Random Things about America's Lavender Scare Targeted Gay Government Officials (12 items)

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  (#4) Senator McCarthy Kicked Off The Lavender Scare With Scant And Faulty Evidence

  On February 9, 1950, Senator Joseph McCarthy announced he had a list of 205 known communists who were currently working in the State Department. A few days later, he reported that some of those suspected communists were also LGBTQ+-identifying individuals, at the time loosely using the term "homosexual." 

  Speaking on the Senate floor, McCarthy claimed the State Department had fired, and then rehired, an employee publicly identifying as gay. McCarthy also claimed an intelligence officer reported "practically every active communist is twisted mentally or physically in some way." McCarthy used rumors about employees' sexual orientation to claim they were susceptible to recruitment by the Soviets, simply because those who identified as gay or transgender had "peculiar mental twists."
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  (#3) Homosexuality And Communism Were Both Seen As Subversive Threats

  Starting in 1947, the US Park Police began a "Sex Perversion Elimination Program" in Washington, DC. The program targeted gay men, using intimidation tactics and arrests to drive them further underground. The decision was followed in 1948 by a Congressional law "for the treatment of sexual psychopaths," ordering the arrest and punishment of gay residents of DC. The law also claimed homosexuality was a mental illness.

  The repression of homosexuality coincided with a period of intense anxiety about national security. Homosexuality, like communism, was defined as a subversive threat to the country, and it was only a matter of time until the two threats merged. 
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  (#8) The Hoey Committee's Report Identified 5,000 Federal Employees As Gay

  The goal of the Senate investigations was to out LGBTQ+ employees who worked in the military and civilian branches of the federal government. When the Hoey committee issued a report titled "Employment of Homosexuals and Other Sex Perverts in Government," it claimed that in a three-year period, approximately 5,000 homosexual employees had been identified in the federal government.

  With little to no evidence, the report labeled LGBTQ+ people as "generally unsuitable" and a "security risk" to the federal government, since they were supposedly vulnerable to blackmail and lacked emotional stability. The report even warned, "One homosexual can pollute a government office."
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  (#10) Frank Kameny Fought Back After He Was Fired, But The Courts Refused To Hear His Case

  In 1957, an astronomer working for the Army Map Service named Frank Kameny was fired for suspected homosexuality. He was arrested in California for consensual sexual contact with another man, which was against the law at that time. Kameny fought back, appealing his dismissal until he reached the Supreme Court, which declined to hear his case.

  Although the judicial system did not protect his rights, Kameny continued to fight against anti-gay discrimination, co-founding the Mattachine Society, which targeted gay discrimination in the government. 
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  (#2) In 1950, Homosexuality Was A Crime In Every State

  In the early post-war period, identifying as LGBTQ+ was a crime. But, as in other repressive eras, an underground gay culture flourished. Rather than defining homosexuality as a mental illness or a perversion, these communities accepted it as natural. 

  Attitudes toward sexuality more broadly remained conservative in the 1950s, but some challenged that. In 1948, Alfred Kinsey's Sexual Behavior in the Human Male reported that "perhaps the major portion of the male population... has at least some homosexual experience between adolescence and old age." The bestseller shocked conservative Americans, but proved to gay communities that identifying as LGBTQ+ was not abnormal.
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  (#11) In 1965, Frank Kameny Led The First Gay Rights Protest Outside The White House

  On April 17, 1965, Frank Kameny led the first gay rights demonstration outside the White House. Participants used pseudonyms and even hid behind signs, fearful of retribution. One protester, Paul Kuntzler, said, "I was intimidated by all the photographers. I was only 23. And as they came across the street they started photographing us. Every time I approached the cameras, I hid behind my sign because I was unnerved by the whole thing."

  In other protests, Kameny carried a sign that read, "Homosexual Citizens Want to Serve Their Country, Too."

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