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

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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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  (#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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  (#5) The State Department Interrogated Employees And Fired Suspected LGBTQ+ People

  Within a month of Senator McCarthy's claim that the State Department was being infiltrated by communists, the Deputy Undersecretary of the State Department reported 91 LGBTQ+ employees were fired for being "a security risk."

  Firing government employees because of their sexual orientation was completely legal at the time, and even encouraged by the Senate. In 1946, the Senate ordered the State Department to dismiss nearly any employee for the sake of national security. Immediately, the State Department began purging LGBTQ+-identifying employees, interrogating them with invasive questions like, “Do you identify as a homosexual or have you ever had same-sex sexual relations?”
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  (#7) The Scare Tactics Drove People To Quit Their Jobs

  Senator Wherry bragged, "There has been increased activity on the part of Government departments and agencies... to take off their payrolls alleged moral perverts." DC police force Lt. Blick also claimed, "From what I can learn and by my own personal observation... between 90 and 100 moral perverts have recently resigned."

  The "success" of their campaign triggered a larger investigation known as the Hoey committee investigation. Multiple government agencies, including the Commerce Department, submitted reports to the Senate about their attempts to uncover "perverts" in their workforce. Many employees who were accused of LGBTQ+ behavior chose to resign rather than face additional scrutiny.
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  (#1) The US Government Began Targeting LGBTQ+ Americans After WWII

  In the wake of WWII, Americans entering the Cold War had a collective public fear of communism. Like the First Red Scare after WWI, Americans worried that the Soviets would infiltrate the US government and turn the country into a communist or dictatorial state. The period later became a time for what is perhaps best known for the McCarthy hearings, designed to root out communist sympathizers in the Army, the State Department, and later, Hollywood. 

  However, from the late 1940s through the 1970s, the government also targeted another group: the LGBTQ+ community. The Lavender Scare, spurred by congressional investigations, turned gay-identifying Americans into national security threats and advocated firing LGBTQ+ employees from federal government positions.
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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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