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From: saquigley@watmath.UUCP (Sophie Quigley)
Newsgroups: net.motss
Subject: Re: Alan Turing biography
Message-ID: <7864@watmath.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 26-May-84 21:13:30 EDT
Article-I.D.: watmath.7864
Posted: Sat May 26 21:13:30 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 31-May-84 20:33:04 EDT
References: <7862@watmath.UUCP>
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 17

"why wasn't I told that Alan Turing was gay in class?"

Probably because it wasn't really relevant to the situation.  I am sure there
are many other famous gay people who you have learned about in class and
where you were taught that they were gay because it is relevant, i.e their
gayness influenced their work (Oscar Wilde comes to mind).  Why should you
have been told that Alan Turing was gay if you were not told anything else
about his life?  I think THAT would have been strange.

I don't know if you were implying that "hiding" this information from you is
a certain type of homophobia, but I think it is the contrary.  What would
be homophobic would be to ignore his work completely because he was gay, like
is often done for many excellent women mathematicians (those who are not
excellent enough to make it impossible to ignore their work like Noether)

Sophie Quigley
...!{clyde,ihnp4,decvax}!watmath!saquigley