The New McCarthyism: LGBTQ+ Purges In Government Begin

After Chris Rufo leaked LGBTQ+ chatlogs from the intelligence community, Gabbard has announced that all those who participated in the chats will be fired.

The Lavender Scare Interim Report - Time Magazine

In the early 1950s, a moral panic over gay people swept across America. LGBTQ+ individuals were cast as threats—vulnerable to blackmail, labeled “deviant sex perverts,” and accused of colluding with communist governments. Senator Joseph McCarthy, infamous for the Red Scare, pressured President Eisenhower into signing an executive order purging LGBTQ+ people from government service. With that signature, the campaign escalated rapidly—up to 10,000 federal employees were fired or forced to resign during what became known as the Lavender Scare, a far less taught but even more devastating purge than the Red Scare. The episode remains a lasting stain on U.S. history. And now, it appears we are witnessing its revival: 100 intelligence officials were just fired for participating in an LGBTQ+ support group chat—an internal network not unlike employee resource groups (ERGs) at most companies.

The firings stem from out-of-context chat logs leaked by far-right commentator Chris Rufo on Monday. Sources tell Erin in the Morning that the chat functioned as an ERG-adjacent LGBTQ+ safe space, where participants discussed topics like gender-affirming surgery, hormone therapy, workplace LGBTQ+ policies, and broader queer issues. Rufo, however, framed these conversations as evidence of misconduct, claiming that “NSA, CIA, and DIA employees discuss genital castration” and alleging discussions of “fetishes, kink, and sex.” To Rufo and his audience, merely talking about being transgender and the realities of transition is enough to be labeled “fetish” content.

Eisenhower and McCarthy would have killed for such an easily accessible list of LGBTQ+ federal employees—and the flimsy pretext to purge them.

Within a day of the chat logs’ release, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard announced that all participants in the “obscene, pornographic, and sexually explicit” chatroom would be terminated. As of today, The New York Times reports that at least 100 members of the ERG-adjacent LGBTQ+ chat have been fired. The Times further notes that Gabbard is being briefed on “other inappropriate activity” elsewhere, signaling the potential for an even broader crackdown on LGBTQ+—and especially transgender—employees in the federal government.

What we have just witnessed is the beginning of an LGBTQ+ purge in government, with a particular focus on transgender employees. Pride ERG chats and LGBTQ+ support groups are commonplace in workplaces across the United States, including within federal agencies. These spaces function not just as forums for discussing policy, lifestyle, and identity, but as de facto lists of LGBTQ+ employees—workers who join to stay informed, find community, and access support. The same mechanism used to justify this mass firing can be weaponized across any branch of government. If merely discussing gender-affirming care is deemed “obscene,” then every LGBTQ+ workplace chat could serve as pretext for an even broader purge.

This was heavily telegraphed in the lead-up to the 2024 election. Project 2025 explicitly aimed to define transgender people as obscene, and now, that agenda is taking shape. If Rufo can convince the public that transgender people merely discussing their medical care or LGBTQ+ people discussing sexual health constitutes obscene, fireable content, it’s easy to see this logic expanding into other areas of government or even into the public sphere. These same arguments have already been used to justify book bans against Gender Queer, drag bans, and broader censorship efforts. Now, Rufo is leveraging the Republican Party’s manufactured disgust toward transgender people to target all LGBTQ+ individuals in government—and beyond.

This is to say nothing of the real-world impact of purging so many trans and queer intelligence officials. As writer Leah McElrath noted in a post on Bluesky, “Someone might want to let Chris Rufo know that many of the best coders, hackers, and cryptographers are LGBTQ. The neurodivergent talent required for these skills often comes with divergence from the mean in other areas.” Writer Noah Smith added, “Don’t go after the trans super-coders. I don’t know why, but a surprisingly large percentage of the country’s top 0.01% software engineers are trans, and also tend to be 10x weirder than other trans people. Just roll with it, unless you want to lose top talent.”

While the framing of trans people’s “weirdness” is grating, the underlying point is well understood: some of the most brilliant minds in computing and cybersecurity come from the transgender community. Their forced removal is likely to be a significant blow to U.S. intelligence capabilities.

These firings also come just days after the quiet repeal of protections meant to prevent intelligence agencies from spying on LGBTQ+ people solely based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. As Bloomberg reported, “The Office of Intelligence and Analysis posted an updated policy manual late last week that removes references to those characteristics in sections that set guardrails on gathering intelligence.” Now, with far fewer trans and queer people left in the intelligence community, there will be even fewer voices to push back if these tools are turned against us.

I suspect that those in power, including Gabbard, despise trans and queer people far more than they care about the stability of the U.S. government. The mass expulsion of LGBTQ+ employees is not a side effect—it is the point. That the Trump administration is using a roundabout pretext like ERG chat participation to justify a purge is not surprising; it was all but a stated goal. The only way to stop another Lavender Scare is to be loud now—to expose these firings for what they are and to reject the manufactured narrative that trans and queer people are "disgusting and obscene," a narrative Rufo, Trump, and Project 2025 are determined to cement.