This Tuesday, a Florida high class was put on probation and fined$ 16,500 for allowing sex girls to play on the volleyball team.
The Florida High School Athletic Association ( FHSAA ) imposed the sanction, which is the first punishment meted out to a school since Gov. In 2021, Ron DeSantis signed the” Fairness in Women’s Sports Act,” which forbids trans women from participating in women-only activities. The District also briefly expelled the school’s headmaster, associate primary, athletic director, and two coaches for knowingly including the athlete in the group.
In the meantime, it has been 73 years since a Senate Subcommittee distributed the report,” Employment of Gays and Other Sex Sickos in Government,” to lawmakers. At the start of the Cold War, when communism and same-gender attraction were seen on an equal playing field of untruthfulness, the federal government secretly looked into workers ‘ sexual orientations.
The subcommittee’s main goal in conducting this investigation, according to the report, was to ascertain the amount of the work of homosexuals and other sexual perverts in government; to think about the drawbacks of the government’s hiring of them; and to investigate the effectiveness of the problem-solving techniques. ”
Hugh Ryan, a scholar, claimed that “both were thought to be scouts hiding in plain sight, associating in little cell, out to destroy the American way of life.” You were perhaps the other if you were one. ”
Also gay people’s people were n’t defense. following Sen. Lester Hunt’s boy was arrested for soliciting in a park, and his political rivals were ready to publicly defame Hunt; In his company, the Wyoming Democrat tragically shot himself in the brain.
It is estimated that between 5,000 and 10,000 queer workers lost their jobs as a result of their sexual orientation during this period of anxiety about who the government trusted, then known as the Lavender Scare. The Senate Subcommittee’s report commemorating its celebration today serves as a sobering warning of anti-LGBTQ initiatives, employment threats, and the community activism that has persisted to this day.
President Dwight D. in 1953 The research, questioning, and methodical expulsion of gay people from the federal government were made a policy under Eisenhower’s Executive Order 10450.
The Lavender Scare: The Federal Government’s Persecution of Gays and Lesbians during the Cold War, according to scholar and author David K. Johnson, a lot of this queer story has been forgotten. Eisenhower’s policy, he claimed in an interview with TIME Magazine in 2020, was motivated by the false concern that those with same-gender appeals “posed a threat to national security because they were susceptible to slander and were thought to have weakened moral characters.” “”
Alcoholics and sociopaths were among the other individuals on the list of potential security risks, in addition to sexuality.
Frank Kameny, who was fired from the Army Map Service in 1957 due to his gender, was one of the thousands of people who lost their jobs during this time. He disagreed with the ruling, unlike the majority of people, and framed the fire as a civil rights issue rather than an admitted national security issue. Despite the Supreme Court finally refusing to hear his case, it was one of the first LGBTQ rights appeals to reach the court’s windows.
When Jamie Shoemaker learned that his position at the National Security Agency ( NSA ) was in jeopardy in 1980, he turned to Kameny for guidance. Shoemaker became the first queer personnel at the NSA to keep his job under the condition that he tell his community about his sexual orientation with Kameny’s assistance. President Bill Clinton did n’t sign an executive order banning discrimination based on sexual orientation in the issuance of security clearances until 1995. In 1998, the ban was expanded to include federal job.
Being threatened by same-gender sexuality was a potent and effective way to keep gay people hidden, according to historian and executive director of the LGBTQ firm Equality Forum Malcolm Lazin.
People train for their jobs, so it’s really upsetting if you’re denied that, he said. It was n’t just [about ] what losing your job would do to you; it was also about what it would mean for those who depend on your ability to make a living. It’s a powerful nail. ”
The Lavender Scare was followed by a reformation of change for the LGBTQ community, from the earliest LGBTQ rights institutions to the leaving of same-gender destinations due to mental illness.
Homosexuality was removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders ( DSM) as a result of the activism sparked by the Lavender Scare.
According to Lazin, Kameny and gay advocate Barbara Gittings organized for a step forward in gay right after the Stonewall Riots in 1969 saw an increase in activity. The goal of Kameny was to depose President. Executive Order 10450 of Eisenhower continued to prohibit Gay citizens from working for the federal government. Gittings, however, was on a crusade to advance gay literature and end discrimination in the country’s libraries, where the portrayal of gay stories was frequently unfavorable. She collaborated with the American Library Association’s Gay Task Force, which established the first queer conference in a formal setting.
The American Psychiatric Association ( APA ), which releases the DSM, was challenged collectively by Kameny and Gittings. At the APA’s annual gathering in 1971, the two staged a protest in favor of the right to free speech on sexuality. They were permitted to have a section at the 1972 monthly conference with APA’s approval. Suddenly, Dr. The only person on the panel who was both gay and a psychiatrist, John Fryer, agreed to take part under one stipulation: He had to dress in Richard Nixon’s mask, wig, or large suit, and talk with an audio-modulating microphone in order to maintain his anonymity. He identified himself as Dr. Anonymous Henry
I identify as a queer. The doctor introduced himself by saying,” I am a psychiatrist. He was greeted with a standing ovation following his 10-minute statement. In the end, it resulted in the board’s decision to eliminate sexuality from the DSM as a disease.
For trans rights, it would n’t be until 2013 that the fifth edition of the DSM switched from “gender identity disorder” to” Gender dysphoria.” As anti-trans rules, like those in Florida, hang in the balance, a fresh wave of fear and dangers has emerged across the country.
Monarch High School in Florida has 10 times to charm the FHSAA’s ruling. According to a speech from Broward County Public Schools, “investigation into the problem is still continued at this time.” ”
Johnson believes that the GOP’s current targeting of transgender individuals is similar to the Lavender Scare, which was also a program run by the right-wing.
He explained that his goal was to frighten people into thinking that faggots posed a threat to the country. Both were based on lies, according to which transgender women are not a risk to high school sport and gay individuals were not divulging national security strategies during the Cold War.
Johnson tells Reckon, though, that it’s important to keep in mind how much has changed since 1950.
Because some people dared to question its presumptions back then, the Lavender Scare was able to develop and cost thousands of people their jobs. Today, there is a thriving community of activists, journalists, civil rights organizations, and TikTokers who did vociferously support and defend LGBTQ rights. “”
