"An Unusual and Peculiar Relationship": Lesbianism and the American Cold War National Security State

Abstract

In the early Cold War, the U.S. government instituted a national security program to safeguard the country from political subversion, purging from the ranks of federal employment individuals not only with troublesome political affiliations but also those deemed to have engaged in immoral acts, including sexual perversion. As historians have noted, this Lavender Scare resulted in the removal of thousands of federal employees accused of homosexuality. The significantly fewer number of women dismissed from their jobs in this period has led some to argue that the federal government was only concerned with regulating male homosexuality. This article argues, however, that the government investigated female relationships with as much frequency and tenacity but struggled to understand the nature and etiology of female homosexuality, stumbling over the myriad and often contradictory paradigms used by psychiatrists and other medical doctors to understand female same-sex desire and gender non-conformity. This confusion accounts for the difficulties the government had in conceptualizing lesbianism and therefore in enforcing Executive Order 10450 in relationship to women.