#lgbtqhistory #lavenderscare #civilrights #lgbtqdc | Malcolm Montgomery🏳️‍🌈

🕯️ On This Day in LGBTQ+ History: February 21 ⚠️ February 21, 1950: Senator Joseph McCarthy escalates the Lavender Scare in Washington, DC By February 21, 1950, Senator Joseph McCarthy’s anti communist campaign had merged with growing federal investigations into alleged homosexual employees in the United States government. In the weeks following his February 9 speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, congressional hearings and internal security investigations intensified. Homosexuality was labeled a security risk, and the systematic purge of gay and lesbian federal workers accelerated. Although the formal executive order would come later in 1953, February 1950 marks a context period when the Lavender Scare was rapidly unfolding, laying the groundwork for thousands of dismissals from federal service. At this moment in history: 🕯️Federal employees were interrogated, surveilled, and forced to resign based on suspected sexual orientation 🕯️Careers in Washington were destroyed without due process 🕯️Fear spread through government offices and extended into private sector employment 🕯️LGBTQ Americans were publicly equated with moral weakness and national security threats February 21 serves as a context date marking when institutionalized discrimination against LGBTQ Americans became embedded in federal policy culture. The Lavender Scare represented one of the largest mass firings of LGBTQ people in United States history & reinforced stigma nationwide for decades. Who later worked to defend and challenge these policies In later years, organizations such as the ACLU & early homophile groups including the MATTACHINE SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON began challenging discrimination against gay federal employees. Decades later, advocacy by groups such as the Human Rights Campaign, Lambda Legal, & @federal LGBTQ employee associations helped secure policy reversals & formal government apologies acknowledging the harm done during the Lavender Scare. Historians and civil rights advocates continue to document & educate about this period to prevent its repetition. #LGBTQHistory #LavenderScare #CivilRights #LGBTQDC The Lavender Scare The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government David K. Johnson With a New Epilogue by the Author A new edition of a classic work of history, revealing the anti-homosexual purges of midcentury Washington. In The Lavender Scare, David K. Johnson tells the frightening story of how, during the Cold War, homosexuals were considered as dangerous a threat to national security as Communists. Charges that the Roosevelt and Truman administrations were havens for homosexuals proved a potent political weapon, sparking a “Lavender Scare” more vehement and long-lasting than Joseph McCarthy’s Red Scare. Drawing on declassified documents, years of research in the records of the National Archives and the FBI, and interviews with former civil servants... https://lnkd.in/g_CDGdbn

Executive Order 10450 - Wikipedia

From “Security Risk” to “DEI Hire”: A Century of LGBTQ+ Workplace Purges | LGBTQIA+ Archives

LGBTQIA+ stories past and present.

From “Security Risk” to “DEI Hire”: A Century of LGBTQ+ Workplace Purges | LGBTQIA+ Archives

LGBTQIA+ stories past and present.