<div dir="ltr"><div>While Turing's sexuality as something of an open secret is certainly a complicated issue, there are several historical accounts that suggest he was very open about his sexuality. I think the clearest and most widely quoted is from the IEEE <<a href="http://computer.org/computer-pioneers/turing.html">http://computer.org/computer-pioneers/turing.html</a>><span style="font-family:Times;font-size:9pt"><br>
</span></div><div><br></div><div>--</div><div><br></div>In a set of interviews in 1992 with I. Jack Good and Donald Michie, [Sponsored in part by the National Science Foundation.] both colleagues of Turing during his Bletchley Park sojourn, I led them to discuss their knowledge of Turing's homosexuality:<br>
<br>Good: ...when we walked down King's Parade [in 1947] that was the first time I discovered that he was homosexual. That was when he said that he was going to Paris to "see a boy." It was obvious that he was admitting or proclaiming his homosexuality.<br>
<br>Lee: He was very open about it?<br><br>Good: Yes, at that time.<br><br>Michie: He certainly wasn't during the war, for some of us, including both of us, were quite unaware.... I took quite seriously his engagement to ...<br>
<br>Good: Joan Clarke?<br><br>Lee: Peter Hilton [1991] quotes you, Jack, as saying, 'It was fortunate that the authorities did not know during the war that Turing was a homosexual, otherwise the Allies might have lost the war."<br>
<br>Good: Yes.<br><br>Michie: Oh but that's absolute nonsense, because Bletchley had some flamboyant homosexuals--Peter's ideas that security people were down on homosexuality itself, is absolute nonsense. I can't think how he could write that. The most flamboyant case was Angus Wilson--he later became a very successful novelist, and he had a boyfriend called Beverly, and these two, Angus was about that high [indicating small] with flowing yellow hair (I remember it went white later) and Beverly (I forget his second name) was very "weed-like," very tall. They could be seen shambling along the horizon, a daily sight, as they took their walk around lawns after lunch. <div>
<br></div><div>--</div><div><br></div><div>It certainly seems anachronistic to ascribe our contemporary definition of homosexuality as a coherent and fixed identity, but by many accounts he viewed the trial and arrest with humor and openness, and the letter Bernard included above might be read in that light.</div>
<div><br></div><div><br class="">-- <br><div dir="ltr">Jacob Gaboury<br>--<br>Assistant Professor of Digital Media and Visual Culture<br>Dept. of Cultural Analysis and Theory, Stony Brook University<br>--<div>Junior Fellow, MECS Institute for Advanced Study on Media Cultures of Computer Simulation</div>
<div>Leuphana University, Lüneburg, Germany (Summer 2014)</div><div>--<br>Staff Writer, Rhizome.org<br>New Museum for Contemporary Art<br>--<br><a href="http://www.jacobgaboury.com/" target="_blank">http://www.jacobgaboury.com/</a></div>
</div></div><div><br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Jun 5, 2014 at 8:45 PM, <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:geoghegb@cms.hu-berlin.de" target="_blank">geoghegb@cms.hu-berlin.de</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">Hi Sigcis,<br>
<br>
I concur with Paul. Turing's fear of being thought of as a gay man is<br>
alluded to in the letter below, which I've copied and pasted from<br>
<a href="http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/06/yours-in-distress-alan.html" target="_blank">http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/06/yours-in-distress-alan.html</a> . It<br>
suggests his fear that his professional credibility would collapse if his<br>
sexual identity became public knowledge. As an aside, I think I read<br>
something in archival correspondences -- maybe among Norbert Wiener and<br>
Warren McCulloch? -- suggesting that suspicions about Walter Pitts' sexual<br>
orientation (among other issues) likewise threatened his employability. In<br>
case I'm confabulating, don't quote me on that though...<br>
<br>
Best,<br>
Bernard<br>
<br>
<br>
Turing wrote the following letter in 1952 to his friend and fellow<br>
mathematician, Norman Routledge, shortly before pleading guilty.<br>
<br>
(Source: Alan Turing: The Enigma - The Centenary Edition; Image: Alan<br>
Turing, via.)<br>
<br>
My dear Norman,<br>
<br>
I don't think I really do know much about jobs, except the one I had<br>
during the war, and that certainly did not involve any travelling. I think<br>
they do take on conscripts. It certainly involved a good deal of hard<br>
thinking, but whether you'd be interested I don't know. Philip Hall was in<br>
the same racket and on the whole, I should say, he didn't care for it.<br>
However I am not at present in a state in which I am able to concentrate<br>
well, for reasons explained in the next paragraph.<br>
<br>
I've now got myself into the kind of trouble that I have always considered<br>
to be quite a possibility for me, though I have usually rated it at about<br>
10:1 against. I shall shortly be pleading guilty to a charge of sexual<br>
offences with a young man. The story of how it all came to be found out is<br>
a long and fascinating one, which I shall have to make into a short story<br>
one day, but haven't the time to tell you now. No doubt I shall emerge<br>
from it all a different man, but quite who I've not found out.<br>
<br>
Glad you enjoyed broadcast. Jefferson certainly was rather disappointing<br>
though. I'm afraid that the following syllogism may be used by some in the<br>
future.<br>
<br>
Turing believes machines think<br>
Turing lies with men<br>
Therefore machines do not think<br>
<br>
Yours in distress,<br>
<br>
Alan<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
Dr. Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan<br>
Institut für Kulturwissenschaft<br>
Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter<br>
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin<br>
<a href="http://www.bernardg.com" target="_blank">www.bernardg.com</a><br>
<div class=""><div class="h5"><br>
On Jun 5, 2014, at 4:01 PM, Paul N. Edwards wrote:<br>
<br>
I expect “openly gay,” with all the implications that phrase carries<br>
today, is an anachronistic label -- not an accurate description of<br>
Turing’s public persona, nor truly of his private one either.<br>
<br>
Paul<br>
<br>
<br>
On Jun 5, 2014, at 0:36 , Thomas Haigh <<a href="mailto:thaigh@computer.org">thaigh@computer.org</a>> wrote:<br>
<br>
My initial guess was that this was an anachronism. Hodge's book Alan Turing:<br>
The Enigma appeared in hardcover late 1983, and one might expect it to have<br>
taken a while to spread far into popular awareness or to have its rather<br>
complex narrative reduced to "won World War II." The Turing play "Breaking<br>
the Code" was not written until 1986. That did a huge amount to boost<br>
Turing's public profile, at least in the UK.<br>
<br>
However, the Amazon "search inside the book" finds a line of this kind in a<br>
recent reissue of The Normal Heart script and a 2000 volume combining it<br>
with the sequel. It is of course possible that the play was revised from its<br>
original 1985 version, which is not searchable online.<br>
<br>
So apparently Kramer was a pioneer in taking the complex portrait of Turing<br>
given in the Hodges biography, which I believe was widely reviewed on its<br>
initial release, and turning it into the slogan that "it was an openly gay<br>
Englishman who was as responsible as any man for winning he Second World<br>
War." Kramer continues, "His name was Alan Turing and he cracked the<br>
Germans' Enigma code so the Allies knew in advance what the Nazis were going<br>
to do--and when the war was over he committed suicide he was so hounded for<br>
being gay."<br>
<br>
That would be an important passage in a history of Turing in popular memory,<br>
which would be a great dissertation topic for someone.<br>
<br>
Tom<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
-----Original Message-----<br>
From: <a href="mailto:members-bounces@sigcis.org">members-bounces@sigcis.org</a> [mailto:<a href="mailto:members-bounces@sigcis.org">members-bounces@sigcis.org</a>] On<br>
Behalf Of Janet Abbate<br>
Sent: Wednesday, June 04, 2014 4:42 PM<br>
To: sigcis<br>
Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Alan Turing as gay icon<br>
<br>
Did anyone catch the shout-out to Alan Turing in the HBO AIDS-themed movie<br>
"The Normal Heart"? The main character rants, "A gay man won World War II!<br>
They should teach that in schools."<br>
<br>
I wonder if that was actually the image of Turing in 1985 (when the original<br>
play was written) or something they added later for the movie? (I mean that<br>
he won WWII, not that he was gay.)<br>
<br>
<br>
Dr. Janet Abbate<br>
Associate Professor, Science & Technology in Society Co-director, National<br>
Capital Region STS program Virginia Tech <a href="http://www.sts.vt.edu/ncr" target="_blank">www.sts.vt.edu/ncr</a><br>
<a href="http://www.linkedin.com/groups/STS-Virginia-Tech-4565055" target="_blank">www.linkedin.com/groups/STS-Virginia-Tech-4565055</a><br>
<a href="http://www.facebook.com/VirginiaTechSTS" target="_blank">www.facebook.com/VirginiaTechSTS</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
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Professor of Information and History, University of Michigan<br>
A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global<br>
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Terse replies are deliberate (and better than nothing)<br>
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