Lavender Scare

Part of a series on
Discrimination
Forms Institutional Structural
Attributes Age Caste Class Dialect Disability Genetic Hair texture Height Language Looks Mental disorder Race / Ethnicity Skin color Scientific racism Rank Sex Sexual orientation Species Size Viewpoint
Social Arophobia Acephobia Adultism Anti-albinism Anti-autism Anti-homelessness Anti-drug addicts Anti-intellectualism Anti-intersex Anti-left handedness Anti-Masonry Antisemitism Aporophobia Audism Biphobia Clannism Cronyism Elitism Ephebiphobia Social determinants of health Social determinants of health in poverty Social determinants of mental health Fatphobia Gayphobia Gerontophobia Heterosexism HIV/AIDS stigma Homophobia Leprosy stigma Lesbophobia Discrimination against men Misandry Misogyny Nepotism Pedophobia Perpetual foreigner Pregnancy Reverse Sectarianism Supremacism Black White Transphobia Non-binary Transmisogyny Vegaphobia Xenophobia
Religious Ahmadiyya Atheism Baháʼí Faith Buddhism Catholicism Christianity post–Cold War era Falun Gong Hinduism Persecution Untouchability Islam Persecution Jehovah's Witnesses Judaism Persecution LDS or Mormon Neopaganism Eastern Orthodox Oriental Orthodox Protestantism Rastafari Shi'ism Sufism Zoroastrianism
Ethnic/national Afghan African Albanian Arab Armenian Asian France South Africa United States Assyrian Azerbaijani Black people African Americans China South Africa Bengali Catalan Chechen Chinese Croat Filipino Finnish French Georgian German Greek Haitian Hazara Hispanic Hungarian Igbo Indian Indigenous people Australia Canada United States Iranian Irish Israeli Italian Japanese Jewish Korean Kurdish Lithuanian Malay Mexican Middle Eastern Mongolian Pakistani Palestinians Pashtun Polish Quebec Romani Romanian Russian Serb Slavic Somali Tatar Thai Turkish Ukrainian Uyghur Venezuelan Vietnamese
Manifestations Anti-LGBT rhetoric Blood libel Bullying Cancel culture Capital punishment for homosexuality Compulsory sterilization Corrective rape Counter-jihad Cultural genocide Defamation Democide Disability hate crime Dog whistle Economic Education Employment Eliminationism Enemy of the people Ethnic cleansing Ethnic conflict Ethnic hatred Ethnic joke Ethnocide Forced conversion Freak show Gay bashing Gendercide Genital modification and mutilation Genocide examples Glass ceiling Hate crime LGBT Hate group Hate speech Homeless dumping Housing Indian rolling Intersectionality Lavender scare LGBT grooming conspiracy theory List of people killed for being transgender Lynching Mortgage Murder music Native American mascots Braves Blackhawks Chiefs Occupational segregation Persecution Pogrom Political repression Purge Racialization Religious persecution Religious terrorism Religious violence Religious war Scapegoating Segregation academy Sexual harassment Sex-selective abortion Slut-shaming Trans bashing Victimisation Violence against women White flight White genocide conspiracy theory Wife selling Witch-hunt
Policies Age of candidacy Blood purity Blood quantum Crime of apartheid Disabilities Catholic Jewish Gender pay gap Gender roles Gerontocracy Gerrymandering Ghetto benches Internment Jewish quota Law for Protection of the Nation MSM blood donation restrictions Nonpersons Numerus clausus (as religious or racial quota) One-drop rule Racial quota Racial segregation Jim Crow laws Nuremberg Laws Racial steering Redlining Same-sex marriage (laws and issues prohibiting) Segregation age racial religious sexual Social exclusion Sodomy law State atheism State religion Ugly law Voter suppression
Countermeasures Affirmative action Anti-discrimination law Cultural assimilation Cultural pluralism Diversity training Empowerment Fat acceptance movement Feminism Fighting Discrimination Hate speech laws by country Human rights Intersex human rights LGBT rights Masculism Multiculturalism Nonviolence Racial integration Reappropriation Self-determination Social integration Toleration
Related topics Allophilia Amatonormativity Bias Christian privilege Cisnormativity Civil liberties Dehumanization Diversity Ethnic penalty Eugenics Figleaf Heteronormativity Internalized oppression Intersectionality Male privilege Masculism Medical model of disability autism Multiculturalism Net bias Neurodiversity Oikophobia Oppression Police brutality Political correctness Polyculturalism Power distance Prejudice Prisoner abuse Racial bias in criminal news in the United States Racism by country Religious intolerance Second-generation gender bias Snobbery Social exclusion Social identity threat Social model of disability Social stigma Speciesism Stereotype threat The talk White privilege
v t e

The Lavender Scare was a moral panic about homosexual people in the United States government which led to their mass dismissal from government service during the mid-20th century. It contributed to and paralleled the anti-communist campaign which is known as McCarthyism and the Second Red Scare.^[1] Gay men and lesbians were said to be national security risks and communist sympathizers, which led to the call to remove them from state employment.^[2] It was thought that gay people were more susceptible to being manipulated, which could pose a threat to the country.^[3] Lesbians were at less risk of persecution than gay men, but some lesbians were interrogated or lost their jobs.

The Lavender Scare normalized persecution of homosexuals through bureaucratic institutionalization of homophobia. Former U.S. Senator Alan K. Simpson wrote: "The so-called 'Red Scare' has been the main focus of most historians of that period of time. A lesser-known element and one that harmed far more people was the witch-hunt McCarthy and others conducted against homosexuals."^[4]