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Pink triangle flags (gay pride)

Last modified: 2005-08-19 by antonio martins
Keywords: triangle (pink) | triangle: up | nazi | canton | silence=death |
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Origin of the symbol

The rainbow is a symbol of gay pride, as opposed to gay liberation, which used the pink triangle on various colored fields.
Jim Ferrigan, 14 Feb 2003

Although it was first used in Nazi Germany to identify gay males in concentration camps, the pink triangle only received widespread use as a gay pop icon in the early 1980s.
Christopher Pinette, 12 Jun 1996, quoting [ans93]

The pink triangle dates from Nazi-era stigmatization of homosexual prisoners by forcing them to wear the pink triangle much as Jews had to wear the yellow star. The pink triangle was never used, at least for gays, before the nazis, as far as I know. The use now is an attempt to turn a stigma into a mark of pride.
Al Kirsch, 30 Jun 2002


On white background

Triangle flag
by Jorge Candeias, 30 Jun 2002

On black background

Triangle flag
by Jorge Candeias, 30 Mar 2005

The local variants I have seen of this flag (Baltimore & District of Columbia, United States) are black with an inverted pink triangle.
Steve Kramer, 01 Jul 2002

With "SILENCE = DEATH"

Triangle flag
by Jorge Candeias and António Martins, 30 Mar 2005

A further variant sets the triangle slightly closer to the top edge to make room for the inscription "SILENCE = DEATH" in white underneath, a political statement obviously alluding to the mentioned pride symbolism.
Steve Kramer, 01 Jul 2002

The "SILENCE = DEATH" slogan is not so much an allusion to the Nazi persecution I referred to but to society’s alleged silence about AIDS; the slogan is (obviously) of recent vintage. But it's all of a piece, I grant.
Al Kirsch, 01 Jul 2002


On olive background

Triangle flag
by Jorge Candeias, 30 Mar 2005

Olive green (or oliv