Wednesday, February 15, 2017
State Department Apologizes for Lavender Scare...in 2017
Here is a link to an article about the "Lavender Scare" written by a politics professor at Swarthmore. I was wondering if the State Department had taken any official stance regarding the "Lavender Scare" in the years following its height in the 1950s. Only a few weeks ago in January 2017 did then Secretary of State John Kerry issue an apology for this persecution of gay employees at the request of a Maryland senator. The author goes on to discuss the symbolic value of this apology and how it concerns other historical instances of discrimination against LGBTQ federal workers. He also brings up the point of "internal exile" and the ways in which the U.S. government has excluded certain groups of citizens, drawing a parallel between the Lavender Scare and the treatment of Japanese-Americans during WWII.
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Wow! It is crazy that these actions were only apologized for this year, but it is really interesting too how we can see that the "history" we are learning about is still being made, growing, evolving, etc. Hopefully actions like this that publicly acknowledge and apologize for discrimination can help to create a world where this is not accepted and similar events will not occur in the future.
ReplyDeleteI worked as an intern in the State Department in 2016 for a few months, and the mentorship that I received from my LGBTQ+ superiors was incredible. It was a shock to learn about the history of discrimination in the State Department as there is little awareness and education on topic within the department today.
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