The anti-communist witch hunts of the 1950s and ‘60s are now widely known, but Washington’s persecution of gays and lesbians working across the State Department has been relegated to a minor footnote in history. At the time of the Cold War, government officials believed gay people posed a major threat to national security, with Senator Joe McCarthy infamously saying “the pervert is easy prey to the blackmailer.”

In 1952, the U.S. government announced that 126 “perverts” had been removed from the civil service, and the following year, President Eisenhower signed an executive order banning gay employees from working in the federal government, although there had not been a single proven incident of closeted homosexuals being blackmailed into becoming spies for the Soviet Union.

Suspected homosexuals were subjected to vigorous interrogations by federal agents, who would demand answers to extremely personal questions and, in the process, force interviewees to either lie or out themselves. Unsurprisingly, the majority of gay employees made the decision to resign, instead of dealing with further investigations about their sexual orientation.

Striking parallels exist between the 1950s Lavender Scare and President Trump’s de facto trans military ban. In both cases, supporters of the bans defended the discriminatory practices on national security grounds, with Senator McCarthy raising concerns over gay government employees going rogue and President Trump stating in a tweet that: “Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming… victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail.”

Of course, there was scant evidence for enacting these policies, but they were able to be implemented due to the administration in power forcing them through, with a report by global policy think tank RAND finding that transgender service people have a “minimal impact on unit readiness and cohesion.”

Protest in Times Square in reaction to President Donald Trump's transgender military ban on July 26, 2017.

In the Trump era, it’s more important than ever to ensure the facts of a government policy are widely shared, rather than using misinformation and half-truths to stir up anti-LGBTQ sentiment, like those that paved the way for hardworking gay employees to lose their jobs in the 1950s.

Homophobic backlash

The anti-gay Lavender Scare saw more than 5,000 gay men and lesbian women lose their jobs, often based on mere accusations alone, with the purge entrenching discrimination in government policy for decades to come. Concerningly, the unwarranted expulsion of gay state department employees happened as a backlash to the growing acceptance of gay rights in the preceding years.

“During the Great Depression, and the years of World War II, there was a fairly open and vibrant gay community in Washington, and very little discrimination. When society grew more conservative in the 1950s, there was an abrupt reversal,” says Josh Howard, producer and director of the award-winning documentary film The Lavender Scare.

Even with a relatively open gay community in D.C. before the Lavender Scare, they had virtually no voice in the mainstream media or a sympathetic audience. There is a clear distinction in how the barring of trans troops and the ban of gay federal government employees were covered in the press. The former was reported by international media organizations and condemned by NGOs, while minimal attention was paid to McCarthy’s anti-gay firings.

“The reason, I think, why there was little to no coverage of the Lavender Scare at the time is that homosexuality was considered too disgusting to be put in the newspapers,” explains Thomas Mallon, author of the historical novel Fellow Travelers, which explores the lives of two gay state department employees in 1950s Washington.

“Gay people simply don't exist in the pages of the Washington Evening Star in the 1950s, except for when they're arrested on morals charges. And even then the phrasing has to be decoded: for example, solicitation ‘for a lewd and immoral purpose,’” he adds.

Lasting repercussions

It was only in 1995 that President Bill Clinton signed an executive order effectively repealing President Eisenhower’s original executive order and just last year when former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry apologized for the State Department’s treatment of gay employees during the Lavender Scare.

The long-term impact of the Lavender Scare is complicated. Many thousands experienced damaging treatment at the hands of the government and saw their careers abruptly end, but the appalling treatment also sparked resistance from early leaders of the campaign for gay rights.

Picket demonstration at the Pentagon on July 31, 1965.

After being removed from his job at the U.S. Army Map Service in 1957 for being presumed to be gay, Frank Kameny appealed against his firing, eventually trying to take the case to the United States Supreme Court, and committed himself to a life of activism. Kameny and nine other courageous gay men and women picketed the White House in 1965, protesting the federal treatment of homosexuals, in one of the first gay rights protests in the country.

In recognition of Kameny’s significant impact in the fight for gay rights in America, he was invited to the ceremony where President Obama signed the act to repeal "don't ask, don't tell," highlighting the mixed consequences of the Lavender Scare. “You could say that there was a silver lining to the firings, in that they created a sense of outrage and activism, years before the Stonewall uprising, that really sowed the seeds of the modern-day LGBTQ movement,” says Howard.

President Barack Obama hands pen to gay rights activist Frank Kameny, which he used to sign a presidential memorandum regarding federal benefits and non-discrimination on June 17, 2009, in the Oval Office.

This dark moment in America’s history stands as a stark reminder of how quickly anti-LGBTQ attitudes can become ingrained in society and, equally, how even in the most challenges environments, activists will fight against discrimination and injustice facing the queer community.