Moral Panic For LGBTQ+ Members In Mid 20th Century: What Was 'Lavender Scare' Movement In US?

In the mid-20th century, many historians talked about the 'Red Scare', which was about the widespread suppression of the rise of communism, anarchism and other leftist ideologies in the state, but hardly any publication covered the 'state-sanctioned witch-hunt,' also known as 'Lavender Scare.' In the 1950s, the Lavender Scare was a moral panic for the LGBTQ members in the United States of America (USA). The movement led to the mass dismissal of homosexuals from government services.

Gay men, lesbians, and other LGBTQ members were declared a risk to national security. The government thought homosexual people could easily be influenced, which could likely threaten the country. Left out in the majority of history books, the forgotten history of state-sanctioned witch hunts remains unknown by many people because of its stigmatised ignorance, suggests Wikipedia.

Through bureaucratic institutionalisation, the US government normalised persecution of LGBTQ members in response to their visibility in government offices. The movement kept on prevailing for a decade in the country, giving a threat to the minority population.

'Lavender Scare' & 'Cold War'

In 1947, the Cold War began heightening concern over the internal security of the US. Following this, the state administration took several initiatives to eliminate communists and homosexuals. They established a set of 'security principles' that invited a dual-loyalty test, and later it became the governance model for the administration of the United States.

Under this initiative, the state termed communism, sexual perversion, criminals, and financially irresponsible people 'disloyal' to the country. The aforementioned groups, including 'sexual perversion', were declared unsuitable for federal employment. The discrimination against homosexuals was later implicitly built into the country's policy and included in state government procedure and protocol.

Between 1947 and 1950, over 2000 applications of candidates for federal jobs were rejected over allegations of homosexuality. This led to widespread moral panic and breakdown for the LGBTQ members in the United States, who later started fleeing to other countries in search of employment.

Even before the establishment of security principles, the military of the US had a discriminatory approach targeting LGBTQ members. Then President Franklin D. Roosevelt included a psychiatric test for screening military recruits, which included no direct reference to LGBTQ members.

Later, the military introduced the test with the idea that homosexuals are unfit to serve the armed forces. The forgotten history of a state-sanctioned witch hunt, known as 'Lavender Scare', still hunts the past of LGBTQ members treated with a discriminatory approach.

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