1950s gay rights protest • The Lavender Scare

Acting as an ominous backdrop to the emergence of the nuclear family was the McCarthy-era Red Scare. McCarthyism, eponymous with Republican senator Joseph McCarthy, was a period of severe anticommunist messaging, persecution, and propaganda. A massive number of government agents, professors, activists, entertainers and other citizens who were suspected as communist were interrogated. Even if it was unfounded, those interrogated often lost their jobs, were blacklisted from industries, or were imprisoned [1]. 

Furthermore, M. J. Heale, author of McCarthy's Americans: Red Scare Politics in State and Nation, 1935-1965, writes that “American citizens were swearing allegiance to their nation and state on a scale unparalleled in hot wars.” [1]. The perceived threat of national security drove the masses to embrace the idea of an all-American family image and demonize anything that fell outside of it. It was these same masses who would end up nominating those suspected of communism, oftentimes those within their communities, to the aforementioned interrogations [1].

An oft-forgotten subsection of McCarthyism is the recently-coined Lavender Scare. In Senator McCarthy’s original speech that launched the Red Scare, he iterated that America’s enemies were not only communists, but “sexual perverts” [2]. As anticommunism began to sweep the nation, so did a vitalized and directed force of homophobia. Those suspected to be gay were removed from their jobs in droves, with a huge effort within the U.S. government in particular. 

In a country rife with an anti-deviance mindset and obsession with a perfect nuclear family, it’s no wonder that fringe sexual identities were targeted. Visibility and ugly stereotypes within the media grew, resulting in an increase in violence. Queer people (especially those who were gender non-conforming) were frequently seen as nothing more than sexual deviants who were attempting to corrupt the good, Christian, suburban youth with their perversion [2].