Could you tell us about how lesbians were treated during the witchhunts of senator Joseph McCarthy?
It was particularly middle class women who were concerned about their livelihood during the McCarthy era. If you were a teacher or you worked in any kind of government position and it was discovered that you were lesbian, you could be fired on the grounds of immorality. There were witchhunts of lesbians working in government positions and they were frequently fired. I was an undergraduate in my first semester at UCLA and when students entered we had to take a battery of tests. I remember well questions that kept appearing on a psychological test all freshmen had to take such as, “Have you ever dreamt of kissing a person of the same sex?”, “Do you have affectionate feelings, or erotic feelings, towards a person of the same sex?” But all of us who were homosexual knew if we were smart enough to get into UCLA we had to say no to any question like that. Once when I was doing research I ran across an article published in a journal called School and Society> in 1954, four years before I beca
Related Questions
- What did President Trumans federal employee loyalty program and Senator Joseph McCarthys hearing aim for?
- Could you tell us about how lesbians were treated during the witchhunts of senator Joseph McCarthy?
- What is the relevance today of Senator Joseph McCarthy and the Committee on Un-American activities?
