The Westport Library Resource Guides: Lavender Scare: About

Watch

What Was the Lavender Scare?

During the 1950s, the State Department began to scrutinize public servants in its ranks, methodically scanning personnel files and interviewing suspected threats. The goal was to root out "immoral," "scandalous" and "dangerous government employees—people whose personal conduct put the entire nation at risk.

You might think the targets were suspected Communists—after all, it was the height of the Red Scare and Cold War paranoia. But the State Department's targets weren't suspected Communists, and the sweep wasn't run by Joseph McCarthy. Instead, LGBT people were in the crosshairs, accused of unfitness to serve. Condemned as "perverts" and bullied out of their jobs, they were systematically targets for their sexual orientation.

The period—considered as targeted and as widespread as the concurrent Red Scare—is now known as the Lavender Scare. Between the late 1940s and early 1960s, an unknown number of LGBT employees, likely in the thousands, were driven out of their jobs. Countless others were interrogated and bullied—all in an attempt to purge State of LGBT people.

Historian David K. Johnson gave the period a name in his book, The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government. Johnson documents the uses of the phrase :lavender lads" to refer to gay men. It was used by tabloids like Confidential and people like Senator Everett Dirksen, who was involved in public hearings related to the Senate purge, and it represented a wider society tendency to mock and fear LGBT people. Continue reading from History