facebook.com

So, this is doing the rounds of social media and is not true. He took the hormones, he had no choice. Cool man. Sad end. but the truth must be told.

In January 1952, Turing met a man called Arnold Murray outside a cinema in Manchester. After a lunch date, Turing invited Murray to spend the weekend with him at his house, an invitation which Murray accepted although he did not show up. The pair met again in Manchester the following Monday, when Murray agreed to accompany Turing to the latter’s house. A few weeks later Murray visited Turing’s house again, and apparently spent the night there.
After Murray helped an accomplice to break into his house, Turing reported the crime to the police. During the investigation, Turing acknowledged a sexual relationship with Murray. Homosexual acts were illegal in the United Kingdom at that time, and so both were charged with gross indecency under Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885.
Turing was given a choice between imprisonment or probation conditional on his agreement to undergo hormonal treatment designed to reduce libido. He accepted chemical castration via injections of stilboestrol, a synthetic oestrogen hormone.
Turing’s conviction led to the removal of his security clearance, and barred him from continuing with his cryptographic consultancy for the Government Communications Headquarters , the British signals intelligence agency that had evolved from GCCS in 1946. At the time, there was acute public anxiety about spies and homosexual entrapment by Soviet agents,because of the recent exposure of the first two members of the Cambridge Five, Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, as KGB double agents. Turing was never accused of espionage but, as with all who had worked at Bletchley Park, was prevented from discussing his war work.

From a friend……

So he really had a heart of gold that man. Not only was he a towering genius – he was a real gentleman.

They are still arguing as to whether his death was suicide or not. We’ve heard [at the centenary conference in King's College] that he had bought only the day before a couple of new socks, and he had a ticket in his pocket for the theatre. His suicide must have been a moment of momentary panic, or chaos, or ‘can’t stand it any longer’. I think he simply collapsed.

Because at the time he was suffering from being forced to have injections of female sex hormones to prevent his homosexuality. He’d been convicted for gross indecency. So my view is that it was a suicide, but on a momentary impulse.

He contributed so many things, but his single greatest achievement was the stored programme computer, which we all take for granted now.

READ THE REST HERE.