What a shock that must have been for your mother! The Army-McCarthy hearings were linked to Roy Cohn trying to garner special treatment for David Schine, a fellow Communist-hunting young attorney, whom he adored. Schine, who was drafted into the army, was the same physical type as Trump and Cohn's later boyfriends. There was reason to believe they were lovers, although Schine later married a Miss Universe and fathered six children. During the hearings, there were jokes about pixies (which was a nickname for popular cameras at that time), with one Senator saying pixies are related to fairies. So yes, even in 1953, when your mother made her "discovery", Cohn's much denied homosexuality, was not much of a secret.