A Florida high school was fined $16,500 and placed on probation this Tuesday for letting a trans girl participate in the volleyball team.

The imposed sanction, executed by the Florida High School Athletic Association (FHSAA), marks the first penalty against a school since Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act” in 2021, which bans trans girls from playing in women’s sports. In addition, the District temporarily removed the principal, assistant principal, athletic director and two coaches from the school for knowingly admitting the athlete into the team.

Meanwhile, today marks 73 years since the report “Employment of Homosexuals and Other Sex Perverts in Government” was distributed to lawmakers by a Senate Subcommittee. The federal government went on to secretly investigate employees’ sexual orientations in the beginning of the Cold War, where same-gender attraction and communism were seen on an equal playing field of untrustworthiness.

The document stated, “The primary objective of the subcommittee in this inquiry was to determine the extent of the employment of homosexuals and other sex perverts in Government; to consider reasons why their employment by the Government is undesirable; and to examine into the efficacy of the methods used in dealing with the problem.”

In a them article by historian Hugh Ryan, he wrote that “both were thought to be spies hiding in plain sight, associating in small cells, out to destroy the American way of life. If you were one, you were probably the other.”

Even the families of gay people weren’t immune. After Sen. Lester Hunt’s son was picked up for soliciting in a park, his political enemies prepared to publicly slander Hunt’s name; the Wyoming Democrat fatally shot himself in the head in his office.

During this time of paranoia of who the government trusted — now referred to as the Lavender Scare — it is estimated that 5,000 to 10,000 queer workers were laid off because of their sexualities. Today’s anniversary of the Senate Subcommittee’s document is a stark reminder of anti-LGBTQ efforts, employment threats and the community activism that continues to grow to this day.

In 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Executive Order 10450 put into policy the investigation, interrogation and systematic removal of queer people from the federal government.

According to historian and author of The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government David K. Johnson, this queer history has largely been overlooked. In an interview with TIME Magazine in 2020, he said that Eisenhower’s policy was based on the unfounded fear that people with same-gender attractions “posed a threat to national security because they were vulnerable to blackmail and were considered to have weak moral characters.”

Aside from homosexuality, amongst other people who were also included on the list of potential security risks were alcoholics and neurotics.

One of the thousands who lost employment during this time was Frank Kameny, who was fired from the Army Map Service in 1957 because of his sexuality. Unlike most others, he challenged the decision and, rather than framing the firing as an alleged national security issue, he framed it as a civil rights issue. His case was one of the first LGBTQ rights appeals to make it to the doors of the Supreme Court, despite the court ultimately refusing to take on the case.

In 1980, Jamie Shoemaker turned to Kameny for advice when he was informed that his job at the National Security Agency (NSA) was at risk. With Kameny’s help, Shoemaker became the first gay employee at the NSA to maintain employment under the condition that he disclosed his sexuality to his family. It wouldn’t be until 1995 that President Bill Clinton signed an executive order banning discrimination based on sexual orientation in the granting of security clearances. That ban expanded in 1998 to include government employment.

For Malcolm Lazin, a historian and Executive Director of LGBTQ organization Equality Forum, having employment be threatened by same-gender sexualities was a powerful and impactful way to keep queer people in the closet.

“People train for their employment and if you’re denied that, that’s very chilling,” he said. “It was not only [about] what [losing employment] would do to you, but also what it will do to those who depend on your ability to have an income. It’s a huge hammer.”

From the earliest establishments of LGBTQ rights organizations to the divorcing of same-gender attractions from mental illness, the aftermath of the Lavender Scare was a renaissance of change for the LGBTQ community.

The activism that derived from the Lavender Scare led to homosexuality being taken out of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).

Following the rise of action since the Stonewall Riots occurred in 1969, Kameny, along with lesbian activist Barbara Gittings, organized for a step forward in queer rights, according to Lazin. Kameny’s mission was to overturn Pres. Eisenhower’s Executive Order 10450 that continued barring LGBTQ people from being employed by the federal government. Meanwhile, Gittings crusaded to promote queer literature and eliminate discrimination in the nation’s libraries, where oftentimes portrayal of queer stories was negative. She worked alongside the Gay Task Force of the American Library Association, which was the first gay caucus in a professional organization.

Collectively, Kameny and Gittings took on the American Psychiatric Association (APA), which publishes the DSM. In 1971, the two staged a demonstration at APA’s annual meeting for the right to be heard on homosexuality. With APA’s blessing, they were allowed to have a panel at the 1972 annual meeting. Enter Dr. John Fryer, the only participant in the panel who was both gay and a psychiatrist, who agreed to participate under one condition: He was to wear a Richard Nixon mask, a wig, an oversized suit and speak with a voice-modulating microphone to keep his identity private. He introduced himself as Dr. Henry Anonymous.

“I am a homosexual. I am a psychiatrist,” the doctor began in his opening remarks. After his 10-minute speech, he was met with a standing ovation. Ultimately, it led to the board’s agreement to remove homosexuality as an illness from the DSM.

For trans rights, it wouldn’t be until 2013 that “gender identity disorder” was replaced with “gender dysphoria” in the DSM’s 5th edition. Today, a new wave of fear and threats spread nationwide as anti-trans laws hang in the balance, like in Florida.

Florida’s Monarch High School is allowed to appeal FHSAA’s decision within 10 days. Officials with Broward County Public Schools said in a statement that its “investigation into the matter remains ongoing at this time.”

For Johnson, the targeting of trans people today by many within the GOP echoes that of the Lavender Scare, which was also a program led by the right-wing.

“[It is] to scare people about how queers were a threat to the nation,” he said. “And both were based on lies — gay people were not giving away national security secrets during the Cold War and trans girls do not pose a threat to high school athletics.

However, Johnson explains to Reckon that it’s crucial to mind the difference between 1950 and today.

“Back then, the Lavender Scare was able to flourish and cost thousands of people their careers because few stood up to challenge its assumptions. Today, there is a flourishing network of activists, journalists, civil rights advocacy groups and TikTokers who will vocally support and defend LGBTQ rights.”