Last modified: 2005-10-15 by antonio martins
Keywords: triangle (pink) | triangle: up | nazi | canton | silence=death |
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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
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
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
Olive green (or olive drab) field with a large triangle, point down,
centered on the flag; the triangle striped
red-orange-yellow-green-blue-purple, i.e. the colors of the basic Gay Pride
Flag. Dimensions appeared to be 2 feet at the hoist by 3 feet on the fly,
with the triangle about 18 inches high, i.e. half the hoist dimensions.
Seen in Provincetown, the US East Coast’s gay Mecca.
Tom Gregg, 20 Aug 2001
A pink triangle is sometimes located in the hoist
of the Pride Flag.
Don Hagemann, 04 May 1996
I’ve seen this in several variations, the two extremes
of it being with the triangle extending to the middle of
the flag (thus defined by it’s hoist side half diagonals),
up, and with a “rectangle”
triangle (the fly angle is 90 deg.), above.
António Martins, 31 May 1999
Pink triangle in the upper hoist, usually point upward,
is an often variation.
Steve Kramer, 06 May 1996
As also pink triangle in a canton of blue or black. Blue
is an obvious play off the U.S. flag;
black is a color associated with lesbianism — a black triangle
on pink is also sometimes used as a lesbian symbol.
Steve Kramer, 06 May 1996
