A closer look

The Lavender Scare—Creating the Closet

What role did the U.S. government play in increasing homophobia during the Cold War?

by Pennee Bender, American Social History Project, The Graduate Center, CUNY

Discriminating Against LGBTQ+ Workers

In 1957, Frank Kameny, an army veteran with a recent PhD in astronomy from Harvard, started his dream job in Washington, D.C., using his astronomical expertise to ensure the accuracy of military maps. It did not last long; Kameny was fired within five months. The Civil Service Commission found that he had once been arrested on a charge of lewd and indecent acts, a common misdemeanor charge against LGBTQ+ individuals at the time. Kameny was a victim of what became known as the Lavender Scare, a government campaign against LGBTQ+ employees that resulted in an estimated five thousand LGBTQ+ workers losing their jobs over three decades. Many, like Kameny, never found work in their field again: being branded as LGBTQ+ had effectively blacklisted them professionally. The Lavender Scare not only cost some federal employees their jobs, it sent a chilling message to all LGBTQ+ people that being open about their sexuality posed a real threat to their livelihoods.

Historian’s note: Terms to describe sexual orientation and gender identities have varied over the years. The authors of Who Built America have chosen to use terms that are most currently acceptable throughout the text. In the 1950s, the term LGBTQ+ would not have been used and neither Frank Kameny nor the government agents referred to in this essay would recognize the term or the distinctions implied by it.

Shifting Attitudes from World War II to the Cold War

At the end of World War II, U.S. domestic policies and popular culture reflected the country’s growing anti-communist and conformist ideology. Anti-communism had deep roots in the United States, but during World War II, the country’s alliance with the USSR temporarily reduced anti-communist rhetoric. The war also changed the lives of many LGBTQ+ individuals. The mass mobilization of troops and workers brought together millions of men and women into same-sex living and working environments and allowed LGBTQ+ individuals to meet one another. Although the military tried to screen out or discharge LGBTQ+ recruits, the need for troops prevented a full-scale purge. As government and war industry workers moved to Washington, D.C., San Francisco, and other urban areas, bars and social spaces served the new LGBTQ+ communities and helped make LGBTQ+ people more visible to each other and to the general public.

With the end of World War II and the death of the widely popular President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the Republican Party saw an opportunity to roll back New Deal political, economic, and social changes. Congressional conservatives sought to regain political strength by denouncing Roosevelt’s liberal policies and accusing the newly installed President Harry S. Truman of being soft on communism. In 1945, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) became a permanent congressional committee, signaling a resumption in the federal government’s fight against communism within the United States. Republican senators such as Kenneth Wherry and Joseph McCarthy initiated anti-communist and homophobic campaigns that would play a major role in setting new domestic policies. These Cold War domestic policies merged fear of communism with fear of homosexuality, characterizing both as subversive and sparking the homophobic panic within the government and throughout the media. McCarthy’s infamous February 1950 speech publicly denouncing communists in the U.S. government ushered in a period known as the Red Scare. Although the Red Scare and the Lavender Scare were distinct efforts, they supported and fueled one another.

Targeting LGBTQ+ Workers as a “Security Risk”

McCarthy’s accusations prompted the formation of special congressional committees to identify and dismiss any government employee regarded as a “security risk,” including those they thought could be blackmailed into betraying secrets. These committees worked with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and often conflated anti-communism with homophobia in their rhetoric, which described communists and LGBTQ+ individuals as weak, effeminate, and soft, in contrast to the strength and manliness attributed to loyal Americans. Given the Red Scare and the media frenzy to purge communists from the government, officials often found it easier to denounce and dismiss LGBTQ+ individuals as “subversives” than to prove employees’ ties to communism. Government departments began compiling lists, and between 1947 and 1949, the State Department had dismissed ninety-one employees it suspected of homosexuality.

In May 1950, Senator Kenneth Wherry called for a full Senate investigation, which resulted in the Hoey Committee, chaired by Senator Clyde Hoey. The committee report, released in December 1950, declared LGBTQ+ workers “unsuitable” for federal employment. The committee’s denunciation of LGBTQ+ employees expanded the Lavender Scare and brought it to broader public attention. Newspapers, books and magazines soon adopted the government definition of communists and homosexuals as subversive and spread the concept of LGBTQ+ individuals as “psychopaths,” “perverts,” or “deviates.” In 1953, President Truman issued Executive Order 10450, which listed “sexual perversion” as cause for denying employment and called for an investigation of all federal employees. It imposed anti-LGBTQ+ policies and procedures on every government agency and private corporation under government contract, which included more than six million employees and military personnel. In addition, the FBI’s Sex Deviates Program (started in 1951) expanded the Lavender Scare beyond those working in government. Under the program, the FBI began to maintain detailed files on anyone accused of homosexuality, including university professors, writers, and civil rights activists.

With the December 1954 Senate condemnation of Joseph McCarthy, the government’s anti-communist campaign began to fade. But the Lavender Scare continued for another twenty-five years, even though there were no known cases of compromised security by any LGBTQ+ employees. As historian David Johnson noted, although it started due to partisan differences within Congress, the Lavender Scare became a full-scale moral panic in U.S. popular culture that encouraged homophobia that lasted for decades and that was used to justify a vast expansion of the national security state.

Reflection Questions

What was the relationship between the Red Scare and the Lavender Scare?

Why did the government consider LGBTQ+ employees to be subversive and a security risk?

How did magazines and newspapers present homosexuality to the public?

What were some of the long-term effects of the Lavender Scare?

Additional Reading

David K. Johnson, The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004).

Douglas M. Charles, Hoover’s War on Gays: Exposing the FBI’s “Sex Deviates” Program (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2015).

Related Chapters

The Cold War Boom, 1946-1960