I am proud

June is pride month, a time where LGBTQIA+ people celebrate how far we’ve come in terms of gaining rights and acceptance for the queer community. There’s still a way to go too, which is why we protest as well as celebrate. As a gay tester I like to use this time to educate my teams on some queer history related to tech and show that LGBTQIA+ people have helped shape modern computing.

Fig 1. The progress flag. Symbol of the LGBTQIA+ community.

Alan Turing

Fig 2. Alan Turing – Hero and face of the £50 note.

A noted mathematician and computer scientist who developed the idea for the Universal Turing Machine (an early basis for the first computer). He also came up with tests to determine whether an AI id capable of thinking like a real human being (the Turing test). Alan Turing was outed as gay in 1952 and, having lost security clearance to work on defence projects, took his own life.

Lynn Conway

A computer scientist and trans woman who invented generalised dynamic instruction handling whilst working at IBM. This is used as the basis for how memory is used in modern computers; so if you use a computer you have a trans woman to thank! 🥰

Sophie Wilson

Fig 3. Sophie Wilson – Designer of the BBC Miro.

Computer scientist and trans woman, Sophie worked on development of the ARM processor which is used in modern smartphones. If you’re reading this post on your phone, you can thank another transgender woman for being able to do that! 🖤

Christopher Strachey

A mathematician, physicist and gay man. Christopher was a pioneer of computer science and created a programming language that was the precursor to C. He also wrote some of the earliest computer programs that were used to generate a creative output (one that wrote love letters).

Anna Lytical

Fig 4. Anna Lytical – she’s git pull the house down boots mama!

Google engineer and drag queen. Anna tweets and makes youtube videos on a number of computing topics, including teaching novices how to code. In addition to her work teaching HTML, CSS and JavaScript shes also making the tech space more diverse and inclusive. You can find her on Twitter here and on YouTube here.

So happy pride everyone! Why not be a good ally and add your pronouns to Slack or your Social Media?

Thanks for taking the time to read! If you found this helpful and would like learn more, be sure to check out my other posts on the blog. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn for additional content, updates and discussions; I’d love to hear your thoughts and continue the conversation.

More Blogs