Good morning, John; we are fast approaching the 98th birthday of one of my favorite people in the world, though he may be dead, Alan Turing.

Now, Alan is one of my favorite people in the world because One: He was a colossal nerd, and Two: He helped win World War II, and Three: He helped create the machine that you are staring at right now. And John, I love the machine you are staring at right now. I love it a lot.

And not only was making them, but he was programming them to make codes for the English military and to break the codes of the German military. Yes, Alan Turing is responsible for many of the amazing things that we enjoy today; things that may or may not include not living in a world governed by radical, totalitarian antisemitic jerks; and also may include not living in a world where I am a professional vlogger. I don't even know which one of those things would be worse.

But while Alan Turing did a lot of amazing things for the world, and particularly for the British government, the British government did not do a good job paying him back for that. In the 1950s, Alan Turing was convicted of being a homosexual. Which does not, to us, sound like a thing that you can be convicted of.

But yes, he went to court, and there was a jury, and they convicted him of being a homosexual. Indeed, it was illegal in England in the 1950s to be gay, and Oscar Wilde was actually convicted with the exact same law. Oscar Wilde was sentenced to two years' hard labor for being a homosexual.

Alan Turing got to choose between his punishments... Either: Two years in jail, or Two: Undergo hormonal treatment to decrease his libido. Alan Turing chose the second choice, and took the estrogen hormonal injections.

After his conviction, his security clearance was revoked, he was not allowed to work on any of the computers that he had developed, his name was tarnished, and there were implications that homosexuals were often spies. Soon after, in 1954, Alan Turing injected an apple with cyanide, and then he ate it. Alan Turing did everything that a person can do to win the support of his nation.

Everything! He saved thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands, of the lives of British soldiers. He created machines that would go on to revolutionize the entire world.

But because there was one thing that was a little bit different about him, his entire country turned their back on him. I'm telling you this story because I want to think about change. This week, the Trevor Project is working on a video contest called "Be the Change." And sometimes, it's hard to see change; it's hard to see change happening.

Especially for young people. Like, I feel like if you're 15 years old, you can't see how fast the world has changed. Because really, since you started payin' attention — when you were 10, maybe — the world hasn't changed that much.

So it might seem like nothing can ever change. And that's when people get desperate, and they do things like complete suicide, because they happen to be lesbians, or gay, or bisexual, or transgendered, or questioning. But if you think about Alan Turing, then you can realize that so much has changed, and yes, there is a lot of change still to make!

But that doesn't happen all at once; there's never a moment where everyone just agrees to be tolerant. It happens slowly. It happens very slowly, and it happens through a lot of different mechanisms, but the most important one is to change yourself.

If enough of us change, then the change happens, and that's what's happened. That is why you can no longer go to jail for being a homosexual: Because people changed. Individual people.

And how can you be the change? Well, you can support the Trevor Project, you can go to memelabs.com/thetrevorproject and watch a bunch of these videos and vote on your favorites. Or you can make your own "Be the Change" video, and I hope that you do.

John, I will see you on Wednesday.