What Was the Lavender Scare?

by Parker McElroy, Edited by Shoffana Sundaramoorthy, Uday Lingampalli, & Neve Walker, layout by Arushi Patil, & blogged by Sahithi Lingampalli

The rights of queer individuals have been at the forefront of government debates for a while now. Because gay marriage was legalized in America in 2015, people in the United States now feel more comfortable coming out and being themselves. Although it is still not completely safe, it used to be even worse.

Many countries all over the world have laws that prohibit homosexuality, but being gay started to become legal in the United States in 1961, when Illinois officially decriminalized sodomy, and “ended” with gay people being allowed (mostly) the same rights as straight people in 2015, when gay marriage was legalized. There were many dark periods in American history that led to these advancements, unfortunately, including the AIDS epidemic, the Stonewall Riots and the Lavender Scare.

Most people appear to know the broad strokes of the AIDS epidemic (whether or not they know that it relates to LGBT people is a different story) and the Stonewall Riots, but not many people seem to know anything about the Lavender Scare. To understand the Lavender Scare, we must first understand the political climate of the time. Picture yourself in the 1950s. The Cold War is still going in full force, and Senator Joseph McCarthy just announced that Communists have infiltrated the government and are stealing topsecret information. This is terrifying in-and-ofitself, but then he uses this opportunity to tell you that, since being gay is frowned upon, any and all gay people that you know can be easily blackmailed into doing Russia’s bidding.

Thus begins the Lavender Scare, a period where the illusion of keeping the government safe from enemy infiltration was used to fire, blacklist and persecute people who were even slightly suspected of being LGBT. It all commenced with keeping LGBT people out of government positions, eventually spreading to almost every sector of the workforce, which essentially doomed gay people to homelessness and seclusion from society.

President Eisenhower signed the first executive order for this dark stain on history, aimed at weeding out federal employees suspected of pushing the Communist agenda, but it only spread from there. Tiplines were set up to report individuals suspected of being gay, homes and establishments were raided, and many people interrogated for the names of any other LGBT people that they knew. When gay people were fired from their jobs or evicted from their homes, they were pressured to keep the reason hidden from their friends and family out of fear of further prosecution. Students were taken away from their education and questioned for hours about their sexuality and the sexualities of their friends. The LGBT people of this generation had to hide who they are, and many are scarred to this day.

This fear and terror gripped an entire community for 42 years until President Clinton rescinded the policy, but the damage was done. Countless individuals were fired, blacklisted and killed as a result of being outed to their peers and sent to live on the streets, all because one man ignored all of the evidence and decided to use his power to proclaim that all gays were Communist spies, and were responsible for any possible downfall faced by America during the Cold War.

Just because the world has made leaps and bounds in the realm of queer rights does not mean that the fight is over. Hate crimes are still prevalent in many communities, and internalized and externalized homophobia and transophobia still makes kids and adults terrified to come out because of possible backlash and discrimination. Talking about the issues of the past is how the world, as a whole, can learn how to do better in the future, because we need to change how the global collective deals with past mistakes, and this is how we start.

References

Chakraborty, R. (2019, November 04). When Florida had a committee to terrorize gay people. Vox. Retrieved from: https://www.vox.com/2019/11/4/20947565/florida-committee-terrorize-gay-people

History.com Editors. (2017, June 28). Gay Rights. History. Retrieved from: https://www.history.com/topics/gay-rights/history-of-gay-rights#section_6

CNN Editorial Research (2021, March 25). LGBTQ Rights Milestones Fast Facts. CNN. Retrieved from https://www.cnn.com/2015/06/19/us/lgbt-rights-milestones-fast-facts

Lim, K. & Kravoc, J. (2019, June 09). The lavender scare: How the federal government purged gay employees. CBS News. Retrieved from: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-lavender-scare-how-the-federal-government-purged-gay-employees/