1950s lgbtq
How LGBT Civil Servants Became Public Foe No. 1 in the s
As the search for gay State Department employees intensified, so did the pressure. People were questioned, publicly humiliated and mocked by investigators. They were encouraged to denounce others and report suspected homosexuals. And in , President Eisenhower signed Executive Order , which defined a laundry list of characteristics as security risks, including “sexual perversion.” This was interpreted as a ban on homosexual employees, and even more firings took place. Publicly humiliated and devastated by the loss of their income and their reputations, some even killed themselves.
Others, appreciate Frank Kameny, fought back. Fired in , he petitioned the Supreme Court for relief in recognition of his civil rights. They declined to seize the case, so he picketed the White House. He fought to counter workplace discrimination for the rest of his life. Kameny wasn’t the only person galvanized by the public targeting of LGBT people—in , the Stonewall Riots made gay rights a front-page issue, and the movement Kameny helped initiate an
In the Wings
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Fellow Travelers dramatically portrays how anti-gay prejudice shaped the lives of gay men and lesbians during the Lavender Scare of the s. Given the tremendous pressures to resist or conceal being gay, lesbian, or transgender in those years, it would be simple to think that LGBTQ life disappeared, or was a miserable existence. But in fact, many people managed to enjoy a adj, if very underground, nightlife in Boston and other cities. Some even organized political and social resistance movements against the laws and customs hemming them in.
During this decade, LGBTQ people went to bars to meet others and to find places where they could be themselves &#; away from the strong social condemnation of the straight world. s Boston had a string of bars from Scollay Square to Park Square that attracted gay people from around the region. While behavior was strictly regulated by the police and licensing board agents, bars were allowed to flourish. Some of these establishments were destroyed by urban renewal in the s but others were so succes
LGBT History: The Lavender Scare
Interrogations of one’s sexuality became commonplace in the s and s’ federal workplace. Questions appreciate “Do you recognize as a homosexual or have you ever had same-sex sexual relations?” were commonplace as employers attempted to root out LGBT employees. This period of time is often known as the Lavender Scare—the interrogation and firing of LGBT-identifying civil servants.
Before the Lavender Scare and post-World War II, LGBT individuals from rural towns began congregating to cities where they could keep anonymity. This newfound peace and community, however, was disturbed in when the United States Park Police created a Sex Perversion Elimination Verb. Primarily targeting these communities in parks, at least five hundred people were arrested and 76 were charged.
As a part of the broader Red Scare that targeted communists, the Lavender Scare’s development was in large fault due to Senator McCarthy, who brought to the Senate his famous list which gave the names of two hundred and five federal employees, two of which were homosexual individuals. Wh
Government Persecution of the LGBTQ Community is Widespread
The s were perilous times for individuals who fell outside of society’s legally allowed norms relating to gender or sexuality. There were many names for these individuals, including the clinical “homosexual,” a term popularized by pioneering German psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing. In the U.S., professionals often used the term “invert.” In the midth Century, many cities formed “vice squads” and police often labeled the people they arrested “sexual perverts.” The government’s preferred term was “deviant,” which came with legal consequences for anyone seeking a career in general service or the military. “Homophile” was the term preferred by some preliminary activists, small networks of women and men who yearned for community and found creative ways to resist legal and societal persecution.
With draft eligibility officially lowered from 21 to 18 in , World War II brought together millions of people from around the country–many of whom were leaving their home states for the first time–to fill the ranks of the military and t