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As a gay geek, I found myself drawn to Turing's story - a tragic story of (probably) unrequited love as a schoolboy, a heroic story of a great thinker and war h
by caryme 16y ago
As a gay geek, I found myself drawn to Turing's story - a tragic story of (probably) unrequited love as a schoolboy, a heroic story of a great thinker and war hero, and a heart-wrenching story of humiliating rejection by the same country he served.
I'm surprised JGC was assumed to be gay for standing up for Alan Turing, but proud that he handled the assumptions well. From our perspective, Turing's story is so much bigger than his sexuality. But to the common person, who likely knows little to nothing about Turing beyond what the news says - that he was convicted of homosexuality by his country - this advocacy appears to be one for gay people.
Thank you, Mr. Graham-Cumming, not just for standing up for Turing, but for simply explaining you are not gay without getting defensive. Too often, straight men handle being assumed as gay as a terrible and dehumanizing accusation.
- CWuestefeld 16y agoLikewise. I think that JGC's campaign (a) shows us what it really means to be without prejudice; and (b) reveals that others in the business of civil rights persist in viewing the world through those same old goggles. That said, I think that JGC breaks from this in the essay. He says: as a geek I empathized with the idea that being different from some societal norm brings enormous pain. To me, that destroys, at least partially, the idea of a completely independent bystander fighting for truth. It brings us, at least partly, back to someone campaigning for a fellow in his own group -- it's just that the dimension JGC chose to sort by is different from the one that most of society would choose. I wish John had simply said because Alan Turing’s treatment was wrong and left it at that.