History for Empathy

Happy Pride Month from HFE! 🏳️‍🌈

Many Americans who learned about the state of the United States government during the 1950s will be familiar with the practices and consequences of McCarthyism. Named after Senator Joseph McCarthy, McCarthyism is an era in American politics in which many government officials were accused of having communist sympathies, and therefore were disloyal to the United States. It is considered to be one of the primary effects of the Second Red Scare, a wave of fears and resentments towards communist and socialist ideologies that swept the country during the 1950s. As harmful as this political witch hunt was to many individuals, it often takes the spotlight from a concurrent practice that was equally damaging to the careers and reputations of thousands of American civil servants: the Lavender Scare. The term Lavender Scare, first coined by LGBTQ historian David K. Johnson, is used to describe a direct, pervasive discrimination against suspected homosexuals, bisexuals, or other members of the LGBTQ community within the United States federal government. The Scare resulted not only in the expulsion of thousands of competent, loyal federal workers, but the smearing of their reputations, and the public exposure of their sexual identities to a hostile public.

In 1952, homosexuality was deemed a mental illness by the American Psychological Association. Most aspects of the government, academia, and society as a whole saw homosexuality as sexual perversion, no different from pedophilia or bestiality. But while LGBTQ Americans always faced intolerance wherever they went for much of history, it was not until the 1950s did they become associated with treachery, espionage, and ties to communism which together constituted the primary concerns of McCarthyism. Many argued that because the majority of homosexuals were closeted, they could invariably be controlled by blackmail from foreign agents, and therefore could not be trusted in the federal government. While the claim itself is unfounded at best, and bigoted at worst, the existing hostile sentiment towards LGBTQ persons allowed a systemic discrimination against the group with virtually no resistance from those in power.

While subtle means of rooting out suspected homosexuals in certain government institutions such as the State Department or the Armed Forces had existed long before McCarthyism, 1950 became a key year in the Lavender Scare. In June of that year, investigations began to be conducted by the US Senate investigating the “threat” that homosexuals in government posed to the United States. The Subcommittee on Investigations released their findings in December, declaring that homosexuals were a real and present threat, and that it was necessary to remove them from their positions, because they were predisposed to commit acts that were morally wrong, illegal, or even treacherous.

From the original Senate report, “Employment of Homosexuals and Other Sex Perverts in Government”:

It is the opinion of this subcommittee that those who engage in acts of homosexuality and other perverted-sex activities are unsuitable for employment in the Federal Government. This conclusion is based upon the fact that persons who indulge in such degraded activity are committing not only illegal and immoral acts, but they also constitute security risks in positions of public trust.

Just three years following the Senate report, Executive Order 10450 was signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, allowing the FBI, the Civil Service Commission, and the federal agencies themselves to investigate federal workers whom they suspected were partaking in “criminal, infamous, dishonest, immoral, or notoriously disgraceful conduct, habitual use of intoxicants to excess, drug addiction, or sexual perversion”. Under this order, federal workers became subject to security investigations that examined deep into one’s professional and personal lives. Workers could be investigated, interrogated, and eventually fired on suspicions as arbitrary as receiving numerous calls from a member of the same sex, or wearing clothes deemed unfit for their apparent gender. An estimated 5,000 federal workers were fired as a direct result of Executive Order 10450, while thousands more hoping to work for the federal government were barred from employment. One particularly disturbing case can be seen in Andrew Ference, a young research assistant who worked at the American embassy in Paris. After he was discovered to have been living with a male partner, he was subjected to harsh investigations and interrogations. Ference, fearing that he would lose his dream job, was under intense mental stress. On September 7, 1954, while his investigation was still ongoing, he committed suicide in his Paris apartment.

In 1957, Frank Kameny, a Harvard-educated astronomer in the US Army Map Service, was fired from his position due to him refusing to disclose information about his sexuality, and was later permanently barred from any future federal employment. Furious by the injustice he was subjected to, Kameny went on the co-found the Mattachine Society, one of America’s first national gay rights activism groups. The Society, though later splitting into regional organizations, conducted some of the first gay rights protests by openly LGBTQ persons, many of which were former federal employees who were fired due to their sexual or gender identity. Activists such as Kameny continued to fight all the way until the 1990s, when President Bill Clinton finally banned all sexual-orientation-based discrimination in federal employment or the granting of federal security clearances.

While the Lavender Scare no doubt left a legacy of homophobia in the American federal government and bureaucracy, it also left an important legacy of LGBTQ activism. The actions of bold leaders like Frank Kameny were the first steps in a continuing fight towards true equality for all LGBTQ Americans.