several popular ARPANET mailing lists and usenet "fa" newsgroups. In 1981, high school student Matt Glickman asked Horton for a spring break project, and the two designed and implemented B News
, which offered major performance and user interface improvements needed to keep up with the explosive growth of Usenet traffic volume.
in Columbus, Ohio
. At Bell Labs she brought parts of Berkeley UNIX to UNIX System V
, including vi
and curses
; as part of the work on curses, she developed terminfo
as a replacement for termcap
. In 1987 she joined the Bell Labs Computation Center to bring official support for Usenet
and Email to Bell Labs.
Horton continued to lead Usenet until 1988. During this time she promoted rapid growth by arranging news feeds for new sites. Each new site agreed to be the feed for two more new sites as the need arose. This policy contributed to the growth of Usenet to over 5000 sites by 1987. Along with Rick Adams
and Eugene Spafford, Horton created the Usenet Backbone, later described as the Backbone cabal
. The backbone insured the reliability and performance of the overall network.
Usenet began with only a few messages per day, but volume rapidly grew to become a problem. Horton added moderated newsgroups, distinguished with names beginning with "mod" or containing "announce", and moderated the first such newsgroup: news.announce.important. Only the moderator could post messages, all other messages were automatically sent to the moderator for approval. Eventually the B News
software was enhanced to permit any newsgroup with any name to be moderated.
Usenet relied on email for replies, requiring that Usenet links could be used for email. At first, all Usenet and UUCP
messages used "bang paths", such as unc!research!ucbvax!mark, as email addresses. Horton guided this email process, including the use of the ARPANET
/UUCP gateway, using routed email addresses such as cbosgd!mark@berkeley. These addresses were complex, convoluted, and sometimes ambiguous. When Internet domains were first created in 1983, Horton championed their use, publishing the classic paper "What is a domain?"
At Usenix in January 1984, Horton recruited a group of volunteers to create the UUCP Mapping Project. The project divided the world into geographic regions. A volunteer for each region maintained the region's UUCP connectivity map and posted it regularly to the comp.mail.maps newsgroup. Each site ran Steve Bellovin and Peter Honeyman's pathalias program to create a locally optimized email routing database from this map. Horton worked with Chris Seiwald and Larry Auton to produce the smail program, used this database to route email, using email addresses such as mark@cbosgd.UUCP.
In the mid 1980s, early domain use included .ARPA, .UUCP, .CSNET, and .BITNET as top level domains, representing four major email networks. In January 1986, Horton represented UUCP at a meeting to arrange technical cooperation of these networks. Others were Dan Oberst representing BITNET
, Craig Partridge representing CSNET
, and Ken Harrenstein, who hosted the meeting on behalf of the ARPANET. Harrenstein convinced the others to support the creation of six top level functionally domains COM, EDU, ORG, NET, GOV, and MIL. Each network was authorized to register domains in COM, EDU, ORG, and NET. This group of registrars was the precursor to the ICANN
domain name registry
.
Horton implemented the UUCP portion of the registry by reorganizing the UUCP Project into the "UUCP Zone". With Tim Thompson, Horton registered 150 UUCP-only organizations with officially sanctioned .COM and .EDU domains. mark@stargate.com became a valid UUCP email address, even though the message was delivered via UUCP using dial-up modems.
The UUCP Zone joined with Lauren Weinstein's Stargate project, which built a pilot project to transmit Usenet over satellite television
, to form Stargate Information Systems. The first domain they registered was stargate.com, the second was Horton's employer, att.com. The att.com domain connected to the Internet using dial-up modems until 1990, when Horton implemented Bill Cheswick's firewall architecture
to build AT&T's first TCP/IP connection to the Internet with a demonstrably secure firewall.
Horton's 1990 book, Portable C Software became a popular reference for programming in C. It outlined functions and programming techniques that could be reliably used on many different types of computer systems, and which methods were unportable.
In 1992, Horton created an internal email package for Bell Labs called EMS (Electronic Messaging System). This package integrated the existing UUCP-based email system with the AT&T "POST" white pages directory and the domain-based email world. She created and led a supported email service for Bell Labs. This system supported many email addressing formats, including those that dynamically queried the POST directory:
In 2000, Horton joined Avaya
, where she was the Sr. Manager of Avaya Corporate Email and Directory. In 2002, Horton joined the UNIX Implementation Engineering group at Bank One, which was purchased by JPMorgan Chase in 2004. Finally fulfilling a lifelong dream, Horton moved from Columbus to San Diego in 2007, joining Sempra Energy
's Transmission Grid Operations team.
woman. Adopting the name Mary Ann in 1987, Horton founded Columbus' first transgender support group, the Crystal Club, in 1989. In 1997, she joined EQUAL Lucent's LGBT employee resource group, and saw the value of being "out" at work, supported by an Equal Opportunity (EO) nondiscrimination policy. At the time, no major company included transgender language in their EO policy. Horton asked for its inclusion in Lucent's policy, and recommended the language "gender identity, characteristics, or expression". As a result, Lucent became the first large company to add transgender-inclusive language to its EO policy in 1997.
At the time, Horton identified as a crossdresser, presenting sometimes as Mark and sometimes as Mary Ann. After the Lucent EO policy was published, Horton worked at Lucent primarily as Mark, but occasionally as Mary Ann. She was the first known crossdresser to successfully work part-time as a woman for a large company. Despite controversy about the ability of corporate America to deal with a part-time crossdresser, Horton's workplace experience was positive.
Horton championed the addition of transgender-inclusive language with other companies, supporting its addition to Apple, Xerox, Chase, and later to Bank One and Sempra Energy. The "characteristics" term was intended to include intersex individuals, but was removed after discussions with intersex activists who stated that "gender expression" best includes their needs.
Today, the "gender identity or expression" language is a best practice to protect transgender workers from discrimination.
Horton was awarded the "Trailblazer" award by Out & Equal
Workplace Advocates in October, 2001 for her work at Lucent and Avaya. The next week, she transitioned, presenting full time as Mary Ann. Over the next few years, she took appropriate medical steps, and legally changed her name to Mary Ann Horton and her sex to female.
In the 1990s, most employer health insurance polices denied coverage for sex reassignment surgery (SRS) or anything related to it. Horton advocated for the inclusion of transgender health benefits (THBs) in these policies. She documented Lucent's coverage of SRS in 2000
and championed the inclusion of points for THBs in the Human Rights Campaign
's Corporate Equality Index
, which were added in 2005.
In 2002, Horton gathered data from 13 of 15 major SRS surgeons to determine incidence, intrinsic prevalence,
and average cost of SRS-related surgeries. This data, presented at the
Out & Equal Annual Workplace Summit
showed that the cost of THB coverage, previously believed to be very high, is actually very low, less than 40 cents per US resident per year. This data, combined with the HRC CEI points, has led to increased coverage of THBs by large employers.
.
Horton has two sons:
Matt and Adam
Horton works for Sempra Energy
as a Senior EMS Programmer/Analyst. (In this case, EMS stands for Energy Management System, a SCADA
control system.)
Horton is also a Consultant on Transgender Workplace issues and on UNIX and Internet technology. She owns Red Ace Technology Solutions, providing discounted web hosting services to nonprofit organizations and small businesses.
Usenet
Usenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980...
and Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
pioneer. Horton contributed to Berkeley UNIX (BSD), including the vi
Vi
vi is a screen-oriented text editor originally created for the Unix operating system. The portable subset of the behavior of vi and programs based on it, and the ex editor language supported within these programs, is described by the Single Unix Specification and POSIX.The original code for vi...
editor and terminfo
Terminfo
Terminfo is a library and database that enables programs to use display terminals in a device-independent manner. This library has its origins in the UNIX System III operating system....
database, and led the growth of Usenet in the 1980s.
Horton is a computer professional and a transgender
Transgender
Transgender is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to vary from culturally conventional gender roles....
educator and activist.
Education
Horton was born in Richland, WashingtonRichland, Washington
Richland is a city in Benton County in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Washington, at the confluence of the Yakima and the Columbia Rivers. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 48,058. April 1, 2011 estimates from the Washington State Office of Financial Management put the...
, and raised in the Pacific Northwest
Pacific Northwest
The Pacific Northwest is a region in northwestern North America, bounded by the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains on the east. Definitions of the region vary and there is no commonly agreed upon boundary, even among Pacific Northwesterners. A common concept of the...
. Finding an interest in computer programming
Computer programming
Computer programming is the process of designing, writing, testing, debugging, and maintaining the source code of computer programs. This source code is written in one or more programming languages. The purpose of programming is to create a program that performs specific operations or exhibits a...
in 1970, Horton moved to San Diego County in 1971, and quickly fell in love with California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. She graduated from San Dieguito High School in 1973. Earning a BSCS from the University of Southern California
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...
in 1976, Horton went on to obtain an MSCS at the University of Wisconsin, and transfer to the University of California at Berkeley in 1978, earning a Ph.D.
Ph.D.
A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
in Computer Science
Computer science
Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...
in 1981.
Horton was introduced to UNIX
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
at Wisconsin, creating an enhanced UNIX text editor called hed. At Berkeley, she contributed to the development of Berkeley UNIX, including the vi
Vi
vi is a screen-oriented text editor originally created for the Unix operating system. The portable subset of the behavior of vi and programs based on it, and the ex editor language supported within these programs, is described by the Single Unix Specification and POSIX.The original code for vi...
text editor, uuencode
Uuencode
Uuencoding is a form of binary-to-text encoding that originated in the Unix program uuencode, for encoding binary data for transmission over the uucp mail system.The name "uuencoding" is derived from "Unix-to-Unix encoding"...
, w
W (Unix)
The command w on many Unix-like operating systems provides a quick summary of every user logged into a computer, what that user is currently doing, and what load all the activity is imposing on the computer itself...
and load averages, termcap
Termcap
Termcap is a software library and database used on Unix-like computers. It enables programs to use display computer terminals in a device-independent manner, which greatly simplifies the process of writing portable text mode applications...
, and curses
Curses (programming library)
curses is a terminal control library for Unix-like systems, enabling the construction of text user interface applications.The name is a pun on the term “cursor optimization”. It is a library of functions that manage an application's display on character-cell terminals .- Overview :The curses API...
. Her Ph.D. dissertation was the creation of a new type of syntax directed editor with a textual interface. This technology was later used to create computer-aided software engineering
Computer-aided software engineering
Computer-aided software engineering is the scientific application of a set of tools and methods to a software system which is meant to result in high-quality, defect-free, and maintainable software products...
tools.
In 1980, Horton brought Usenet
Usenet
Usenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980...
's A News
A News
A News, originally known simply as "news," was the first widely distributed program for serving and reading Usenet newsgroups. The program, written at Duke University by Steve Daniel and Tom Truscott, was released on a tape given out at the June 1980 USENIX conference held at the University of...
system to Berkeley and began to champion its growth from a 10 site network. To Usenet's original dialup UUCP
UUCP
UUCP is an abbreviation for Unix-to-Unix Copy. The term generally refers to a suite of computer programs and protocols allowing remote execution of commands and transfer of files, email and netnews between computers. Specifically, a command named uucp is one of the programs in the suite; it...
technology, she added support for Berknet and ARPANET
ARPANET
The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network , was the world's first operational packet switching network and the core network of a set that came to compose the global Internet...
, and added a gateway between several popular ARPANET mailing lists and usenet "fa" newsgroups. In 1981, high school student Matt Glickman asked Horton for a spring break project, and the two designed and implemented B News
B News
B News was a Usenet news server developed at the University of California, Berkeley by Matt Glickman and Mark Horton as a replacement for A News. It was used on Unix systems from 1981 into the 1990s and is the reference implementation for the de facto Usenet standard described in IETF RFC 850 and...
, which offered major performance and user interface improvements needed to keep up with the explosive growth of Usenet traffic volume.
UNIX and Internet work
In 1981, Horton became a Member of Technical Staff of Bell LabsBell Labs
Bell Laboratories is the research and development subsidiary of the French-owned Alcatel-Lucent and previously of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company , half-owned through its Western Electric manufacturing subsidiary.Bell Laboratories operates its...
in Columbus, Ohio
Columbus, Ohio
Columbus is the capital of and the largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio. The broader metropolitan area encompasses several counties and is the third largest in Ohio behind those of Cleveland and Cincinnati. Columbus is the third largest city in the American Midwest, and the fifteenth largest city...
. At Bell Labs she brought parts of Berkeley UNIX to UNIX System V
UNIX System V
Unix System V, commonly abbreviated SysV , is one of the first commercial versions of the Unix operating system. It was originally developed by American Telephone & Telegraph and first released in 1983. Four major versions of System V were released, termed Releases 1, 2, 3 and 4...
, including vi
Vi
vi is a screen-oriented text editor originally created for the Unix operating system. The portable subset of the behavior of vi and programs based on it, and the ex editor language supported within these programs, is described by the Single Unix Specification and POSIX.The original code for vi...
and curses
Curses (programming library)
curses is a terminal control library for Unix-like systems, enabling the construction of text user interface applications.The name is a pun on the term “cursor optimization”. It is a library of functions that manage an application's display on character-cell terminals .- Overview :The curses API...
; as part of the work on curses, she developed terminfo
Terminfo
Terminfo is a library and database that enables programs to use display terminals in a device-independent manner. This library has its origins in the UNIX System III operating system....
as a replacement for termcap
Termcap
Termcap is a software library and database used on Unix-like computers. It enables programs to use display computer terminals in a device-independent manner, which greatly simplifies the process of writing portable text mode applications...
. In 1987 she joined the Bell Labs Computation Center to bring official support for Usenet
Usenet
Usenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980...
and Email to Bell Labs.
Horton continued to lead Usenet until 1988. During this time she promoted rapid growth by arranging news feeds for new sites. Each new site agreed to be the feed for two more new sites as the need arose. This policy contributed to the growth of Usenet to over 5000 sites by 1987. Along with Rick Adams
Rick Adams (Internet pioneer)
Richard L. Adams, Jr. was an Internet pioneer and the founder of UUNET, which, in the mid and late 1990s, was the world's largest Internet Service Provider ....
and Eugene Spafford, Horton created the Usenet Backbone, later described as the Backbone cabal
Backbone cabal
The backbone cabal was an informal organization of large-site administrators of the worldwide distributed Internet discussion system Usenet. It existed from about 1983 at least into the 2000s....
. The backbone insured the reliability and performance of the overall network.
Usenet began with only a few messages per day, but volume rapidly grew to become a problem. Horton added moderated newsgroups, distinguished with names beginning with "mod" or containing "announce", and moderated the first such newsgroup: news.announce.important. Only the moderator could post messages, all other messages were automatically sent to the moderator for approval. Eventually the B News
B News
B News was a Usenet news server developed at the University of California, Berkeley by Matt Glickman and Mark Horton as a replacement for A News. It was used on Unix systems from 1981 into the 1990s and is the reference implementation for the de facto Usenet standard described in IETF RFC 850 and...
software was enhanced to permit any newsgroup with any name to be moderated.
Usenet relied on email for replies, requiring that Usenet links could be used for email. At first, all Usenet and UUCP
UUCP
UUCP is an abbreviation for Unix-to-Unix Copy. The term generally refers to a suite of computer programs and protocols allowing remote execution of commands and transfer of files, email and netnews between computers. Specifically, a command named uucp is one of the programs in the suite; it...
messages used "bang paths", such as unc!research!ucbvax!mark, as email addresses. Horton guided this email process, including the use of the ARPANET
ARPANET
The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network , was the world's first operational packet switching network and the core network of a set that came to compose the global Internet...
/UUCP gateway, using routed email addresses such as cbosgd!mark@berkeley. These addresses were complex, convoluted, and sometimes ambiguous. When Internet domains were first created in 1983, Horton championed their use, publishing the classic paper "What is a domain?"
At Usenix in January 1984, Horton recruited a group of volunteers to create the UUCP Mapping Project. The project divided the world into geographic regions. A volunteer for each region maintained the region's UUCP connectivity map and posted it regularly to the comp.mail.maps newsgroup. Each site ran Steve Bellovin and Peter Honeyman's pathalias program to create a locally optimized email routing database from this map. Horton worked with Chris Seiwald and Larry Auton to produce the smail program, used this database to route email, using email addresses such as mark@cbosgd.UUCP.
In the mid 1980s, early domain use included .ARPA, .UUCP, .CSNET, and .BITNET as top level domains, representing four major email networks. In January 1986, Horton represented UUCP at a meeting to arrange technical cooperation of these networks. Others were Dan Oberst representing BITNET
BITNET
BITNET was a cooperative USA university network founded in 1981 by Ira Fuchs at the City University of New York and Greydon Freeman at Yale University...
, Craig Partridge representing CSNET
CSNET
The Computer Science Network was a computer network that began operation in 1981 in the United States. Its purpose was to extend networking benefits, for computer science departments at academic and research institutions that could not be directly connected to ARPANET, due to funding or...
, and Ken Harrenstein, who hosted the meeting on behalf of the ARPANET. Harrenstein convinced the others to support the creation of six top level functionally domains COM, EDU, ORG, NET, GOV, and MIL. Each network was authorized to register domains in COM, EDU, ORG, and NET. This group of registrars was the precursor to the ICANN
ICANN
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is a non-profit corporation headquartered in Marina del Rey, California, United States, that was created on September 18, 1998, and incorporated on September 30, 1998 to oversee a number of Internet-related tasks previously performed directly...
domain name registry
Domain name registry
A domain name registry is a database of all domain names registered in a top-level domain. A registry operator, also called a network information center , is the part of the Domain Name System of the Internet that keeps the database of domain names, and generates the zone files which convert...
.
Horton implemented the UUCP portion of the registry by reorganizing the UUCP Project into the "UUCP Zone". With Tim Thompson, Horton registered 150 UUCP-only organizations with officially sanctioned .COM and .EDU domains. mark@stargate.com became a valid UUCP email address, even though the message was delivered via UUCP using dial-up modems.
The UUCP Zone joined with Lauren Weinstein's Stargate project, which built a pilot project to transmit Usenet over satellite television
Satellite television
Satellite television is television programming delivered by the means of communications satellite and received by an outdoor antenna, usually a parabolic mirror generally referred to as a satellite dish, and as far as household usage is concerned, a satellite receiver either in the form of an...
, to form Stargate Information Systems. The first domain they registered was stargate.com, the second was Horton's employer, att.com. The att.com domain connected to the Internet using dial-up modems until 1990, when Horton implemented Bill Cheswick's firewall architecture
to build AT&T's first TCP/IP connection to the Internet with a demonstrably secure firewall.
Horton's 1990 book, Portable C Software became a popular reference for programming in C. It outlined functions and programming techniques that could be reliably used on many different types of computer systems, and which methods were unportable.
In 1992, Horton created an internal email package for Bell Labs called EMS (Electronic Messaging System). This package integrated the existing UUCP-based email system with the AT&T "POST" white pages directory and the domain-based email world. She created and led a supported email service for Bell Labs. This system supported many email addressing formats, including those that dynamically queried the POST directory:
- Handle: mark@att.com
- Full name: Mark. R.Horton@att.com
- Broadcast to a building: loc=oh0012/all=yes@att.com
- Complex query: all technical managers and directors in Columbus: loc=oh0012/tl=tmgr/tl=dir/all=yes@att.com
In 2000, Horton joined Avaya
Avaya
Avaya Inc. is a privately held computer networking, information technology and telecommunications company that is a global provider of business communications systems. The international head quarters is in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, United States...
, where she was the Sr. Manager of Avaya Corporate Email and Directory. In 2002, Horton joined the UNIX Implementation Engineering group at Bank One, which was purchased by JPMorgan Chase in 2004. Finally fulfilling a lifelong dream, Horton moved from Columbus to San Diego in 2007, joining Sempra Energy
Sempra Energy
Sempra Energy is a Fortune 500 energy services holding company based in San Diego, California. It divides its interests into two broad categories: Sempra Utilities, including Pacific Enterprises/Southern California Gas Company and San Diego Gas & Electric; and Sempra Global, a holding company for...
's Transmission Grid Operations team.
Diversity work
Horton is a transsexualTranssexualism
Transsexualism is an individual's identification with a gender inconsistent or not culturally associated with their biological sex. Simply put, it defines a person whose biological birth sex conflicts with their psychological gender...
woman. Adopting the name Mary Ann in 1987, Horton founded Columbus' first transgender support group, the Crystal Club, in 1989. In 1997, she joined EQUAL Lucent's LGBT employee resource group, and saw the value of being "out" at work, supported by an Equal Opportunity (EO) nondiscrimination policy. At the time, no major company included transgender language in their EO policy. Horton asked for its inclusion in Lucent's policy, and recommended the language "gender identity, characteristics, or expression". As a result, Lucent became the first large company to add transgender-inclusive language to its EO policy in 1997.
At the time, Horton identified as a crossdresser, presenting sometimes as Mark and sometimes as Mary Ann. After the Lucent EO policy was published, Horton worked at Lucent primarily as Mark, but occasionally as Mary Ann. She was the first known crossdresser to successfully work part-time as a woman for a large company. Despite controversy about the ability of corporate America to deal with a part-time crossdresser, Horton's workplace experience was positive.
Horton championed the addition of transgender-inclusive language with other companies, supporting its addition to Apple, Xerox, Chase, and later to Bank One and Sempra Energy. The "characteristics" term was intended to include intersex individuals, but was removed after discussions with intersex activists who stated that "gender expression" best includes their needs.
Today, the "gender identity or expression" language is a best practice to protect transgender workers from discrimination.
Horton was awarded the "Trailblazer" award by Out & Equal
Out & Equal
Out & Equal Workplace Advocates is a United States non-profit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California....
Workplace Advocates in October, 2001 for her work at Lucent and Avaya. The next week, she transitioned, presenting full time as Mary Ann. Over the next few years, she took appropriate medical steps, and legally changed her name to Mary Ann Horton and her sex to female.
In the 1990s, most employer health insurance polices denied coverage for sex reassignment surgery (SRS) or anything related to it. Horton advocated for the inclusion of transgender health benefits (THBs) in these policies. She documented Lucent's coverage of SRS in 2000
and championed the inclusion of points for THBs in the Human Rights Campaign
Human Rights Campaign
The Human Rights Campaign is the United States' largest LGBT advocacy group and lobbying organization; according to the HRC, it has more than one million members and supporters...
's Corporate Equality Index
Corporate Equality Index
The Corporate Equality Index is a report published by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation as a tool to rate American businesses on their treatment of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender employees, consumers and investors. Its primary source of data are surveys but researchers cross-check...
, which were added in 2005.
In 2002, Horton gathered data from 13 of 15 major SRS surgeons to determine incidence, intrinsic prevalence,
and average cost of SRS-related surgeries. This data, presented at the
Out & Equal Annual Workplace Summit
showed that the cost of THB coverage, previously believed to be very high, is actually very low, less than 40 cents per US resident per year. This data, combined with the HRC CEI points, has led to increased coverage of THBs by large employers.
Current status
Horton currently resides in Poway, CaliforniaPoway, California
Poway is a city in San Diego County, California. Originally an unincorporated community in San Diego County, Poway officially became a city in December 1980. Even though Poway lies geographically in the middle of San Diego County, most consider its relative location as north county inland...
.
Horton has two sons:
Matt and Adam
Horton works for Sempra Energy
Sempra Energy
Sempra Energy is a Fortune 500 energy services holding company based in San Diego, California. It divides its interests into two broad categories: Sempra Utilities, including Pacific Enterprises/Southern California Gas Company and San Diego Gas & Electric; and Sempra Global, a holding company for...
as a Senior EMS Programmer/Analyst. (In this case, EMS stands for Energy Management System, a SCADA
SCADA
SCADA generally refers to industrial control systems : computer systems that monitor and control industrial, infrastructure, or facility-based processes, as described below:...
control system.)
Horton is also a Consultant on Transgender Workplace issues and on UNIX and Internet technology. She owns Red Ace Technology Solutions, providing discounted web hosting services to nonprofit organizations and small businesses.