GLR July-August 2025

our federal government’s response to an earlier moral panic, one that conflated homosexuality with Communism and re sulted in upward of 10,000 men and women losing their jobs and a nearly quarter-century ban on gay men and women serv ing in the federal government. The ways in which gay and les bian Americans were persecuted by the U.S. government during the Cold War are detailed by David K. Johnson in his 2004 book The Lavender Scare . In mid-20th-century Amer ica, an irrational panic about the risks of homosexuals serving in government developed alongside a re-invigoration of the Communist bugaboo—the rationale being that homosexuals were morally unfit and prone to drunkenness and blackmail, both of which might result in the disclosure of sensitive gov ernment information. Despite its significance, the history of the Lavender Scare is generally not well known, being largely overshadowed by Senator Joseph McCarthy’s efforts to root out domestic Communists. In early 1950s America, the fear of an expanding worldwide Communism, exacerbated by the Korean War, increased con cerns about domestic subversion and espionage. Only three years earlier, in 1947, the House Un-American Activities Com mittee held widely publicized hearings on the influence of Com munism within the motion picture industry, leading to the blacklisting of roughly 300 Hollywood actors, screenwriters, directors, and other figures. The previous year, Congress had publican Club in Wheeling, West Virginia, on February 9, 1950, asserting that the State Department was riddled with traitors— 205 members of the Communist Party—it made national head lines and prompted a swift Congressional reaction. Shortly after McCarthy’s public appearance in West Virginia and a subsequent Senate speech on “security risks” at the State Department, Secretary of State Dean Acheson and Undersecre tary John Peurifoy appeared before the Senate Appropriations Committee. Upon questioning, Peurifoy admitted that 91 peo ple in a “shady category” who had been under investigation as security risks had resigned from the State Department or been fired under the McCarran rider. When asked to clarify what he meant by “shady category,” Peurifoy acknowledged that most were homosexual. A month later, the head of Washington, D.C.’s Vice Squad, Lieutenant Roy Blick, testified to a Senate subcommittee that more than 5,000 gay people lived in the na tion’s capital and about 3,700 were employed by the federal government. From respected daily newspapers to tabloid “tell-alls,” the media reinforced the notion that homosexuals were unfit to serve in the federal government. Robert Roark, a syndicated columnist for the Scripps-Howard Newspaper Alliance, warned that homosexuals “travel in packs,” were prone to blackmail, and were unfit to serve in the State Department. On April 19, 1950, The New York Times published an article under the head attached the so-called “McCarran rider” to the State Department appropriations bill, giving the secretary of state “absolute dis cretion” to summarily fire any government employee considered a threat to national se curity. Clearly, concerns about security within the U.S. government weren’t new, but when Senator Joseph McCarthy gave a speech to the Ohio County Women’s Re

line, “Perverts Called Government Peril; Gabrielson, G.O.P. Chief, Says They Are as Dangerous as Reds.” In The Lavender Scare , Johnson opines that “the constant pairing of ‘Commu nists and queers’ led many to see them as indistinguishable threats.” Recurrent media attention only amplified public con cerns that any homosexual employed by government posed a serious threat to American security. Responding to these worries, the Senate resolved in June 1950 to undertake a comprehensive investigation of “homo sexuals and other moral perverts” who were employed by the federal government. The committee conducting the inquiry was chaired by Senator Clyde Hoey. After hearing from law en forcement, federal agencies, judicial authorities, and members of the medical community, the committee released its final re port in December of that year: “Employment of Homosexuals and Other Sex Perverts in Government.” Stating that all U.S. government agencies were in complete agreement that “sex per verts” constituted a security risk, the report concluded that ho mosexuals should not be employed by the government. Characterizing homosexuals as a bad influence on the young, the document also warned that even a single homosexual could “pollute a government office.” It should be noted that no gay men or lesbians provided testimony before the committee dur ing its investigation. Initial concerns about the danger of homosexuals in gov ernment had distinct partisan overtones, with McCarthy and his followers accusing the Truman administration of failing to recog nize the seriousness of the threat. Following the release of the Hoey committee’s report, the policy of denying employment to and re moving homosexuals from federal govern ment service garnered broad bipartisan support and eventually became accepted as standard policy, spelled out in federal security manuals across offices in the U.S. and abroad. When Dwight Eisenhower headed the Republican presi dential ticket in 1952 with Richard Nixon as his running mate, their campaign posters trumpeted the slogan: “Let’s Clean House.” According to David K. Johnson, the candidates’ refer ences to “wickedness in government” and charges of “im morality” within the Truman Administration were coded phrases, meant to raise fears about homosexuals in government. In the spring after his inauguration, Eisenhower signed Execu tive Order 10450, which dismantled the previous system for as suring the loyalty of federal employees and replaced it with a different process that included much broader security criteria. In addition to barring employment to those with ties to Communist or other suspect organizations, the order focused heavily on character and specified behaviors that would automatically pre clude federal employment: “Any criminal, infamous, dishon est, immoral, or notoriously disgraceful conduct, habitual use of intoxicants to excess, drug addiction, sexual perversion.” Now men and women whose patriotism and loyalty to the U.S. were beyond reproach could be fired or denied employment in the federal government based solely on their sexuality. It wasn’t until 1975 that the U.S. Civil Service Commission ended the ban on gay men and lesbians in federal civil service; two years later, the State Department followed suit pertaining to

Will the current moral panic over gender iden ti ty and transgender rights follow a trajectory similar to that of the Lavender Scare of the 1950s?

TheG & LR

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