The White House has proclaimed April 27 the 70th Anniversary of the Lavender Scare, the systematic firing and banning of LGBT people from the federal government. By signing executive order 10450 on April 27, 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower took a wild, unsubstantiated conspiracy theory from a far-right backbench U.S. Senator, Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-Wis.), and turned it into a federal government policy that endured in some form for over four decades.
Based on the unfounded fear that LGBT Americans might be coerced into revealing state secrets to the enemy, that executive order ended the careers of thousands of loyal citizens. It offers a cautionary tale about the current spate of anti-trans and anti-woke proposals that similarly began as partisan political positions — as red meat for the MAGA-wing of today’s Republican Party. As with McCarthy’s claims, such political posturing and fearmongering can easily become law, initiating decades of unfreedom.
McCarthy rose to power in 1950 with claims that he held a list of communist “Reds” who had infiltrated the State Department and were passing secrets to the enemy.
But McCarthy’s charges kept changing and several on his list of purported “security risks” were not suspected communists but “homosexuals.”
At first the State Department denied harboring any communists, but later admitted to firing 91 “homosexuals.” This admission seemed to confirm McCarthy’s charges about “sex perverts” and “lavender lads” in high government positions. Mail poured in to the Capitol thanking McCarthy for exposing “sex depravity” in Washington. Journalists given a peek at the 25,000 letters concluded that the vast majority of writers were alarmed more by the presence of gay men and lesbians than communists. All this set off a moral panic we now call “the lavender scare.”
In the wake of McCarthy’s revelations, three different congressional committees held hearings on the question of “homosexuals-in-government” and whether they posed a danger. Military intelligence officials and local vice squad officers unanimously testified that gay men and lesbians posed a threat to national security because they could easily be blackmailed. But they offered no proof. They could not point to a single example of a gay American citizen who had betrayed classified information. But facts mattered less than preconceptions.
With no existing LGBT organizations to protect their interests, no openly gay witnesses were asked to testify. Nor were Democrats or the ACLU willing to defend the rights of LGBT employees, still a novel concept. All they could do was suggest that homosexuality was more a matter for mental health professionals than national security experts.
With bipartisan support, a congressional committee issued a report in December 1950 declaring “the lack of emotional stability which is found in most sex perverts and the weakness of their moral fiber makes them susceptible to the blandishments of the foreign agent.” It called for a wholesale purge.
In January 1953 Republicans swept into the White House with the slogan, “Let’s Clean House,” promising a crusade to rid Washington of the “undesirables” who gathered there during the previous 20 years of Democratic Party control. President Eisenhower quickly replaced Truman’s loyalty system which focused on associations with communists with a more aggressive security system that specified “sexual perversion” as grounds for termination. With executive order 10450, McCarthy’s fearmongering became law.
Soon, Vice President Richard M. Nixon boasted, “we’re kicking the Communists and fellow travelers and security risks out of the Government by the thousands.” While cloaking the firings in the language of national security, the burden of the new executive order fell mostly on gay men and lesbians. In small interrogation rooms throughout Washington, thousands of LGBT civil servants were confronted with the question: “Information has come to the attention of the Civil Service Commission that you are a homosexual. What comment do you care to make?” Most chose to quietly resign rather than face formal charges. Some died by suicide. They were singled out not because they had done anything to compromise national security, but because they might do so in the future due to their sexual orientation.
McCarthy’s charges about subversives in government served to demonize Democrats as the party of subversives. “If you’re against me, you’ve got to be either a communist,” or a slur used to mean gay men, he said.
Today’s attacks by Republican attacks similarly tar Democrats as the party of “wokeness,” drag queens and transgender rights. Some like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ press secretary, Christina Pushaw, even suggest anyone who supports inclusive policies is a “groomer” who threatens children, a direct echo of McCarthy’s fearmongering language in the 1950s.
In the style of McCarthy, today’s would-be demagogues proclaim that drag queens are endangering children and that trans athletes are infiltrating women’s sports. Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) has argued that the U.S. military is so preoccupied with trans issues that it is neglecting our national security, putting the country in danger. As with the lavender scare, they have no proof of any of this, yet it is already producing legislation at all levels of government — including Tennessee’s banning of drag performances before children, and Kansas’s banning of transgender athletes in girl’s sports.
The Lavender Scare flourished in Cold War American society because few stood up to challenge its assumptions. Not until a few brave gay men and lesbians were willing to organize pickets in front of the White House, challenge their dismissals in court and testify before Congress did the policy begin to be dismantled. And only in the 1990s, when the LGBT community threw its support behind a sympathetic presidential candidate, did the policy officially come to an end, when President Bill Clinton signed another executive order declaring that the U.S. government would not use sexual orientation as a basis for excluding gay men and lesbians from national security positions.
Now more than ever, the story of the Lavender Scare needs to be remembered and understood, because, as the White House proclamation states, “the struggle for equal justice is not over.” States such as California have developed high school curriculum teaching students about the anti-gay purges, while states such as Florida are seeking to ban any discussion of sexual orientation in K-12 education. Educating students about this piece of American history will help them recognize and even counter the next moral panic — one that is currently playing out before our very eyes. It will show them that personal testimony, organizing and legal challenges can counter false claims. It’s no wonder conservatives would rather keep such stories under wraps.