The Red Scare, the congressional witch-hunt against Communists during the early years of the Cold War, is a well-known chapter of American history– but few know about a similar purge that occured at the same time, called “the Lavender Scare.”

After the ongoing war effort^[2] brought men and women together in brand new capacities, including during military service, new ideas began to spread and take root. At the same time, however, fear of Communism took hold of the nation, leading many (particularly those in the federal government) to seek a return to traditional frameworks.

“In that post war period things start to get a lot more puritanical, a lot more regulated,” explains Teresa Delfin, an LGBTQ cultural anthropologist and professor of Queer Studies. “All of the a lot of the things that had gotten really lax socially during the war began to tighten up.”

And in the eyes of fervent anti-Communist senator Joseph McCarthy^[3][5], famously once proposing that his detractors “must be cocksuckers,” homosexuality was a form of deviance and moral depravity, which they believed made individuals susceptible to blackmail and coercion by foreign agents, including communists^[4].

“I did a survey a number of years ago where I sat with a focus group and tried to get them all to agree on what the American boogeyman creature is– that collective fear,” explained Delfin “And the thing that they ended up agreeing on as the cultural boogeyman in this focus group was a white man in a white van, preying on boys. The fear of that specter is undeniably related to gay panic.” 

Though the primary target of McCarthyism was communists, fear-mongering in the federal government led individuals like McCarthy led to a broad categorization of LGBTQ+ individuals as potential security risks, branding them as targets for investigation by government agencies^[6].

“There was a really big push to figure out how to reinvent and re-establish heterosexuality and nuclear families,” says Delfin. “and how to really reinforce uniformity.”

Seeking to discredit political opponents and bolster their own power by associating homosexuality with subversion and immorality, government agencies, like the Permanent Senate Subcommittee on Investigations^[7] were often used to identify and remove individuals suspected of being homosexual, resulting in the dismissal of countless LGBTQ+ employees from their jobs and the destruction of their careers.

In fact, during the period now referred to as the Lavender Scare, more than 5,000 federal employees were fired^[8] under suspicion of homosexuality, and even more were barred from employment in the future.

And the impacts of this period, unfortunately, reverberated to the silver screen, with the few films that did depict LGBTQ+ characters^[10] often portraying them as nefarious societal misfits who often took their own lives or the lives of others.

“The trope of gay villainy all stems from the Red Scare and McCarthyism,” said Teresa Delfin. “And I think it’s really important to note that we culturally only make villains of the people that are actually threatening to us, that have some kind of potential to be disruptive.”

“In the McCarthy era, suddenly gay men were not ‘I want to be you when I grow up,'” says Delfin. “They were, ”m afraid of you because I’ve been warned about you.’”

But unhindered by restrictive regulations like the Hays Code^[12] (a set of self-imposed industry set of guidelines that were released between 1934 and 1968 for all motion pictures that prohibited the depiction of “profane” behaviors such as homosexuality), European cinema, particularly French and German films, played a crucial role in advancing portrayals of gay stories.

“The first time I went to a gay and lesbian film festival, I remember there being a lot of European gay films,” explained Jody Wheeler, a gay man with more than 30 years of experience working in the film industry. “I just recall going: ‘Oh… my… god… there’s so much gay content.”

Indeed, many European directors like Jean Cocteau explored themes of same-sex desire and identity in their films, as nations like Germany and France allowed for a much freer exploration of sexuality in media.

These films, brought both legally and illegally to U.S. audiences and beyond, provided inspiration and validation for LGBTQ+ audiences and creators worldwide at a time when gay men had few places^[14] to see themselves represented.

While LGBTQ+ characters and people were still often marginalized or sensationalized in mainstream media^[17] during this period in American history, there were notable exceptions.

In some cases, representations of gay people on screen allowed for a more honest portrayal– given that they’re morally corrupt, or, die in the end.

“And what that creates for detractors,” explains Teresa Delfin. “Are all kinds of tropes around masculine villains and queerness. That queerness gets typified as perversion, and it brings us back to this frail— and now harmful— trope of gay masculinity. The worst of which I think is the pervert.”

This dual-phenomenon of gay tragedy and villainy would continue into the future, serving as a common trope for decades to come.

“When that’s all you’re seeing as a young person,” said Alec Stern, the Director of Development for Paramount Television Studios. “It really gets to you, and you start to think there’s something wrong with you.”

And that trope of gay perversion was only made worse by the emergence of the HIV/AIDS epidemic^[18] in the early 1980s, which had a profound impact on the public perception of community in the United States.

“Empathy started to really dry up during this period,” says Delfin. “In some ways HIV and AIDS was applauded by some folks, as an ‘I told you so.'”

As the AIDS epidemic unfolded^[19], queer communities were largely ignored^[20] by much of the government until 1986, more than five years after the pandemic began, when President Ronald Reagan first declared it a public health priority^[21].

However, that didn’t stop public attitudes towards gay men to shift, as a lack of information regarding the spread of HIV made gay men the public scapegoat for the virus and deepened hate toward and already villainized group.

But despite public perception, the epidemic also led to greater visibility of LGBTQ+ individuals and communities, as activists and artists mobilized to raise awareness and demand action from governments and society.

In fact, some artists and filmmakers dedicated themselves to seeking out gay content, hosting film festivals and other events.

“We did a mini gay film festival,” explained Jody Wheeler. “And I remember it being a big struggle to find things to play. Everything [out there] was AIDS related, or just really evil stuff about gay people.”

“But we did find some good stuff,” says Wheeler. “There was a lot of educational documentary stuff, and somehow we were able to screen ‘Parting Glances^[22]‘– a major piece of early gay media about the pandemic.”

Though stigma and discrimination continued to persist, films like “Parting Glances” and “Philadelphia^[25]” featured prominent actors playing openly gay characters, albeit still in tragic (but far more meaningful) roles.

Still, gay relationships were rarely portrayed positively, and overt expressions of same-sex desire were often sanitized to comply with prevailing societal norms.

Studios and filmmakers became increasingly cautious about including gay characters or themes in their productions, and as a result, LGBTQ+ representation in mainstream films continued to be scarce and portrayed in negative or stereotypical ways.

But in the years following the peak of the AIDS epidemic^[25-29], gay film and television began the slow process of pushing boundaries of acceptability, gradually becoming more and more commonplace.

The first LGBTQ+ dramatic series to appear on cable access television, Jody Wheeler’s series “Inside/Outside the Beltway,” stands as an example of how gay representation began to change throughout the 1990s.

Called “the soap opera with a lavender twist,” the series appeared on cable access television across major U.S. cities starting in 1991, pre-dating other early popular gay series like “Will & Grace” and “Queer as Folk.”

The first episode introduces John and Lenny, a a gay couple living in the Washington, DC beltway, and their interactions with Cindy and Maddy, a lesbian couple living just outside. Cindy and Maddy propose an idea to the two men, and as their lives intermingled, gay people across the nations saw the realities of their lives reflected on-screen.

As the recipient of numerous local television awards as well as from GLAAD and the American Film Institute, the series tackles topics from gay marriage, parenting, bisexuality and HIV in ways that no mainstream television series had.

This late 90’s and early 2000’s saw a growing acknowledgment of LGBTQ+ relationships in film, with a focus on romantic and familial dynamics. Films began to explore the joys and challenges of same-sex relationships, portraying love and intimacy in the authentic and heartfelt manner that was previously reserved for straight characters.

“I remember a throwaway moment from “Bring It On” where two male cheerleaders, from opposite teams have a sweet moment,” said Stern. “And it’s only two seconds, but I remember it sort of flipped a switch.”

And while at first gay content was viewed as perverse and unpopular, mainstream films like “Brokeback Mountain^[30],” which reached critical box office success and won three Oscars, helped to prove that gay stories could be marketable, even to straight audiences.

Nowadays, films like “Love, Simon^[35]” continue to break box office records, rankings as the 15th highest-grossing teen movie of all time, proving that gay stories will always have a place in our storytelling, so long as they have a place in society.

“I always look around and think, you guys are so lucky,” said Jody Wheeler. “Obviously, it’s still not perfect, but we were just so grateful to have anything. For us, we got what we got, so being able to complain about the specifics wasn’t really an option.”

And while there’s a long way to go– GLAAD’s 2023 Studio Responsibility Index found that just over a quarter of films even feature queer characters– it’s important to remember where we came from if we intend to progress.