The misguided bid to turn Alan Turing into an Asperger’s martyr

When I first heard the story of Alan Turing in my late teens I made what must be quite a common mistake. I concluded that his conviction in 1952 for committing a homosexual act was indefensible in light of his immense contribution to the war effort. The fact that he was forced to undergo a course of hormonal ‘therapy’ which led to his suicide two years later underlined just how badly he was treated. The British authorities should have been erecting statues to him, not hounding him to his death because he was attracted to other men.

The reason this was a mistake is because I’d made a connection between Turing’s war record and the injustice of persecuting him for being homosexual, when it would have been equally wrong if he’d been a conscientious objector. People’s right to have sex with whomever they choose, provided they’ve reached the age of consent, isn’t contingent on their having done something heroic. By the same token, it’s not a valid argument to say that criminalising homosexual acts is wrong because some homosexuals contribute an enormous amount to our national life. Let’s call all variations of this mistake the Turing Fallacy.

The Imitation Game — the film about Turing starring Benedict Cumberbatch — commits this fallacy, but not in the way you’d expect. It doesn’t romanticise Turing. On the contrary, he’s portrayed as an unfeeling intellectual snob, a person with no friends, no sense of humour — a man who struggles to make any human connection at all. All those who knew Turing have said they don’t recognise this picture and these distortions suggest that the people who’ve made the film aren’t interested in promoting Turing as a gay martyr — a sort of Oscar Wilde figure.