Anti-LGBT Panics Are Bad for Everyone’s Liberty

The year was 1952, and Sen. Clyde R. Hoey (D–N.C.) was investigating how many gay people worked for the federal government and whether these workers were a security threat. In what would eventually be called the Lavender Scare, the government launched a purge of gay and lesbian employees, aided by a 1953 executive order by President Dwight Eisenhower. The witch hunts soon spilled over into the private sector, as workers lost jobs that required security clearances.

The year was 1978, and California state Rep. John Briggs (R–North Orange County) was launching Proposition 6, a ballot initiative that would have required school districts to fire teachers found to have engaged in homosexual conduct. For a while it looked likely to pass. Then Ronald Reagan, who had recently finished serving as California governor, came out against it, rallying conservative opposition with an editorial in the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner: “Whatever else it is, homosexuality is not a contagious disease like the measles. Prevailing scientific opinion is that an individual’s sexuality is determined at a very early age and that a child’s teachers do not really influence this.”

The year was 1987, and Sen. Jesse Helms (R–N.C.) was incensed by an AIDS education comic book intended to teach safer sex. So he introduced an amendment steering federal funds away from materials that “promote or encourage, directly or indirectly, homosexual activities.” It passed. A few years later, Helms would try to push through legislation urging states to enforce their sodomy laws—”in the best interest of public health.”

The year was 2004, and one state—Massachusetts—had started legally recognizing same-sex marriages. President George W. Bush, facing re-election, called for Congress to pass a constitutional amendment “defining and protecting marriage as a union of a man and a woman as husband and wife.” The Republican Party added the idea to its platform. While the national amendment was never adopted, 11 states passed their own constitutional bans against recognition that fall.

The year is 2022, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is spearheading another moral panic. This one focuses on fears that activists are pressuring kids into prematurely identifying as trans or nonbinary, rushing them headlong into irreversible medical treatments.

The contours and players of today’s LGBT panics are different, but the underlying conflict is not new. And while stoking that conflict may be good for certain politicians’ careers—it is surely no coincidence that DeSantis is embarking on this crusade as his name is bandied about as a potential Republican presidential candidate—it is bad for individual liberty.

The New LGBT Culture Wars

DeSantis and allied lawmakers have barred Florida educators from any instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity with young students at all, and they have restricted how teachers can approach those subjects in the higher grades. Parents are authorized to seek financial damages from school districts if they believe teachers or staff are discussing LGBT topics inappropriately—and what’s inappropriate is defined so vaguely that all sorts of unobjectionable conversations could prompt a suit. Some Florida schools have even started removing children’s books like I Am Jazz from their libraries because they featured trans characters. It’s not clear that the law actually requires such removals, but the possibility of lawsuits encourages districts to interpret the restrictions broadly.

Meanwhile, politicians in several states have introduced aggressive laws that attempt to stop minors from getting any sort of trans-affirmative medical treatment for gender dysphoria, even when parents and doctors support it. In Texas, Attorney General Ken Paxton has declared that giving minors any such treatment counts as “child abuse” and Gov. Greg Abbott has ordered officials to start investigating families. One of the first targets investigated was a parent who worked for the state’s own Department of Family and Protective Services. (Following a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union, a Texas court has put Abbott’s order on tempo