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196. The Lavender Scare · Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood

• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Hello, delicious friends, and welcome to Who Did What Now?
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: The history podcast that is not your history class with me,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: your host Katie Charlewood, history harlot and reader of books. Now,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: I don't remember the last time Scotland were in the
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: World Cup. Now I do. Actually I remember one of
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: the times Scotland was in the World Cup because they
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: played Brazil and they won a match that was probably
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: the peak. It was like the first game when it
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: was the peak of the whole show for them. Now,
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: as someone who is half Scottish, I take great pride
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: in the Tartan Army going to Boston.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: And Boston running out of booze. Now I don't know why,
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: but this is just absolutely golden to me. And also
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: like all of the Asian tourists who are in Mexico
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: and they're discovering like chips and salsa, like it's it's great.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: I love sort of cultural experiences that are being shared
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: and like I love the biggest thing like for me
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: is people discovering Costco.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: I love Costco. Right, I went to a Costco when
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: I was in the States. I'm a cheap day. You
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: take me to the food court, which I haven't actually
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: been to yet because the one that I went to
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: the food court was being like done up, but I
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: did get some free samples. But like, you take me
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: to the food court and a Costco, I am your girl, Okay,
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: I support Costco. Like I even have a sticker on
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: my suitcase which is like a Costco sticker because it's
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: just it's amazing. Like that's one of the fun things
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: about the US is like the grandiness of it all.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: And by that I mean the size because I got
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: a double gulp from a seven to eleven. It's it's
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: too It's simply too large. It is too large for me.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: I could not I could not handle it. And I'm
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: someone who consumes a lot of beverages, like in general,
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: not like the Scots in Boston making Boston run out
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: of booze. And I love it. This was a whole thing.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Oh no, no, no, it's goods are gonna come. Yeah. Yeah.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: The Toton Army drank Boston dry, which is an achievement
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: I think we can all agree upon. But I just
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: think it's really for it. But nah, I love I
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: love this, this whole thing. I love that ordinary citizens
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: like are getting to see people enjoy their country. As
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: opposed to like all the shit that just gets shed
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: out for like all this stuff, and there's a little
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: bit of you know, humanity, enjoy and consideration to one another.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: And I think that's the important part in all this.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: It's that human connection. And like, oh the football coins.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: I forgot about the football coins, Like that is a
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: Scottish tradition. Like if your statues, you're thinking, how did
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: they get a traffic cone up there? Determination? Okay, determination
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: and just a little bit of spike. That's how everything
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: gets done. But yes, I am really really enjoying this
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: whole scenario of just especially the topon Army because the
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: amount of people who are like hey, why is why
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: are they all playing bagpipes? Like does everyone in Scotland
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: learn the bagpipes? It's like yeah, yeah, yeah, it's your
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: last exam before you go into high school. It's like, eh,
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: your pipe will throw the flower to Scotland or else? Yeah,
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: fucked pal. Yes, it's Pride month. It's Pride month. And
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: what's interesting about Pride Month specifically now is like the
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: town that I live in Ireland, it has pride, it
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: has we pride a little bit of pride, not much
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: because we're Irish, so the only emotions were allowed to
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: have our shame and guilt. But that's what happens when
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: you're raised Catholic. But here's the thing, we push those
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: feelings down, down, down, down, down down, So like instead
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: of having emotional baggage, we have convenient little grief cases now.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: But pride is new and so like, pride is happening
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: off my village. But last year it happened in August,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: and this year it happened at the end of May,
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: which does feel a little bit like we just keep
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: starcumventing actual Pride month. Now. I don't know why specifically
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: this has sort of happened. I'm sure there's probably like
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: a really good reason for it, and me bringing up
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I've
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: never been invited to be involved to how totally do
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: I want to be invented to do stuff, because like
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: I don't even know who to contact to be involved.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: I tried, maybe I've just offended somebody, But anyway, it's
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: Pride month, and actually the amount of is Seali being
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: pragman Weather being pregnant? When why are we salibrating veterans?
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: Why don't we have a Veterans month. You do, okay,
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: United States of America, you do have a veterans month.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: It's November, the same month which contains International Men's Day,
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: which surprisingly enough y'all don't seem to know about either.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: Like anyway, I know you're thinking, you're thinking, Kerry, quite
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: your devil dabble in fact me, In fact you I will.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: But first we've got to get our source on. Our
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: sources are Gay Ellie, A History of Sexual Outlaw, Power, Politics,
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: and Lipsick Lesbians by Lillian Ferreman and Stuart Timmants, The
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: Lavender Scare, The Cold War persecution of gays and Lesbians
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: and the Federal Government by David K. Johnson, Before Stonewall
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: Activists for Gay and Lesbian Rights, and historical context by
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: Verne L. Bulla Gay Rights and Moral Panic, The Origins
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: of America's debate on homosexuality by Fred Fez, Congregational Investigations,
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: and the Lavender Scare by Judith Adkins. McCarthyism and the
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: Second Red Scare by Landing R. Y Stores, and of
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: course her old favorites, the Smithsonian dot com.
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: And Biography dot com iosid incomfortably good, then let's begin today,
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: my dear friends, my delicious friends. Somebody even say, we
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: are going to be talking about the Lavender Scare, a
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: moral panic, which you know, I do know far too
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: much about moral panics. Like it's almost unnerving, like it's
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: become something that I have just gained a lot of knowledge.
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: And it was never my intention to know specifically about
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: moral panics.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: But here we are now. Actually, before I go on,
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: I should warn you content warning. Time claxons are ringing.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: That's really I was going to try and do a
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: sound effect, and then I just gave up before I
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: even said a word. But content warning, trigger warning. There
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: will be mentions of sexual assault and suicide this episode.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: So if that is something you don't think you can handle,
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: if that's not something you want to hear about in
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: any way, even as a reference, then maybe best to
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: exit stage left and we will see you next time.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: So the Lavender Scare, which in case you were wondering,
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: was very much linked with the Red Scare. Understanding one
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: helps understand the other. And of course we're gonna slip
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: into some context because the Red Scale came in waves,
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: the first of which was in nineteen seventeen, following the
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Bolshevik Russian Revolution. You know, the whole overthrowing the Romanovs ac.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: If you've seen the animated movie Anastasia, it glosses over
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: this quite a bit. It's like, oh, this stuff happened
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: because of evil, ghoulish rasbuilding as opposed to the government
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: being overthrown by the people, the Bolsheviks. And you know,
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: the murdering of a whole family after being kidnapped for
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: a year or maybe not even a full year anyway.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: I'm not an expert on the Romanovs I know like
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: a bit, but yeah, this kind of mass revolt really
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: terrified the Western world. In fact, people worried that the
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: same thing could happen in America. Could you imagine the
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: people having power the nerve. It's almost as if the
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: powers that we forget that it is in fact working
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: class people that are the backbone of society, especially back then.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: See after the end of the First World War, people
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: started demanding a better work environment. What shocking, I know, right,
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: because like health and safety wasn't a huge consideration back
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: in interwarm Erica. Neither was fair pay for fair day's work.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: But then collectively workers began holding strikes for better working
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: conditions and better pay. Now. I always remember the story
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: of Goes. It was someone talking about, Oh, my dad
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: used to say that, you know, Christmases were so weird.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: One year you'd get a bucket, the next year you
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: get a bike. And like they were relaying this story
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: to like their grandma and their grant had just gone. Yeah,
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: the year they got bikes was the year we joined
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: the union. Like today, it's because you were being paid fairly.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: You were able to get a bike for Christmas, you know,
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: And that's something that people like forget, Like, the whole
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: purpose of a union is to ensure that the workers,
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: you know, are paid fairly and that they are safe
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: and secure and their positions and they're not going to
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: be screwed over by you know, the business AnyWho. Instead
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: of treating it like it was, you know, workers expecting
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: to get paid fairly and to have lower risks of
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: being maimed or killed during the workday, the American press
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: decided to portray these acts as something decidedly un American.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: But wait, there's more. Apart from being distasteful to one
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: of the best muppets of all, Sam the Eagle, it
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: was clearly the first steps to communism. The press were
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: utilized by companies and the governments, because how could everyone
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: keep getting higher profits if they actually had to invest
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: in their workforce. Thanks to the smear campaign by the
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: news agencies, the US government was able to push the
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: workers down, and with this the seeds of distrust were sown,
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: and from there well kind of snowballed. That very year,
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: Joe Wilson, the twenty eighth President of the United States,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: passed the nineteen eighteen Sedition Act, which limited the exercise
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: of free speech by criminalizing any language that could be
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: seen as disloyal to the US government. And around this time,
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: certain states past laws that allowed the police to investigate
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: in prison and you bought people that they suspected of
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: being communist. But wait, there's more. Not just people they
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: thought might possibly a little bit maybe could be communist,
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: but also anyone with left leaning politics. Now this may
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: come a surprise to some of you gentle listeners, but
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: back then they had trouble distinguishing between socialism, communism, anarchism,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: social democracy, yary yary, yary, yeah, yeah, okay, cyber. Most
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: of the time, when people throw around communist, maist, et cetera,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: ask them if they've actually read the Communist Manifesto, because
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: at nine times out of ten if they say they have,
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: they absolutely have, not like like they're lying, Okay, what
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: they've done is listen to what someone else has said
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: about it, or they've read someone else's cliff notes about
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: it with it. I've not read it. Most people haven't
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: read it, right. I read it because I had to write.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: But yeah, because I studied sociology, which is actually really
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: funny because I remember saying that I studied sociology to
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: someone one time and they were like, well, of course
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: you did your Marxist And I was like, do you
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: think socialism and sociology are the same thing? You think
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: that car Marks invented the study of all societies? Do
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: do you think that? Or did you find two words
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: that so vaguely similar and when that must be it? No? No, no, no, no,
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: this happens all the time. But like, yeah, so these
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: people very very rarely actually know the difference between communism, Stanalinism, socialism, Marxism,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: so on and so forth. Like they're different, they're not
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: the same things. I mean, if Styalism is out there
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: on it's fucking own right, that's that's like I'd argue
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: that Stalinism is its own form of totalitarianism, like on
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: its own, like it's just absolute tom Fuckeray. Now, finally,
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: there's always this argument about how there's been no successful
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: communist country just because anytime a regime has genuinely tried it,
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: it's been attacked by a military force from a capitalist
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: nation who has funded cou disruptive trade relations, and a
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: bunch of other bollocks that we will get into another day.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: Now you're thinking, hey, Kerry, you big filthy left to you,
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, hey, my favorite thing about Marx, right,
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: and the last last thing about car Marx, right, I
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: promise this episode is that Marxism only exists within capitalism,
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: Like Marxism cannot exist out with a capitalist structure because
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: the core of Marxism is effectively the rich should not
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: be as rich and the poor should not be as
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: poor as it Like, that's the core factor, right, That's
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: what it all boils down to is nobody should be
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: too fucking rich, nobody should be too fucking poor. Right. Unfortunately,
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: capitalism relies on debt to survive anyway, So the red
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: scare clumped all these together. Anything left was so bad.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: It was practically and sometimes literally treason, but eventually the
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: red scale died down up until the years following the
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: Second World War. It's almost as if there's a pattern here.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: The second red scale rears its ugly head during the
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: early years of the Cold War between the USA and
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: the USSR, which is less of an actual war and
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: more of an ideological one. But this second wave is
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: spearheaded or more accurately given gusto by Wisconsin Republican Senator
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: Joseph McCarthy, which has led to this whole thing often
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: been known as McCarthyism. But three years before his frothing
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: at the mouth campaign, which feels very cultive clutterus if
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: you ask me, there was President Harry S. Truman, the
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: thirty fourth President of the United States, who had signed
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: an executive order to screen any federal employees for any
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: association with the organizations that were seen to be communist, fascist, totalitarian,
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: or even subversive. It's kind of like they have this
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: assumption of sort of the old enemy and the new
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: So you have the older enemy, which is like fascism
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: and Nazis, even though they hired many as scientists hello
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: Operation pepper Clip, and then the new enemy, which is
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: like communism. Now post war America is complicated. The First
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: World War happened and everyone was told that it was
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: the war to end all wars. And then the Second
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: World War happened right off the back of the depression.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: Well not long that depression. Things were starting to look up,
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: and then depression and for some people things were looking up.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: The US, it had gone through this massive upheaval. It
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: was barely back on its feet, and people were afraid
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: that another war was coming. This fear had compounded with
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: the rumor that the Soviets were already making nuclear weapons.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: So you've got the USA, this big upheaval over one
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: and a half generations, the threat of being nuked by
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: the commis. Then you have all of these internal changes,
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: the start of the civil rights movement. More and more
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: women were entering or staying in the workforce, and the
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: queer community was becoming more visible to general society. And
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: here's the thing about government, right, the whole thing. I
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: mean the US government anyway, at least at this time,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: and most governments in the world run by dudes, right.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: I think the Senate at this point had two female
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: senators out of one hundred. Like there was a female
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: senator back in the twenties and she was a senator
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: for one day and it was like a whole publicity
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: thing to get women to vote. It was just or
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: vote the right way, you know. It was more of
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: a decorative position than an actual one. But yeah, no,
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: there no women for like years and years and years
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: and news years, and now you have two female senators
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: out of one hundred senators. And in case you're wondering,
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: the House of Representatives had eight women serving out of
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: four hundred and thirty five. And for posterity, there were
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: no Asian or Black senators serving at this time. I checked.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: There was, however, African American representation in the House of Representatives,
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: not much, but there was, like there wasn't a black
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: senator in the United States like from the end of
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: the restoration up until nineteen sixty six. Like that is
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: that is the time period. Now there was an Asian
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: senator when Hawaii like became was it the fiftieth stay
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: This is probably like something that you learn in elementary
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: school and it's like, yeah, Hawaii became the fiftieth state,
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: it's the last one, and that's like that's something you'll
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: learn when you're like little, that's not we don't learn
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: that over my side of the pond. It's not a thing.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: But yeah, So when Hawaii becomes a state in nineteen
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: fifty nine, that's when there's finally, you know, Asian Pacific
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: calendar representation in the Senate. Now out with that, no,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: not a lot really, so effectively the government is mainly
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: a pale and stale male scenario. These men in power
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: saw a society changing intently the look at that, and
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: so they started pushing for the good old days and
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: traditional values like this is actually where the myth of
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: the nuclear family is born. Like, they want to enforce
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: a system that continues to provide them power and control.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: So while some members of society are excited for change, others,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: the bal and stale males, thought that this was the
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: destruction of America as they not, and as always, there
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: was a man ready to capitalize on that fear, the
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: aforementioned Senator Joseph Raymond McCarthy. So McAthy wasn't exactly what
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: you would call a rock star politician. He wasn't even
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: a pop star. He wasn't even in the indies. Really,
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: he was just kind of there. He wasn't making waves.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: He was altogether unremarkable, like he never passed an important bill,
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: and his complete in total well midness was forcing him
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: to trickle out of favor, along with the fact that
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: he was a liar, insufferable, and generally disliked by the
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: majority of his fellow senators. Like, all of this was
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: causing his political career to go down the tube, something
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: that was becoming clear to him because you know, his
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: entire political career was circling the drain. Because on the
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: ninth of February nineteen fifty, while the top politicians were
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: getting in Washington, d c. To celebrate Lincoln's birthday, he
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: was relegated to speaking at a Lincoln dinner at the
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: Republican Women's Group of West Virginia. Right, they were all
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: at the Lincoln party, and he is here chatting to
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: these old ladies. Right now, he has a speech about
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: the importance of housing for disabled veterans. Now that's a
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: fairly noble cause there should be, you know, procedures in
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: place to help veterans, especially disabled veterans, Like yeah, now
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: that is what he's supposed to be doing now for
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: the sake of accuracy, because you know, there was no
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: exact agreement on what McCarthy said at the dinner, Like
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: nobody knows word for word or verbatim, none of that, right,
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: but it is agreed that he goes off on one right,
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: McCarthy rants about how America is being beaten by all
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: these other countries. They are gaining in technology and the like,
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: well the US has fallen behind. He goes on to
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: claim that the US is keeping its citizens safe, and
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: he says this is all because of the enemies within.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: He straightall claims that the US State Department and other
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: government agencies have been infiltrated by communist agents, telling you
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: call it clitterists. It's the called it clitterists. Okay, except
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: it's the delegation of decks. I don't know, I don't know.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: That was a bad that was a bad reference. But
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: he pulls out this strip of paper and he's waving
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: about spouting that upon this page there are the names
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: of two hundred and five men from the State Department
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: who have been named as members of the Communist Party.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: Now this was a big deal. Like Ron Burgundy, see
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: the word communists off alarm bells for people. It was
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: almost a dirty word. And he is shining a light
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: directly at the State Department, which initially denied any such thing.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: But with all this traction, many leaders were regurgitating this
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: idea that there were undercover communists infiltrating their lives and
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: influencing you without you noticing. Commons could be everywhere anywhere, journalists, teachers,
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: artists underneath your floorboards, living in your attic, only coming
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: down to steal sandwiches from your fridge. Maybe now. McCarthy
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: also made the distinct connection with communism and homosexuality, because
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: in the nineteen fifties the worst thing you could be
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: was communist or gay. I suppose communist and gay. McCarthy
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: created a culture of suspicion and fear across the United States,
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: and if you disagreed, you were disloyal to the country.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: No one trusted anyone, and you could be arrested if
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: you were being perceived as too radical. Direct quote, homosexuals
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: mustn't be handling top secret materials. The pervert is easier
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: prey to the blackmailer. It is so called of glitterist.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: It's on rum like he shouting about how gay people
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: would be blackmailed by the reds into giving away America's
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: secrets like somebody called mod Allen. Right, this obviously sets
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: off the homophobes, who are practically salivating at the idea
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: of ruining the lives of queer people. You have good,
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: god fearing folks word that this will spread and will
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: taint American society, and you've got the media just all
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: fired up into a frenzy. And what do you know,
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: Finally this saka shit has all the attention he ever wanted.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: And this is where he really shows just how sleek
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: it he is. He goes to the press and tells
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: him that there is a secret report from inside the government,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: proof of the entire gay communist situation. And within this
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: report the confirmed firing of ninety one homosexual men from
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: their government possessions. Now here's here's the thing. He's not
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: talking out of his arsia, at least not completely though. Well,
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: ninety one men fired from the government. You know, they
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: were fired from their government jobs for being gay. But
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: this had actually happened about five years before this, and
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: so he's using this old information to make waves and
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: just keep that spotlight on himself. For a lot of people,
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: this is proof that McCarthy is onto something. They were
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: writing him letters thanking him for keeping America safe. Meanwhile,
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: he's using rumors and intimidation to set himself up as
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: one of the most powerful figures in American politics at
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: this time. That he would throw accusations around like Jubjub's,
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: accusing anyone who disagreed with him as being a communist,
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: a communist sympathizer, or simply a homosexual. Now, this did
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: make some people bend the knee, but this whole witch
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: hunt led to the molding of people in positions of
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: power to match his views and forcing those who didn't
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: basically basically pushing everyone who didn't concur with his opinions
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: and beliefs. And the press they're lapping up right, Fia
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: sells newspapers, right, Scandal seales newspapers, and you know what
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: else sells newspapers, fucking conspiracies. Right. And Senator Joseph McCarthy
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: hawks up this list of people working in the government
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: that he believes are communists, communist sympathizers, are gay, and
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: the government begins terrorizing and destroying the gay community in
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: the name of national security because closeted people were easy
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: targets for blackmail by foreign agents, and so membership in
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: left leaning political groups dropped during this time, and keil
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: Syprize the quail scene just fled deeper underground. What's funny
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: about this whole thing is like, no one, no one
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: at any point thought, well, if we just decriminalized homosexuality,
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: thus removing the very thing that attracts the blackmailers, then
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: they won't have anything to blackmail people with. If we
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: made being gay acceptable, then how are they going to
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: blackmail them, because there's nothing to blackmail them with, right,
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: but no ostracizing the queer community even further was apparently
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: the way to go. It just shows the level of
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: paranoia because like the military does an investigation, like the
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: government does an investigation, Like there's a whole thing, right,
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: and not one United States citizen right had spilled secrets
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: under blackmail. Right, No one had been blackmailed into giving secrets, right,
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: No one. Some people sold secrets, some people were double agents,
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: but like, nobody was blackmailed, like especially not for being gay. Right.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: So the lavender scare goes into full swing because the
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: news with that ninety one gay men had been removed
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: from the government, the question swelled. How did so many
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: homosexuals manage to infiltrate the government? How many were still there?
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: And just how many more people had been corrupted by homosexuality. Now,
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: this caused a knock on effect, like because once businesses
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: saw the government removing people for being gay, that gave
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: them carplanche to do the same. And this scale it
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: gets teeth right because Truman is actually accused of not
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: doing enough to combat the great threat of homosexuality to
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: the nation as a result, in June of that year,
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: four months after his first gam and Ramble, the Senate
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: began an investigation into the employment of homosexuals within the
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: government and accusations. They're being thrown around all over the place. Right,
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: if you were accused, you're basically screwed. You were collected
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: from your home and then brought in to testify under
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: oath to government officials, sometimes in a private office, sometimes
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: in Congress. You're talking about your life, intimate details about
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: your life, from your political affiliations to your friends, your family,
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: to your sex life. It's all very intense, and some
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: people were forced to resign. Others didn't want to risk
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: being outed and just quietly left and moved to another
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: sector and hoped, you know, this would just blow over,
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: because it wasn't just about being out it, it was
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: about being seen as disloyal to America. And again, this
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: knock on effect was happening, and there was no guarantee
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: that you were safe. Unfortunately, this led to the misdirection
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: situation where the only way to shake off the accusation
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: of being a big gay communist was to acute other
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: people of being homosexual lefties. And McCarthy, this shit bag
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: even goes after the librarians, like he's convinced that just
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: because the libraries hold communist materials, like they've got books
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: on Marxism and shit, right, so because of this, the
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: libraries must be secret meeting places for commies and the
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: Alphabet mafia. Watch out. It's a well read lesbian how
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: to your children like. But wait, there's more. McCarthy's sub
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: committee looking into the Communist influences on American life has
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: Roy Marcus Cohn as chief counsel. Now, this really is
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: a gruesome tosome, right, Roy, he came from good stock,
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: He was from a well connected family, he was well educated.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: He came out of Columbia Law with something to prove.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: So when he gets to Washington, he wants the trumpets blaring,
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: he wants to make it big, and he jumps on
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: the first trend, which is going after communists. And he
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: made a name for himself in one of the most
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: infamous trials of the early twentieth century. He was the
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: prosecutor against the Rosenbergs. Right, It's just he's that guy. Now.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: Con was always in the papers, front page headlines about
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: the perversions of homosexuality and how it had to be eradicated.
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: What is wild is that Con here is the witch
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: finder general, like he has the highest possible position, like
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: in this witch hunting scenario. But the irony is it
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: is likely that Roy was a closet and homosexual. Now,
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: I hate the trope of the self hating gate gets
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: thrown around bigots, but it's a cop out because some
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: homophobes are just shitty people. But back to Roy for
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: a sec See his friends in later years would say
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: that he was very open at home and with his friends. However,
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: professionally he was closeted. It's like he's throwing mud so
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: it doesn't stick to him. You know, I'm not making
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: any assumptions about the man, because there are different ways
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: in which HIV can be contracted. But I would be
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: remiss if I did not say that he passed away
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: at the age of fifty nine from complications related to AIDS. Now,
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: before you start feeling too sorry for the man, he
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: was complicit and destroying the lives of gay men under
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: his tenure. Like in this space of a few months,
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: actually four hundred and twenty five men were fired from
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: their government positions for the crime of being gay. Their
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: lives ruined, their livelihood's gone, and many of them committed suicide,
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: which brings us to Joseph McCarthy himself. What's interesting is
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: that some of the parameters that were accepted as evidence
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: you know that someone was a homosexual communist also applied
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: to McCarthy himself. At this point in time, he was
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: an unmarried man in his forties, still living with his mother.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: But the plot thickens allegedly's McCarthy was a frequent visitor
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: to the White Horse Inn, a gay bar in Milwaukee.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: Now there is a consistent narrative and his preference for
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: younger men. In his FBI file, it says there are
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: statements from an army lieutenant who was picked up by
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: McCarthy in a hotel in Washington. He gets him absolutely
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: blotto and then they have anal sex. J Edgar Hoover,
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: who was a buddy of McCarthy, said reports like this
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: were just homosexuals trying to sully McCarthy's name and reputation
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: on the flip side. And this gets horrible because of
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: course there's more. There are reports of McCarthy being unable
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: to take his hands off of young girls, especially when
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: he had been drinking. And that is something that is
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: said by friends of his people who supported him and
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: liked him. Okay, that's where this is coming from. In
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: other news, Joseph McCarthy got married in January nineteen fifty
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: three to Jean Fraser Care. They would go on to
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: adopt a baby four years later with the help of
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: Cohen's dear friend, Cardinal Francis Spelman, the Archbishop of New York.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: Oh he acquired a baby for the rich people. Did he?
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: I wonder where this cardinal acquired this baby? Huh, maybe
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: we should ask a nun.
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: Which brings us to.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: Eisenhower. That is right, thirty fifth President of the United States,
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: Dwight D. Eisenhill who issues the Executive Order one zero,
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: four or five zero, which orders all federal agencies and
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: government contractors to fire anyone who fell under the criteria
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: any criminal, infamous, dishonest and moral or notoriously disgraceful conduct,
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: habitual use of intoxicants to excess, and sexual perversion. Now,
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: I don't mean to say that it's painting with a
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: wide brush there, Like it's somehow specific and yet very
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: deliberately vague. Right, it just seems to have you all
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: encompassing and yet very much open to interpretation. So this
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: was all done under the pretext of strength and insecurity
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: procedures because less we forget, homosexuals were a massive threat
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: to national security. Like here's here's the main issue, right
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: between the federal agencies and all the government contractors. The government.
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: At this point in time, the government was the largest
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: employer in the country, and so it affected so much
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: more like so many like branches into society, like people
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: were just being screwed everywhere, and agencies even established new
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: procedures for detecting homosexual men and women, like everything is
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: very much within a gender binary here, Like this continues
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: on for actual decades. You know that someone is either
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: gay or straight. Now, the idea that a bisexual person
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: could exist, but I'm fairly say it wasn't even generally
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: accepted until like the millennium. Like like it was it
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: was a whole it was a whole thing, right. The
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: idea of someone being bisexual was just odd because, I mean,
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: the interesting thing is that it always revolves around men, right,
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: So like if like there was this idea for years
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: that you know, men could just like turn a lesbian straight, right,
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: and if you know, like at one point, the metrosexual
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: was like a thing that people were saying about men
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: who were clean in the city and sometimes had a
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: bag like messenger bags. It was it was very much
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: like ooh, look at mister offense. It bends with this
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: Missinger bag. It was a weird time right now. They
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: actually there was like a a system like people were
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: trained to spot gay people like sniffle doogs for homosexuals.
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: But you know, sometimes someone just has bacon in their
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: pocket because these agencies are looking for every teeny tiny
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: little hint that someone could possibly maybe be gay if
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: the women seemed more butcher than your average Josephine while
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: you're out, A man has a higher voice, well, uh,
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: you are being hunted, and whether or not you were
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: actually gay or straight, you were absolutely buggled. Eyes of
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: suspicion would fall upon you if you had friends or
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: family members who were LGBTQ. Police raids became more common,
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: with known gay spots being rated more often if you
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: were accused. There was a polygraph test, which we all
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: know is bullshit, like if you're nervous or angry, it's
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: not gonna give the right answer. The lavender scare is
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: basically this precursor to stonewall, like it led to it,
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: and this harassment and abuse just continues, and it gets
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: worse because McCarthy decides to take on the Army, which
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: is something you just don't do. He accuses the Army
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: of hiding communists and supporting draft dodgers. Oh well, McCarthy
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: had lied about all of his wartime achievements, but that's
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: another rant for another day. But the army shoots back
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: with well, Roy Cohen was supposed to be drafted, but
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: we didn't because you personally asked him not to be. Now,
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: my favorite thing is like McCarthy was shocked that they
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: called him out. They were like, what are we pinky
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: promised man. So this just riles McCarthy up, and he
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: publicly accuses the Army's lawyer of having communists in law form,
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: and this blows up spectacularly in his face and he
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: starts losing power. He's kept on as a senator, but
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: nobody really listens to his bollocks again, and it doesn't
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: really matter because he dies of liver failure on the
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: second of May nineteen fifty seven, and the hunt continues,
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: but not for communists. The fervor for comm hunting kind
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: of died down because there wasn't exactly a playbook on
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: how to spot communists because McCarthy did it all on
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: vibes right. But there was still a threat bushed by
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: Senator Clyde hohowey HOI so that the Ho Commission. I'm
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: gonna go haway. I don't care how they pronounce it.
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: I'm going howay. So the Holy Commission turned the Lavender
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: Scare all the way up to eleven they stayed there
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: is one target, okay, the Gaze. That was a massive shakedown,
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: and the Commission interrogates everyone, policemen, judges, doctors, government staff, everybody.
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: They want names, they want places, they want dates, and
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: they released to the press that out of the five
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: thousand queer people in Washington, DC, three thousand and seven
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: hundred of them worked for the government. Quick grab your
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: smelling salts, all right. They go after so many people, right,
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: so many people. Like there's Carmel Offy, who had worked
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: in the US government for Yonks like he had been,
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: you know, working for diplomats, had been all over like,
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: and then he becomes the assistant to the ambassador William C. Bullet,
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: all right, and so he ends up meeting like the Kennedys.
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: He's in Paris, he's in Russia. He's like in all
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: these places, and he's like the guy who's like gossip
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: because like Bullet's a gossipe bitch, and so's they can
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: affy here they're gossipe, but they can also, like OFFI
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: can find anything. He's the guy who can acquire like
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: the secret Russian Caviat and all that kind of stuff. Right,
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: So in nineteen forty three he was cruising in Lafayette Park.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: As I have gone back in time, it's relevant. So
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: he's in Lafayette Park, DC. Now, cruising was a big
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: part of gay culture. It was one of the only
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: ways to safely get it on. But he approaches this
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: undercover police officer and gets arrested for disorderly conduct. Now,
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: he was close to so many politicians that this got
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: hush hushed, and there was like this whole spiel about
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: how he was their own official government business. Like this
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: state department gets involved and they're like, yeah, he was
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: totally there on an era and you looked like the
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: person he was supposed to meet about official government business,
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: important business, so much business. Right, So it's done. He
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: loses like that job, but he's got all these connections
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: from like again diplomat to the Kennedys, wh just gets
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: a job in like a different area. Skip forward a
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: few years and he's very openly saying that he's gay
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: but he's not a communist, and because he was open
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: and everyone really knew, how could he be blackmailed? He's like,
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: but everybody knows, like he was as openly gay as
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: someone could be like back then, which is like a
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: common like recurring statement about him. But again with a
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: lavender scare, he's fired again. Originally there was no trial,
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: but the Howay Commission was detalmented to pull everyone up
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: and have it on record now. Apart from being a
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: bit gossipy, Afy was seen as quote normal, and he
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: was also really good at his job. But the Holy
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: Commission wanted the record right. They wanted the record to
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: state that gay people were mentally unfit and dangerous. So
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: they bring in a bunch of people to reinforce this,
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: which kind of goes well until it gets to a
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: bunch of medical professionals who were like, now, when the
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: Holy Report comes out, they let these doctors have their
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: heads in the sand, like and it stated one homosexual
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: can pollute a government office. And that was the nail
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: in many a coffin, because although some still manage to
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: rise up, like doctor franklin Erwald Cameny, who after the
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: Second World War got his doctorate in astronomy from Harvard
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty seven, gets a job he's accepted as
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: an astronomer for the Army Map Service, but he ends
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: up being filed just months later when the executive order
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: came through, and while others hit away, Cammaney said fuck
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: this for a game of soldiers and sued the federal government,
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: saying that discrimination against someone because of their sexual orientation
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: was a violation of their civil rights and that there
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: were zero connection between someone's personal off duty life and
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: the ability for them to do their job. Now, he
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: did lose twice in federal court, with his appeal refused
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: by the Supreme Court, but he did not give up
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: and instead became a full time gay rights activist. He
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: would go on to protest at the Pentagon, the White House,
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: the United Nations, the US Civil Service Commission, and Philadelphia's
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: Independence Hall. He launched the campaign to overturn DC's sodomy
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: laws in nineteen sixty seven, with the bill passed thirty
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: years later. He even got homosexuality removed as a mental
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: illness from the DSM. You know, one day I'm going
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: to do a full episode on him, because I don't
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: think I'm doing him justice here, all right. So anyway,
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: another thing he did was he organized the first advocacy
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: group for gay rights, like the Mattachine Society of Washington, DC. Now,
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: the Madachine Society was an anonymous group of gay men,
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: or at least anonymous as much as it could be now.
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: They were never really seen with each other or pictured
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: together because they had to keep each other safe and remember,
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: like whether some were in lavender marriages or were you know,
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: married marriage, they still had to protect their spouse and
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: or children. Now, the Madachine Society, it's sort of like
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: this is like the Washington like charter of it. Now,
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: there was the original Matachine Society which was in la
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: a founding member of which was Dale Jennings. Right, he
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: was a playwright and an author, and he was arrested
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: for allegedlies soliciting a police officer in a toilet at
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: Westlake Park which is now MacArthur Park. So he's in
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: Westlake Park on the twenty first of March nineteen fifty two,
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: and he goes in to use the toilet. Now Westlake
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: is a known cruising spot. But again according to Jennings,
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: he uses the loo. But as he leaves there it
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: had kind of been creepy, creeping a bit, so Jennings
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: legs it and this dude is still behind him. He
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: heads in the direction of the cinema, so the movie theater,
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: and he realizes he's still being tailed, so instead of
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: going inside, he heads home. So like, he makes it
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: to his apartment, like, he gets in, but the stalker
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: follows him inside. And now where it's where it gets
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: weird and You're thinking this is already weird, Katie, and
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: I'm like, it gets worse. But wait, there's more. This
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: random dude just lies down on his bed. Jennings, Right,
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: he's a bit perplexed by this situation because he's expecting
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: them to be like robbed or murdered, but this is odd.
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: This stranger followed him home broken to his apartment, lays
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: on his bed and is now manning sex and Jennings
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: is like, eh no. The stranger gets off the bed,
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: goes up to him and tries to force Jennings hands
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: down his trousers and Dale is like, absolutely not and
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: then boom, handcuffs. He's arrested and put in the back
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: of the police car where he is interrogated while they
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: drive around really really slowly, right, like they're threatening him
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: and they're going around and yeah, Eventually they take him
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: to the station where he is arrested for lud vagrancy,
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: which was the most common charge with undercovered things like this.
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: It's basically cruising for sex. Right. So when he is
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: finally allowed to make his phone call at three am,
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: he calls the Matachine Society. They get the money, they
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: to discribe it together and they bail him out at
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: half six in the morning. Typically, if you were entrapped
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: in this way, you know by the cops, he just
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: paid your fine and got on with your life. But
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: Dale Jennings was sick of this shit, and so he
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: decided to take this to court. Now, this is a
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: secret group which kind of thrives on anonymity, right, and
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: so they make a separate committee to raise money for
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: Jennings campaign, the Citizens Committee to outlawn treatment. They made
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: flyles and they put them everywhere, all the cruising spots,
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: all the haunts. They're putting into people's hands when they could.
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: It was all over the shop, right, And he gets
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: George Shibley to represent him. Now in the court room,
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: Dale Jennings does something that no one expects. He admits
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: to be engay. He's just a gay man using a
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: public urinal. And the only parther on the court was
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: that widow officer who followed him home and broke into
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: his apartment. And so the jury they all agree, apart
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: from like one person, that Dale Jennings is innocent, and
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: this results in a hung jury. But yet it's it's
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: kind of a victory, like like it just reminds me
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: of that line in Buffy and the Musical where Giles
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: rip Anthony Stewart head, where he goes, the battle's done
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: and we kind of one, so we sound of Victorachy
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: like that, and I'm like, yeah, kind of, you know,
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: it's kind of kind of sort of yeah. I mean,
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: small victories and you take them where you can, you know.
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: But here's the thing. Around ten thousand people lost their
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: jobs and livelihoods because of the Lavender skin Those who
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: were dismissed forced to resign, those who did not or
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: could not become activists, those who literally lost their lives.
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: They did not receive a personal apology for what had
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: happened to them. In twenty fifteen, the US Secretary of
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: State John Kerry apologized to the LGBT community on behalf
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: of the federal government. But the Lavender Scare forced every
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: queer person out of government, a government that maintained and
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: sort of kept producing this conservative culture. And as much
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: as I would like to cleim the lavender scarers in
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: the past, the attacks on the dolls in recent years
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: show that there was a lot to be concerned about.
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: I wish I had a happier note to end on
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: for a prior episode. But history rarely has a happy ending.
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: Now that being said, if we work to get, if
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: we fight for each other, we might be able to
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: help each other out with this. And for all of
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: my amazing, wonderful listeners in the US, get voting, get involved,
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: grassroots it, you know, message people, design flyers, you know,
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: answer hotlines like whatever, a little bit you can do,
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: do it because if enough of I mean, I don't
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: want to have to quote the Three Ninjas, which is
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: a classic movie. Fight me a rope of one string
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: and maybe paraphrasing, a rope of one string is very
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: easy to break. A rope made of three strings, no
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: enemy can cut now again paraphrasing and children's nineties movies.
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: But that's a thing. Stronger together is a real thing,
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: Like you can't get rid of everybody, and if everybody's
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: fighting and standing up for basic ethics and humanity right
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: because at the end of the day, you deserve respect,
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: and you deserve compassion, and fuck you deserve basic human rights.
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: But with that, before I go off on a rat
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: like I did at a barista when they joked about
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: the riots happening in Northern Ireland, I think you'll learn
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: this lesson, but I'm going to stop here. And if
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: you made it this far, please remember to you know,
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: choose where I should go on tour. Like I'm already
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: looking at venues and spots. So if you want to
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: see me, get telling me where to be. I can
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: follow the socials and all that jazz. But now recommendations.
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: Time for reading, because as you know, I am a
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: reader of books. So there is a murder mystery series
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: by a queer writer, Katy Murphy. Right. The first book
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: in the Dublin Drag mystery series is Death and Heales.
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: Go get it. It's amazing, Go with it, Go get her.
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: Loved Katy. For listening for no reason whatsoever, I think
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: everybody should listen to Go Outside by George Michael, and
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: for watching Transaction. It's comedy gold And with that I
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: will Gene Welder. And but your gooday to you, sir,
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: I said, good day, adios au revoir wid them my friends,
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: bye bye