with bits of alec

[trigger warning for suicide and anti-gay bigotry]

No, actually. Alan Turing was gay. Here’s what happened: A guy he was seeing broke into his house, so he called the police. While the police were investigating the break-in, Turing confessed to having slept with the guy and was arrested for gross indecency (the same thing Oscar Wilde got arrested for). Yes, that’s what I just said, you heard me right: Turing was arrested himself for having consensual sex when he was only talking to the police because his house got broken into. He lost his position in the government, where he did cryptography, and was forced to either undergo chemical castration or be imprisoned. He ‘chose’ castration. He shortly after killed himself by eating an apple he had laced with cyanide.

Also this wasn’t, like, forever ago. This was in the 1950s.

So yeah, when making unfunny jokes, make sure not to erase the history of gay folks in mathematics, especially someone whose history is as horrible and tragic as Turing’s. There’s so little acknowledged history and so little representation of LGBTQetc folks in math/science/comp-sci, even today.