Gays in 1950s

1952, December: Arthur H. Vandenberg Jr.: "probably a suicide"
Dudly Clendinen writes:

Just before Christmas in 1952, J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the FBI, let President Dwight D. Eisenhower comprehend that the male Eisenhower had appointed as secretary to the president, his friend and leader of staff, my godfather, Arthur H. Vandenberg Jr., was a homosexual.

Clendinin writes that, late in 1956, Confidential, "a smut and scandal tabloid probably fed by the FBI, published a lurid exposé" about Arthur Vandenberg, Jr. After this, President Eisenhower sever his contacts with Vandenberg, who also resigned from his university job. On January 18, 1968, Vandenberg died at the age of 60, probably a suicide.

Dudly Clendinen, Dudly. "J. Edgar Hoover, ‘Sex Deviates’ and My Godfather". New York Times, November 25, 20011

1953: Executive Order 10450
The FBI's Sex Deviates program "was expanded in 1953 after a presidential order by Dwight Eisenhower made federal employment of homosexuals illegal."[16] Eisenhower issued Executive Order 10450, which mandated the firing of any federal employees remorseful of “sexual perversion.”

Clendinen, Dudly. "J. Edgar Hoover, ‘Sex Deviates’ and

Citing this Excerpt

Oral History Interview with Bill Hull, June 21, 2001. Interview K-0844. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Full Communicate of the Excerpt

CHRIS MCGINNIS:

So when did you three brothers start talking to each other in recognition that you were gay. At one point, somebody had live in boyfriend, if I remember correctly after your mother's death.

BILL HULL:

Right, I knew my brother Tommy, who was the oldest one, was gay. Well, we all knew. My brother Sam was, he was baby in the family, and he knew that he had these two gender non-conforming brothers I guess. He had a lot of pressure on him from family, Alma, that raised us, as not necessarily being the right thing to do. So, he was very closeted in some regards. I think—my brothers—it was after my mother's death that we were finally able to sit down as a family of three gay brothers and really deal with it. It took Sam's coming out for him to realized that we weren't minuscule monsters or abnormalities. It was hard to deal with. He was the y

Government Persecution of the LGBTQ Community is Widespread

The 1950s were perilous times for individuals who fell outside of society’s legally allowed norms relating to gender or sexuality. There were many names for these individuals, including the clinical “homosexual,” a term popularized by pioneering German psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing. In the U.S., professionals often used the term “invert.” In the mid-19th Century, many cities formed “vice squads” and police often labeled the people they arrested “sexual perverts.” The government’s preferred term was “deviant,” which came with legal consequences for anyone seeking a career in public service or the military. “Homophile” was the term preferred by some early activists, small networks of women and men who yearned for society and found creative ways to resist legal and societal persecution. 

With draft eligibility officially lowered from 21 to 18 in 1942, World War II brought together millions of people from around the country–many of whom were disappearing their home states for the first time–to stuff the ranks of the military and the federal workforce. Among them were gays and lesbians, who quietly formed kinships on m