On Geeks and Gays

http://newstilt.com/notthatkindofdoctor/news/on-geeks-and-gays

by bootload • 16 years ago

241 226 16 years ago

bootload6• 16 years ago

"... When I was a teenager at school I definitely did not fit in. I had glasses, was awkward, brainy, wore the school uniform because I had no idea what else to wear, and suffered insults from my classmates. One of these was the frequent and common slander “poof” (which is probably the closest thing to the American term “fag”).

I was either ignored, or verbally abused, or physically assaulted. In one attack two boys pinned me down and asked me the incongruous question: “Do you prefer music or art?”. “Art” after all was something only a poof would like. ..."

Cripes @JGC I feel for you mate. The self description as a student could fit any reader here. There but for the grace go I - except I was probably bigger & uglier than yourself.

Anyone who wants a quick understanding of the mechanics of bullying and ways to circumvent it, take a peek at "Hacking People" ~ http://bootload.posterous.com/hacking-people and some thoughts on identifying Cyber Bullies ~ http://seldomlogical.com/2010/03/13/hacking-bullies

elblanco5• 16 years ago

Thanks for the links. While I was part of an "out" group growing up, I managed not to get bullied much (it usually stopped quickly after a round of fisticuffs and my father being a boxing coach in his youth). But a great many of my friends were bullied, some horribly. I've never been able to understand the mechanics of it very well even after having seen it so many times.

bootload6• 16 years ago

"... I was part of an "out" group growing up, I managed not to get bullied much (it usually stopped quickly after a round of fisticuffs and my father being a boxing coach in his youth) ..."

Excellent stuff, go boxing. There's a lot to say for standing up for yourself.

"... But a great many of my friends were bullied, some horribly. I've never been able to understand the mechanics of it very well even after having seen it so many times. ..."

Observing body language should probably be a taught subject in school ~ http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/spycatcher/201004/what-e...

An understanding of body language might allow you to see peoples intentions before they give off overt intent. If you want to understand more about decoding & understanding behaviour, talk to http://twitter.com/navarrotells or get a copy "Louder than words" or "What Every Body is Saying" ~ http://jnforensics.com/Books_%26_Videos.html

bootload6• 16 years ago

"... I managed not to get bullied much (it usually stopped quickly after a round of fisticuffs and my father being a boxing coach in his youth) ..."

However this technique does not always work. Bullying is about finding weakness and applying an asymmetric attack. I'm not sure this approach will work with say a group of girls?

drunkpotato• 16 years ago

This is something I have an interest in, but from a different perspective. I wasn't bullied. I was smart, fat, unapologetically nerdy, and never paid a social price (I had friends, girlfriends in high school, and was not socially maladjusted other than a stubborn anti-authority streak that remains with me). Seemingly I also had higher confidence and was more physically oriented than many geeks I have met later in life.

I'm wondering what the differences were. I know one is that I went to high school in a highly educated town where geeks and jocks were nearly equally respected. That can't be the whole story, however, because I also had some friends who happened to be the less socially able geeks, and I experienced a similar degree of friendship and acceptance in junior high, which was in a decidedly less intellectual-friendly city.

I'm sorry if I seem to be going on, but I want to provide a counterpoint to the picked-on geek, and I'm curious why the bullied geek is such a common stereotype (seems to be a true stereotype; I don't argue otherwise).

bootload6• 16 years ago

"... I was smart, fat, unapologetically nerdy, and never paid a social price (I had friends, girlfriends in high school, and was not socially maladjusted other than a stubborn anti-authority streak that remains with me). Seemingly I also had higher confidence and was more physically oriented than many geeks I have met later in life. ..."

Extrovert? This matters because if you are introverted people see less information. Being in social situations might also give off a "discomfort" signal in body language. It's easy to see someone is uncomfortable. Harder to understand why? Reading body language is one way Bullies select targets.

Simple experiment. Next time someone is in an argument with you change your stance by placing your hands on your hips, "arms akimbo". The stand of defiance. It's no coincidence US Marine Corp instructors use this stand. It means don't mess with me, I'm standing my ground. Extroverts won't have a clue about these subtle body language because they have more interesting things to think about. Hence they can become TARGETS.

"... I know one is that I went to high school in a highly educated town where geeks and jocks were nearly equally respected. ..."

Now that's a good place to be. I'm not sure it's Geeks v's Jocks as much as Geeks being the bottom of the short lived social graph. PG refers to this phenomena in "Why Nerds are unpopular" ~ http://paulgraham.com/nerds.html

"... I want to provide a counterpoint to the picked-on geek, and I'm curious why the bullied geek is such a common stereotype (seems to be a true stereotype; I don't argue otherwise). ..."

Because they show weakness. Because they could be introverted and therefore appear weak. Because not enough people stand by them when it counts. These reasons alone make them a TARGET for bullies.

kajecounterhack• 16 years ago

I feel similarly as a gay-affirming Christian. Standing up for equal treatment of people doesn't make a person gay.

lallysingh3• 16 years ago

I donno about you, but I never thought the author was. I wonder how many people here did.

RyanMcGreal• 16 years ago

All in all, a great essay. But:

>I’m conflicted about whether gay couples should be allowed to adopt.

Why on earth shouldn't a gay couple be allowed to adopt?

natrius3• 16 years ago

If the demand for adoption outstrips supply, and if (big if) a man and a woman parent substantially better than two people of the same gender, it might make sense to have a blanket preference for heterosexual couples when choosing parents. There could be something innate in each gender that contributes to a child's upbringing, and depending on the value of those traits, it could be responsible to maximize the number of children who benefit from both.

count• 16 years ago

What is 'parent substantially better'?

wdewind2• 16 years ago

BIG if

caryme11• 16 years ago

I realize this is an explanation for the argument against same-sex couple adoption, but in the same vein I'd like to point out that where this argument falls apart is in the legality of single parent adoption.

In the US, it is legal in every state for single parents to adopt. However, in some states it is illegal for same-sex couples to adopt children.

For the real kicker, in Florida (where I am from), homosexual people cannot adopt. So while a single straight woman can adopt a child, a single lesbian woman cannot.

alextgordon• 16 years ago

On the other hand, having greater variation might provide a net benefit to the population as a whole.

drivebyacct3• 16 years ago

Ironically, even as a homosexual, I suspect that your former predicate is actually more unlikely than the latter. Though the latter is pretty damn ridiculous as well, at least by the metric of the literature I'm exposed to so I could be unaware of something supporting that idea.

lallysingh3• 16 years ago

Why? they had their chance! It was a hetero couple that created & ditched the kid in the first place+. Every couple has their own yin-yang dynamic, and it has very little to do with whether they're an innie or an outy.

+ Ignoring tragedies, of course.

Edit: footnote symbol caused formatting changes.

joubert11• 16 years ago

And what may that innate quality be? And what about gay children? Aren't straight parents the wrong setup for them?

euroclydon• 16 years ago

I guess that's the same as saying: "I wouldn't mind if I grew up with two dads... at my ballgames, science fairs, where ever." If you can say that, you should be all for it.

wwortiz• 16 years ago

He admits that he is conflicted about the whole gay marriage and adoption rights which to me says he probably wouldn't be acting against it but he also won't be acting for it.

There are many reasons why someone can feel conflicted about something such as gay marriage and adopting but probably is linked most with upbringing and whether or not religion plays a factor. I'm guessing that he is personally conflicted rather than logically.

But from what I have heard adoption is a hard enough process without being gay.

wheels2• 16 years ago

I think the reservations are built on a couple things:

• It's not hard to argue that it's good for a child to have a mom and a dad. I'm not going to get into such, but whether or not you agree, let's just accept that it's not a wild notion.

• Adoption is one of the few places where there's any chance for society to evaluate the fitness of parents before they can have children. Usually it just happens.

• A male-male couple (edit: or single male, or infertile female(s)) is the only combination that's forced into adoption, thus with the prior two points in mind, it's the only one where they are ipso facto subjected to societal evaluation, for a coupling that some consider less than perfect for children.

Now the reality is that most sets of parents are far from ideal. No doubt two loving gay parents is healthier than quarrelsome straight parents. But if quarrelsome parents are knocked up biology, not society sets the conditions.

puredemo4• 16 years ago

From what I understand, most studies show that the most important thing is for kids to have two parents -- kids raised in single parent households didn't do as well (but I'm not sure how many associated variables were controlled for.)

The gender of the two parents didn't seem to have much of an impact.

aphyr6• 16 years ago

It's not hard to argue that it's good for a child to have a mom and a dad.

The APA's official stance (one borne out by my personal experience with gay families) is that there is no difference in the well-being of children raised by two same-sex parents or two opposite-sex parents.

"...the results of existing research comparing lesbian and gay parents to heterosexual parents and children of lesbian and gay parents to children of heterosexual parents are quite clear: Common stereotypes are not supported by the data."

http://www.apa.org/pi/lgbt/resources/parenting.aspx

tman5• 16 years ago

While mirror image thinking about gays is fun (they're just heterosexuals with a bit flip), it's not all that realist.

Before we get to adoption, lets analyze an easier statement: Gays shouldn't be allowed to become Catholic priests.

What? Can it be defended?

Well, you've heard about the abuse cases. Two-thirds of the problem, going by published numbers, involve priests who have sex with young boys. These are not children, but rather teenagers. There can be argument about whether homosexual sex with a pre-pubescent is really homosexual behavior, but there is no argument about post-pubescent sex. This is a problem with gay priests.

At most, gay priests make up 30% of the Catholic clergy. More likely, they are in the 10-20% range. The male population is 3% homosexual (yes, I know you heard 10% and that you should drink 8 glasses of water a day and that we only use 10% of our brains; the 3% number for male homosexuality has the advantage of actual facts to back it up). So gays make up an out-sized proportion of Catholic priests and there are various reasons for that. Guilt, etc., of course, and a homosexual seminary culture that is now being rooted out by Catholics who (somewhat wrongly) blame it for lots of things that are wrong with the Church.

Regardless, the gay Catholic priests seem to be committing a far out-sized proportion of the abuse. The Church simply can't afford to keep paying out the damage settlements that it would have to in order to keep its gay clergy. The congregations don't like the clergy having sex with their young boys either. Hence, expect to see less gay priests going forward.

While many gay men make wonderful priests, a few ruin it for the rest of them.

So, adoption? While a person could make arguments about equality and fairness before the law, etc., I personally have a low tolerance for that sort of democratic cant and tune it out. It's illogical rabble-rousing. As Socrates says (I'll point out that I'm a fan of the Symposium -- yes, that's the Platonic dialogue on love with a disturbing amount of gay sex thrown in), democracies equate things that are not equal.

Throw those arguments out -- which I do, and with prejudice -- and you have to make a case for choosing a segment of our population (homosexuals) that is more likely to do drugs, have psychiatric problems, etc., etc., and singling them out to allow adoption. It's not a brilliant move.

Aside: The percentage of the female population that is homosexual is harder to get a feel for, but somewhere around 1.5% seems to be exclusively homosexual. Bisexual behavior is much more common in females, or so Kinsey found. The weirdness of homosexuality in humans, a weirdness found in only one other mammal, so far as I know, is that opportunistic homosexual behavior. That happens all the time in the animal kingdom. It's exclusive homosexuality that is non-standard. That's bizarre from a fitness standpoint. There are some electrode studies (electrodes + dirty pictures, you imagine the rest) that suggest that there are no genuine bisexual males as far as desire goes, only males that are bisexual in behavior. It's harder to tell with females (30% or more are unaroused by dirty pictures of either sex, which ruins the studies).

puredemo4• 16 years ago

How about just not discriminating?

aphyr6• 16 years ago

...you have to make a case for choosing a segment of our population (homosexuals) that is more likely to do drugs, have psychiatric problems, etc., etc., and singling them out to allow adoption

We are not singling them out to allow adoption, unless by "singling out" you mean "including in the same privileged class as straight housewives, baristas, scientists, garbage collectors, members of the armed service, naturalists, and, depending on the state, convicted felons."

Seriously. Parents come in all shapes and sizes--surprisingly few restrictions are placed. Why are gay people barred from adopting when longitudinal studies show their parenting outcomes are basically indistinguishable from "normal" families?

dejb7• 16 years ago

I would argue that the problems with Catholic Priests is largely down to the requirement for them to be celibate.

Firstly it represents an important selection bias - most people would not want to promise to be celibate for the rest of their lives. Those who do do are likely to have 'outlier' sexual feeling and thoughts.

More obvious is that because they have no legitimate means to fulfil their sexual desires they are far more likely to find illegitimate means to do so.

A more sinister explanation is that they are attracted to the clergy because they are aware that it offers them the opportunity to commit abuse.

dzorz• 16 years ago

Devils advocate: a child raised by the gay couple might be stigmatized by its peers, so in the best interest of the child it might be better for the child to be raised in traditional nuclear family. If you look at it that way it is also a chicken and egg problem.

theBobMcCormick• 16 years ago

By that logic, we shouldn't allow ugly couples to adopt either. WAY too stigmatizing. :-)

cj5• 16 years ago

Are you saying being raised in a foster home makes for a better childhood than having two loving (same sex) parents?

compay• 16 years ago

There are lots of ways some kid's straight parents could be stigmatized too. Your argument doesn't really hold any water.

mbrubeck• 16 years ago

The same argument was made against interracial marriage - that the children would be stigmatized, or harmed in some other way. (In fact, one good first step toward removing the stigma is to stop treating the parents differently under the law.)

I am a person of mixed race, and I'm shocked at how many of the exact same arguments against gay marriage and adoption were also used against interracial marriage and interracial adoption. (It's unnatural; it's against God's will; it will harm the children; it will harm traditional marriages; it will destroy the institution of marriage...) I'm curious if the people making the arguments are aware of this and would also oppose interracial marriage if possible, or if they just don't see the parallels.

tome8• 16 years ago

An interesting question that might help everyone learn how they feel about this:

Would you allow a pair of people who are not in a relationship to adopt, for example, two great friends who just happen to live together, but are not in a sexual or romantic relationship with each other?

jacquesm7• 16 years ago

The deal here is that long term stability is what it is all about. Heterosexuals and Homosexuals alike appear in all variations, some are promiscuous, some stay with the same partner all their lives. The perception is that in the gay scene because there are no children to worry about sexuality is much freer than it is in the hetero scene.

I doubt if that is actually the case though.

But I think the 'stable family arrangement' factor weighs heavily in all this. And elsewhere in this thread I think I've shown that there can be pressure on a child simply because it is raised by two gay parents, after all, it immediately makes you the odd one out. Of course other children should be brought up to realize that it makes no difference as far as the child is concerned, but unfortunately that is not the case.

Teenagers that are gay as a rule do what they can to stay under water in plenty of cases for fear of the kind of nastiness that can come out of being 'out' at a young age. Not all schools deal with stuff like that well - in fact, most schools don't.

axod8• 16 years ago

If you asked the population if they'd have been happy being brought up by gay parents, the vast majority would say "no".

protothomas• 16 years ago

And if you asked the population of people who have actually been brought up by gay parents whether they were happy with that situation, my guess would be that the vast majority would say "yes".

c3o• 16 years ago

How could that question not reflect respondents prejudices more than anything else?

eru5• 16 years ago

Just ask people `if they'd have been happy being brought up by [insert any religion, or lack thereof] parents, the vast majority would say "no"'.

rue• 16 years ago

If instead you ask people who actually know what the hell they are talking about, q.f. people who were brought up by gay parents, you will find the vast majority to be quite happy about it.

ElliotH• 16 years ago

There are studies that show that lacking either a male or female parental figure can have bad long term effects. Which I would say is a good reason to prefer a male-female paring as adoptive parents.

However, with the number of children in care rather than with adoptive parents being quite massive I imagine the damage done by missing one gender of parent is significantly less than the damage done by living in such an institution.

drivebyacct3• 16 years ago

Well I read two lines and stopped: "I’m not, so what was it that drove me to stand up for a gay man?"

Is that a serious question? Who the hell wouldn't stand up for a man who was chemically castrated for being a homosexual. I mean, what reasonable non-crazy-fundie person would support that?

Wow, I kept reading:

"Many of those people who wrongly assumed I was gay would probably be surprised to learn that I campaigned for Alan Turing despite having my own discomfort with homosexuality. I don’t have clear thoughts about whether gay marriage or civil partnerships are better; I’m conflicted about whether gay couples should be allowed to adopt."

Seriously? This is worthy of being the top article on HN. Shudder. Not rhetoric I'm proud of in the least.

sophacles4• 16 years ago

Honestly, I'm more impressed with someone campaigning for what is logically right (even tho they have emotional hangups) than I am with someone who follows their emotions for the "right thing" but can't explain why it is right. The latter is just a result of luck.

I have had my own stupid emotional discomforts. None of them were logical, but all of them were easier to deal with when I was open about it. Get off your high horse.

Edit: strike that "get off your high horse" bit, its too reactionary of me -- sorry about that.

drivebyacct3• 16 years ago

I suppose. I just don't like the fact that the article exists solely based on the premise that a nonhomosexual has to justify speaking up for a homosexual.

It's that precise dichotomy and separation that we need to be moving away from, not framing entire blog posts about.

elblanco5• 16 years ago

It's amazing what people can overcome by simply being truthful and logical.

puredemo4• 16 years ago

I felt exactly the same way.

It seems as if this author had been living in Turing's time period his post would have read:

"I don't have clear thoughts about whether chemical castration or forced celibacy is better; I'm conflicted about whether gay couples should be allowed to be free."

jseifer• 16 years ago

I got the impression he was writing it from the perspective of someone who would be asking those questions.

benatkin• 16 years ago

To me, it boils down to my belief that many people wouldn't accept this statement by P. C. Hodgell†:

"That which can be destroyed by the truth should be."

Some people seem to be afraid of truth. I've noticed this when I've turned down cheese, and upon being asked why, saying I think it's unhealthy for me. Often they start saying why they can't live without cheese, or why eating cheese regularly doesn't increase the risk of disease unless you have a certain risk factor (like high blood pressure or a sedentary lifestyle). This happens without me doing anything except turn it down. I find people have an easier time accepting it if I act like I'm turning it down for moral reasons rather than nutritional reasons.

As for how truth-avoidance leads to this: I think that people don't want to accept a certain truth often don't want to accept justice that's based on that truth. In this case, the truth is that, even though he's gay, Turing deserves fairness just like everyone else.

† I got the quote from http://yudkowsky.net/rational/virtues and am surprised not to be able to find it on one of the major quote sites.

SapphireSun• 16 years ago

I don't think that the idea was "Why would you stand up for a gay man if you're not gay?". It was more along the lines of "Since you are not a representative of this group, what would give you the motivation to pick up THIS particular cup and follow it through to completion?" There are lots of other injustices that he might be a representative member of and could have campaigned against.

I'm really happy that he picked it up on principle. In a way, it's a lot more pure that someone _not_ gay spearheaded the effort so there is no appearance of a conflict of interest (rational or irrational). Turing was the man, and I'm glad Britain recognizes that now.

mpk• 16 years ago

I'd say that geeks tend to think about their environment a lot more than other people because geeks tend to think about systems in general.

I have never encountered a rational argument for homophobia. Gay people seem to me to be just as likely to be virtuous or decadent as straight people.

Discriminating against people for having a different sexual orientation seems totally irrational to me. As far as I'm concerned, 'gay rights' generally equate to 'human rights' and you can sign me up for supporting those any day.

pbiggar• 16 years ago

I've found that geeks tend to be either very religious, or very atheist, but rarely in between (or at least much more rarely than in real life). Perhaps it is the same with other moral issues.

(Alternatively, perhaps JGC is very religious, and his religion guides his views on gay adoption and marriage.)

MartinCron2• 16 years ago

What? Being theist or atheist is not a moral issue, it's a philosophical issue about the nature of the universe.

The notion that atheists are less moral than theists is a common misconception.

j-g-faustus• 16 years ago

I've always thought that [gay | labor | women's | black's | etc] rights all collapse to merely human rights, and find it curious that we see the need to carve it up in a whole bunch of special cases.

TNO• 16 years ago

I'm not so sure about labor rights... More info needed.

caryme11• 16 years ago

That's just the thing. If we could realize that it's the same issue over and over again, perhaps it would become less of an issue. If only.

In US-parlance, all men are created equal.

We said that right off the bat. Once we decided that by men, we meant people, what further argument is there to have? All means all.

joubert11• 16 years ago

In princle perhaps, but in practice what happens is that particular groups of people are specifically excluded in all sorts of insidious ways. Usually they're excluded by a "homogenous" majority (homogenous relative to the aspect that defines the minority) and so there is no incentive for members of the majority to stand up for those in the minority.

Examples include gays' right to marry, women's right to vote, slaves' right to freedom, etc.

barry-cotter• 16 years ago

Where, exactly, do you draw the line? Do you want tolerance or support?

Gay: Suppose the "gay germ theory"[1] is correct. To allow vaccination/prophylaxis or not?

Labor: Freedom to legally organise is to me utterly unobjectionable, but I remember picking up a book on trade unionism in the library once and being completely unable to grasp the sense behind one of the articles in which the authors took it as given that striking should not even in theory be grounds for firing. Striking is part of a negotiation, it's a tool in the dance of "How shall we divide the money that is earned as a result of my employment between empolyer and employee?"

Where is the "right" place between freedom to organise + at-will employment, and a system like France, where unions "represent" workers in their economic sector who aren't members and get legally binding regulations, or like Germany's, where union representatives are always on the board, with voting positions?

Women's: Women make less than men on average. They also make very different choices of what jobs to work in, how many hours to work, and they are much more likely to have interruptions in their career. Given the second, is the first unjust, especially if the difference when you compare like with like is small?

Black's: Affirmative action here

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathogenic_theory_of_homosexual...

jacquesm7• 16 years ago

Interesting you should say that. I was reading the declaration of human rights the other day and it struck me that we have a long long way to go before we can even begin to say that the majority of the countries that are signatory to it actually practice them all the time.

It's really quite shocking how many of those 'basic principles' are trampled on a daily basis. There should be a long term trend towards respect for those principles in the countries that are signatory to them, but in fact, on some fronts especially privacy the trend is backwards.

wallflower• 16 years ago

> I have never encountered a rational argument for homophobia.

A gay friend told me about the theory that homophobia is misogyny e.g. some people are homophobic because they don't like men acting like women (mannerisms, dress, voice pitch, sensitivity) because they dislike women.

philwelch5• 16 years ago

Ironically enough, a homophobic friend told me about the theory that homosexuality is misogyny e.g. some men are homosexual because they dislike women and don't want to associate with them.

Interestingly enough, I'm pretty sure my comment will shock more people than your comment--even though both comments posit some sort of handwavy unsubstantiated psychological theory nakedly constructed to fit some sort of political bias, yours sounds better because it fits the political bias most of us--myself included--agree with.

Or--to put it a more direct way--speculating about the psychology of people who disagree with you is an especially useless type of ad hominem.

olefoo• 16 years ago

One explanation of homophobia that has some support behind it is that the most homophobic men are fearful of their own homoerotic impulses and are lashing out as 'proof' that they are anything but.

See http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=single-angr...

dejb7• 16 years ago

> I have never encountered a rational argument for homophobia.

From parents and close relatives it is easy to see a evolutionary reason. However from unrelated males (more common) it would seem that they would have every reason to encourage homosexuality in other males. Maybe it comes from when most people who lived together were related.

Confusion• 16 years ago

  From parents and close relatives it is easy to see a evolutionary reason

Which is not a rational reason. That would be the naturalistic fallacy.

pw0ncakes• 16 years ago

Homophobia and misogyny are very strongly linked. The worst homophobes are usually misogynists as well. They believe that sexual desire is intractably imbued with domination and humiliation. On some level, they want to control and subjugate (and rape) women because of the immature and disturbing way they've processed their powerful sexual desires.

The thought that a man might have such desire toward them terrifies them. Essentially, they're scared that a man might do to them (or want to do to them) what they want to be able to do to women.

Obviously, this is ridiculous and irrational-- there's no epidemic of gay men raping other men, and straight men are overwhelmingly more likely to be raped by otherwise straight men than by gays-- but I think that's what is behind this rather absurd fear some men have of homosexuality.

merraksh• 16 years ago

No matter how natural and necessary this might be, it doesn't happen very often that someone fights for a group he/she doesn't belong to. Hats off once more to JGC for that.

sophacles4• 16 years ago

This is just odd to me. It never even occurred to me that the sexuality of a person running a campaign like that would matter. I mean, its Turing -- a name most known for inventing the freaking computer. Sure there is the whole "gay angle" and it being the reason for the treatment -- but I figured the campaign was more about, lets clear this extremely important historical person's name, and for Britain to admit the world had been done an injustice.

I guess I'm sadder that in the world I live in such a thing matters so much, than I was that bad things were done to Turing.

So jgrahamc: FWIW I just figured you were some guy who was more annoyed than me over the Turing thing, and better positioned to make a fuss over it, and for that: good on you. Were I asked, I would have assumed your sexuality is straight, but thats just playing the odds, as I don't know or care who you screw.

ErrantX2• 16 years ago

I'm only guessing but my thinking on how the thought process went was..

People wondered why he was sticking up for Turing in particular - a lot of people have been abused by the government (and society) in the past. They wondered if he had a certain interest in this specific case; and they falsely assumed it was an issue of sexuality, forgetting that Turing was a geek too :)

caryme11• 16 years 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• 16 years ago

Likewise. 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.

dinde• 16 years ago

I love these things, as a gay coder I get to feel special and like I'm representing my kind with my views. ;) In my experience, it's not geeks specifically that are more accepting, but educated people in general. It seems obvious but I think that's all it is.

johngalt• 16 years ago

Odd, I made no assumptions about jgc's sexuality. I guess I assumed he was straight if anything. Just one geek rising in defense of another.

tsally6• 16 years ago

A thought: Alan Turing died when he was 41. Anything Turing would have invented between 41 and his natural death are things lost to society because of the persecution of homosexuals. What an incredible cost.

caryme11• 16 years ago

Although I agree with you that Turing's death was an incredible loss, I wouldn't be so sure he would have died a natural death.

Turing had considered suicide before, during his failed work on the Riemann hypothesis. At that time, he schemed up a suicide mechanism involving an apple and electrical wiring which he described in a letter to an old boyfriend.

Turing was pretty eccentric, romanticized suicide (and was a little obsessed with this apple idea), and was in and out of depression.

Mind you, I agree. I'm just not so sure Turing ever would have died naturally.

rjurney3• 16 years ago

He uh... also tried to poison his PhD advisor.

bdr2• 16 years ago

What if he'd just been an ordinary guy? I think the damage to his life and the lives of those who knew him is more important than what he would have invented.

lincolnq• 16 years ago

That doesn't seem obvious to me. Inventions can change many lives, but the scope of a person's social life is necessarily limited. Why do you say that?

tsally6• 16 years ago

Just to be clear, subjecting someone of lesser brilliance (99.9999999% of the population) to Turing's treatment would be equally immoral. Seriously destabilizing a suicidal person is murder and on a moral level I don't believe in claiming that a particular murder is more or less immoral than another. Murder is murder and I don't think you can compare magnitudes. So if he had been an ordinary guy, his murder would still have been wrong on a moral level. I'm simply arguing that in addition to the usual costs of murder (felt in large part by the deceased family), society has borne an additional cost.

axod8• 16 years ago

You make it sound like he was murdered because he was gay. I don't think it was quite that clear cut.

I'm quite a believer in "if he hadn't done it, someone else would have" personally. I don't mean to belittle anyones contribution, but the idea that there's only one genius who can come up with something seems very unlikely to me.

Most inventions are 'discovered' by many people at around the same time.

dazzawazza• 16 years ago

Anyone who has ever discovered anything surely knows this? The world is full of curious minds. This doesn't belittle this individual curious mind but honour the millions of others.

jules2• 16 years ago

> You make it sound like he was murdered because he was gay. I don't think it was quite that clear cut.

Lets turn it around then. If he hadn't been gay, would he have been murdered?

> Most inventions are 'discovered' by many people at around the same time.

Yeah, this is true. Even revolutionary ideas seem to show up at multiple places at the same time. So it seems that the state of knowledge at the time of invention matters a great deal.

devinj3• 16 years ago

Other people did do it, and even at nearly the exact same time. Turing just did it more convincingly. (See: Alonzo Church and the Lambda calculus).

defenestrator• 16 years ago

I didn't even know he was a homosexual. Nor does it matter.

lukev• 16 years ago

It mattered a lot to him.

pbhjpbhj4• 16 years ago

I've always assumed that Turing was bisexual, he certainly had a pretty intense relationship with his fiancee. I can't really understand how, if he was an openly gay man (as I've seen claimed) that he needed to make the confession that he did to his fiancee who he spent his leisure time and work time with; how is she couldn't know but everyone else did?

He also appeared to be an ephebophile. I have a hypothesis that his sexual liaisons with teenagers were an attempt to recapture his relationship with his (sole and very close) friend that died when he was at boarding school.

jonpaul• 16 years ago

Kudos to this guy. It's sad that many people in society are myopic and think that this guy was gay. As stated, I think it's simply a case of one geek that was persecuted standing up for a fellow geek. The world needs more people like this guy.

seldo• 16 years ago

Would it be unbecoming of me to suggest that some readers of this thread might be interested in visiting http://GayGeeks.org? It is a not-for-profit side venture of mine.

caryme11• 16 years ago

Thanks for that. Just joined with the same username.

neodude• 16 years ago

It's nice to see so many gay geeks 'come out' on this thread. I had assumed I was the only one. Sexuality is such an infrequent topic on HN.

jacquesm7• 16 years ago

> I had assumed I was the only one.

That's strange then because there are plenty of people here that have stated openly and without reservation that they are gay or transgender.

In a population of this size you should be very surprised if you are the only gay person.

thingie• 16 years ago

While it would be very surprising to actually be the only one, it's not surprising to feel as the only one. It's quite reasonable to believe that a randomly chosen person is not gay, so you can't just pick someone and think, he is too, fine, I'm not alone. Statistics are not enough, real concrete persons count.

DanielBMarkham• 16 years ago

John -- congratulations in your quest. I never understood it and even after reading your description don't understand it. Turing had a great mind, but there are a plethora of people with great minds who were killed by society in some fashion or another because of being different. The Holocaust comes to mind. We could take up reams of paper with people treated just like Turing. What real impact does this have aside from making people feel like they did something of value? I really do not understand -- but that's not important.

Obviously this was great for both you and your supporters. I can respect the fact that everybody has different motivations and values, some of which are fathomless. So while I can't share your joy, I can be happy for you. Congratulations in accomplishing your goal!

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