The Post-War World: Cold War Closets

Lavender Scare Workshop

Complete the assigned readings and watch the video lecture. Then, carefully examine the documents below. Respond to the following prompts and submit your answers via Canvas:Based on the video lecture consider:

●What was McCarthyism and the Red Scare? What were the effects of McCarthyism and the Red Scare in the 1950s?

○Brief Answer:

○Specific Example from Lecture:

●What was the Lavender Scare? What were the effects of the Lavender Scare in the 1950s?

○Brief Answer:

○ Specific Example from Lecture:

Based on the documents below consider:

●How did the federal government use national security as a justification for banning gay men and women and bisexuals from federal employment and criminalizing homosexual activity?

●How did gay men and women and bisexuals organize to resist these discriminatory policieS

Source A

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual Mental Disorders, American Psychiatric Association (1952).

ContextThe DSM is a publication by the American Psychiatric Association and offers information about and criteria for the classification of mental disorders. This book is used by both mental health professionals as well as insurance and pharmaceutical companies, the legal system, and policy make

000-x60 Sociopathic Personality Disturbance

Individuals to be placed in this category are ill primarily in terms of society and of conformity with the prevailing cultural milieu, and not only in terms of personal discomfort and relations with other individuals.

 000-x63 Sexual Deviation

This diagnosis is reserved for deviant sexuality which is not symptomatic of more extensive syndromes, such and schizophrenic and obsessional reactions.

Definition of the Term

This term includes most of the cases formerly classed as “psychopathic personality with pathologic sexuality.” The diagnosis will specify the type of the pathological behavior, such as homosexuality, transvestism, pedophilia, fetishism, and sexual sadism (including rape, sexual assault and mutilation)

Source B

Employment of Homosexuals and Other Sex Perverts in Government, Subcommittee on Investigations, United States Senate, December 15 1950.

Context:  By the late 1940s, the nation felt threatened by two assaults to American democracy -- communism and homosexuality. Senator Joseph McCarthy made a connection between the threat from communists and gay men and women and bisexuals. He argued that members of both groups were morally weak and godless, and each group participated in a secret subculture that threatened to undermine traditionally held values. In response to McCarthy’s statements, the United States Congress launched an investigation into the presence of gay men and women and bisexuals in the federal workforce.

“The primary objective of the subcommittee in this inquiry was to determine the extent of the employment of homosexuals and other sex perverts in Government; to consider reasons why their employment by the Government is undesirable; and to examine into the efficacy of the methods used in dealing with the problem . . . For the purpose of this report the subcommittee has defined sex perverts as "those who engage in unnatural sexual acts" and homosexuals are perverts who may be broadly defined as "persons of either sex who as adults engage in sexual activities with persons of the same sex." In this inquiry the subcommittee is not concerned with so-called latent sex perverts, namely, those persons who . . . do not indulge in overt acts of perversion. This investigation is concerned only with those who engage in overt acts of homosexuality or other sex perversion . . Overt acts of sex perversion, including acts of homosexuality, constitute a crime under our Federal, State, and municipal statutes and persons who commit such acts are law violators. Aside from the criminality and immorality involved in sex perversion such behavior is so contrary to the normal accepted standards of social behavior that persons who engage in such activity are looked upon as outcasts by society generally. The social stigma attached to sex perversion is so great that many perverts go to great lengths to conceal their perverted tendencies. This situation is evidenced by the fact that perverts are frequently victimized by blackmailers who threaten to expose their sexual deviations . . . Most of the authorities agree and our investigation has shown that the presence of a sex pervert in a Government agency tends to have a corrosive influence upon his fellow employees. These perverts will frequently attempt to entice normal individuals to engage in perverted practices . . . One homosexual can pollute a Government office.Another point to be considered in determining whether a sex pervert is suitable for Government employment is his tendency to gather other perverts about him . . . if a homosexual attains a position in Government where he can influence the hiring of personnel, it is almost inevitable that he will attempt to place other homosexuals in Government jobs.”

Source C

Excerpts from Executive Order 10450, April 27, 1953. 

Context: Executive Order 10450 was signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower on April 27, 1953. It charged federal agencies and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) with investigating all federal employees, current and new hires, to determine if they posed security risks. Rather than a loyalty test, the Washington Post stated that this Order established a “suitability test” and anyone not “suitable” for federal employment would lose their job.whereas the interests of the national security require that all persons privileged to be employed in the departments and agencies of the Government, shall be reliable, trustworthy, of good conduct and character, and of complete and unswerving loyalty to the United States;. . . . Sec. 8. (a) The investigations conducted pursuant to this order shall be designed to develop information as to whether the employment or retention in employment in the Federal service of the person being investigated is clearly consistent with the interests of the national security. Such information shall relate, but shall not be limited, to the following:

(1) Depending on the relation of the Government employment to the national security:

(iii) Any criminal, infamous, dishonest, immoral, or notoriously disgraceful conduct, habitual use of intoxicants to excess, drug addiction, sexual perversion.

(iv) Any illness, including any mental condition, of a nature which in the opinion of competent medical authority may cause significant defect in the judgment or reliability of the employee, with due regard to the transient or continuing effect of the illness and the medical findings in such case.

(d) There shall be referred promptly to the Federal Bureau of Investigation all investigations being conducted by any other agencies which develop information indicating that an individual may have been subjected to coercion, influence, or pressure to act contrary to the interests of the national security, or information relating to any of the matters described in subdivisions (2) through (8) of subsection (a) of this section. In cases so referred to it, the Federal Bureau of Investigation shall make a full field investigation.

Source D

Excerpt from David K. Johnson, The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government (2008), 159.

Context:  As a response to State Department security interrogations and subsequent firings or resignations some gay men and women and bisexuals committed suicide. While the government was well aware of the harm its security procedures were causing even discussing how to prevent the “threat of suicide” in homosexual cases by providing psychiatric counseling, no evidence exists of the State Department ever providing such counseling.

Government security officers knew that suicide was sometimes the end result of their investigations and went to great lengths to cover up their role. During two days of interrogations by State Department security officers in August 1954, Andrew Ference, an administrative assistant at the American Embassy in Paris, admitted homosexual activities, including with his roommate, Robert Kennerly, who served as an embassy courier. Four days later, Kennerly returned to their apartment to find Ference lying on the floor dead, having asphyxiated himself with gas from the kitchen stove. The State Department notified Ference’s parents in Uniontown, Pennsylvania of their son’s suicide, informing them that he was despondent because of bad health, making no mention of the repeated interrogations or homosexual admissions. Security officials instead created an embassy physicians’ report that a recent X-ray examination disclosed that Ference has an “inactive lung lesion.” Despite the department’s cover-up, the news spread quickly among gay Americans in Paris that “Drew” had committed suicide over his resignation [from the State Department]. A gay man who had been forced out of a job as the Paris embassy but remained in the city remembers hearing the rumor. Soon Ference’s parents heard conflicting stories from Robert Kennerly and began to suspect “foul play.” They even had his body exhumed to determine the cause of death. Two years later, through the intervention of a member of Congress, Ference’s parents learned the truth behind their son’s suicide.

Source E

Excerpt from Craig Michael Loftin, Passionate Anxieties: McCarthyism and Homosexual Identities in the United States, 1945-1965, (2006).

Context: For many gay men and lesbian women in the 1950s and early 1960s, a “blue discharge” from the military- that is, a dishonorable or undesirable discharge from the military due to homosexuality – not only prevented them from a continued career in the military but also severely limited their professional options in civilian life.

 I had applied for a job at G.E. (general Electric) and I told them about my [blue] discharge. He said that he could have hired me if I have served my time in prison for murder but not with that discharge. The Emporium (a department store) told me, we’re sorry, we don’t employ homosexuals. I tried to get a job with a trucking firm but said no because of that discharge. Wherever you go the discharge hangs over your head. Eventually it forced me into an occupation I hate.

Source F

Interview with Joan Cassidy included in Lavender Scare (film), directed by Josh Howard, Full Exposure Films, 2016.

Context: Lavender Scare is the first full-length documentary film to tell the story of the campaign by the federal government to identify and fire all employees suspected of being homosexual. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaZ-LkNy8jk

Source G

Frank Kameny and Resistance Against Discriminatory Policies

https://makinggayhistory.com/podcast/episode-1-5/

Source H

Letter from Frank Kameny to John F. Kennedy

Source: Franklin E. Kameny, “Letter from Frank Kameny to John F. Kennedy,” May 15, 1961, Papers of John F. Kennedy, Presidential Papers, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, JFKWHCNF-1418-002-p0002. Hidden Voices: LGBTQ+ NYCOE.

Context: After being fired from the Army in 1957, Frank Kameny appealed his dismissal in the federal courts. In 1961, the Supreme Court declined to hear his case. In response, Kameny wrote to President John F. Kennedy on May 15, 1961, asking the president to act as a “court of last appeal,” and informing him of the discrimination that LGBTQ+ Americans faced. An excerpt of this letter is below.

2435 18th Street, N. W.

Washington, D. C.

May 15, 1961

 President John F. Kennedy

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue,

N. W. Washington, D. C.

Dear President Kennedy,

I write to you for two reasons: (1) To ask that you act as a “court of last appeal” in a matter in which I believe that you can properly act as such; and (2) perhaps much more important, to bring to your attention, and to ask for your constructive action on, a situation involving at least 15,000,000 Americans, and in which a “New Frontier” approach is very badly needed. These people are our nation’s homosexuals—a minority group in no way different, as such, from the Negroes, the Jews, the Catholics, and other minority groups.

May I take the liberty of requesting that, because of the importance of this question to such a large number of citizens, this letter, and the enclosed material, despite their length, be read and replied to by you personally, rather than merely by one of your aides. . . . In World War II, I willingly fought the Germans, with bullets, in order to preserve and secure my rights, freedoms, and liberties, and those of my fellow citizens. In 1961, it has, ironically, become necessary for me to fight my own government, with words, in order to achieve some of the very same rights, freedoms, and liberties for which I placed my life in jeopardy in 1945. This letter is part of that fight. . . . The homosexuals in this country are increasingly less willing to tolerate the abuse,repression, and discrimination directed at them, both officially and unofficially, and they are beginning to stand up for their rights and freedoms as citizens no less deserving than other citizens of those rights and freedoms. They are no longer willing to accept their present status as second-class citizens and as second-class human beings; they are neither. . . . The winds of change are blowing. A wise and foresighted government will start now to take constructive action on this question. Your administration has taken a firm and admirable stand, and has taken an active interest in the maintenance of the civil liberties of minority groups, and in the elimination of discrimination against them. Yet the federal government is the prime offender in depriving the homosexual of his civil and other liberties, and in actively discriminating against him. May I suggest that the homosexual is as deserving of his government’s protection and assistance in these areas as is the Negro, and needs that protection at least as much—actually much more. The abuses, by constituted authority, of the person, property, and liberties of American homosexuals are shocking and appalling, and yet not only is not a finger raised by the government to assist these people, but the government acts in active, virulent conspiracy to foster and perpetuate these abuses. . . . You have said: “Ask not what can your country do for you, but what can you do for your country.” I know what I can best do for my country, but my country’s government, for no sane reason, will not let me do it. I wish to be of service to my country and to my government; I am capable of being of such service; I need only to be allowed to be so. Thus far, my government has stubbornly and irrationally refused to allow me to be so, and has done its best to make it impossible for me ever to be so. This is equally true, actually or potentially, of millions of homosexuals in this country—well over 10% of our adult population. Not only the society in which they live, but the government under which they live, have steadfastly and stubbornly refused to allow them to serve and to contribute. . . .Yours is an administration which has openly disavowed blind conformity. Here is an unconventional group with the courage to be so. Give them the support they deserve as citizens seeking the pursuit of happiness guaranteed them by the Declaration of Independence. . . .I shall be more than merely pleased to have the privilege of discussing this matter with you by letter, by telephone, or directly, entirely at your convenience. . Thank you for your consideration of the matters presented here. I look forward to your reply.

Most sincerely yours,

Franklin E. Kameny

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