Executive Orders, Dog Whistles, and the Lavender Scare

Crime & Punishment Episode #4 of 4.  In the late 1940s and 1950s, alongside the better known “Red Scare” that targeted alleged internal political enemies - American Communists - the US government led a crusade against gay men and women in the military and civil service. During the “Lavender Scare,” thousands of people were fired or forced from their jobs, dishonorably discharged from the military, and denied positions in the US government because of their sexuality. And those policies were enforced for decades - through “liberal” administrations, and the federal decriminalization of same-sex sex in 2003 - with life-ruining, and life-ending consequences for tens of thousands of Americans. And since we’re basically reliving this awful period in history because Republicans believe that a time of queer persecution, women as second class citizens, and segregation and racism is America’s “great” era, we better know the history so we can know how to fight. 

Bibliography

Allan Berube, Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women in World War II (University of North Carolina Press, 2010). 

Julian Carter, The Heart of Whiteness: Normal Sexuality and Race in America, 1880–1940 (Duke University Press, 2007). 

Josh Howard, The Lavender Scare, (Alexander Street Films).

John Howard, Men Like That: Southern Queer History, (University of Chicago Press, 1999).

David K. Johnson, “The Lavender Scare: Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Civil Service,” PhD Diss, (Northwestern University, 2000).

E. Patrick Johnson, Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South (University of North Carolina Press, 2008)

Elizabeth L. Kennedy and Madeline Davis, Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community (Routledge, 1993).

Anna Lvovsky, Vice Patrol: Cops, Courts, and the Struggle over Urban Gay Life before Stonewall, (University of Chicago Press, 2021).

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