In the early 1950s, a moral panic over gay people swept across America. LGBTQ+ individuals were cast as threats—vulnerable to blackmail, labeled “deviant sex perverts,” and accused of colluding with communist governments. Senator Joseph McCarthy, infamous for the Red Scare, pressured President Eisenhower into signing an executive order purging LGBTQ+ people from government service. With that signature, the campaign escalated rapidly—up to 10,000 federal employees were fired or forced to resign during what became known as the Lavender Scare, a far less taught but even more devastating purge than the Red Scare. The episode remains a lasting stain on U.S. history. And now, it appears we are witnessing its revival: 100 intelligence officials were just fired for participating in an LGBTQ+ support group chat—an internal network not unlike employee resource groups (ERGs) at most companies.
The firings stem from out-of-context chat logs leaked by far-right commentator Chris Rufo on Monday. Sources tell Erin in the Morning that the chat functioned as an ERG-adjacent LGBTQ+ safe space, where participants discussed topics like gender-affirming surgery, hormone therapy, workplace LGBTQ+ policies, and broader queer issues. Rufo, however, framed these conversations as evidence of misconduct, claiming that “NSA, CIA, and DIA employees discuss genital castration” and alleging discussions of “fetishes, kink, and sex.” To Rufo and his audience, merely talking about being transgender and the realities of transition is enough to be labeled “fetish” content.
Eisenhower and McCarthy would have killed for such an easily accessible list of LGBTQ+ federal employees—and the flimsy pretext to purge them.
Within a day of the chat logs’ release, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard announced that all participants in the “obscene, pornographic, and sexually explicit” chatroom would be terminated.