December 05 2025, 08:15 
Lucas Schleusener, the CEO of Out In National Security, has warned that the current atmosphere around LGBTQ+ federal employees amounts to a return of the Lavender Scare and the anti-LGBTQ+ sentiments of the 80s and 90s. Suggesting that this goes beyond the well-known executive orders, Schleusener claims that there are teams conducting anti-LGBTQ+ witch hunts in the federal government and that MAGA influencer and Trump confidante Laura Loomer is the new Joe McCarthy.
“Like the original Lavender Scare, this is a manufactured moral panic weaponized through bureaucracy,” Schleusener told the Washington Blade. “Back then, the State Department bragged about driving queer employees to suicide; now we’re seeing trans service members taking their lives under the pressure of these policies. The difference today is that social media makes the harassment instantaneous and far-reaching, even as queer visibility also makes it harder to shove an entire community back into the closet.”
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There have been surface signs of the sort of harassment and discrimination that might be going on against federal employees. The temperature is clear from certain incidents that have been made public, like when an FBI agent was fired for having a Pride flag on his desk and the administration’s decision not to commemorate World AIDS Day.
However, Schleusener indicates that behind these already shocking headlines, the situation for federal employees is even more horrifying.
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Schleusener, who was formally employed at the Pentagon and was a national security associate under President Obama, highlighted the harassment that LGBTQ+ workers are facing in the government. “There’s an overwhelming bureaucratic trauma happening — a destabilization that feels intentional. And underneath that, we’re seeing a return of different flavors of workplace harassment across national security agencies, from the CIA to the Import-Export Bank.”
This isn’t a “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” situation, but a more active push to out LGBTQ+ federal employees, with Schleusener pointing to members of the Republican Party who are conducting “digital witch-hunts.”
“There’s an organization called STARRS that combs through Instagram and LinkedIn looking for minority service members who show any pride in their identity,” Schleusener explained. “If you’re LGBTQ, a person of color, or even an ally who took your kids to Pride, they will tag and harass you — and they have a direct line into the Pentagon. People have been removed from their posts because of this, including the Navy’s top West Coast endocrinologist, whose only ‘offense’ was having a rainbow banner and pronouns on LinkedIn.”
“It’s not clearances being denied so much as it is targeted harassment,” he continued. “Laura Loomer has essentially declared herself the new Joe McCarthy, going through the Plum Book to identify anyone with ‘LGBT,’ ‘DEI,’ ‘equity,’ or ‘trans’ in their job titles and doxxing them.”
While this harassment is going on, there’s less support for those being targeted as well, as the effects of
“This absolutely constitutes a second Lavender Scare,” Schleusener said. “The federal government is saying trans people don’t belong in the military, even after spending billions training them for an all-volunteer force, which is both dangerous and absurd. Combined with attacks on ERGs, human rights reporting, and attempts to purge queer employees, it mirrors the patterns of the Cold War era.”
“This Lavender Scare is escalating: the NDAA moving through Congress includes a ban on trans women at service academies, and the administration is using Cold War statutes like the Walter McCarran Act to bar trans foreign nationals from entering the country. Every opportunity they’ve had to go further, they have taken — and there’s no indication they plan to stop at trans people.”
Schleusener says that they’re trying to legally document the harassment to file suits against it, but they’re finding sometime insurmountable hurdles in the process. “Even when we find a legal path… everything is designed to be slow, difficult, and demoralizing. And the frightening question is always whether fighting back could result in a bad Supreme Court precedent that hurts queer workers nationally.”
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