Gay Rights - Movement, Marriage & Flag | HISTORY

Contents:

• THE PK TRIANGLE: FROM NAZI LABEL TO SYMBOL OF GAY PRI
• THE GAY LIBERATN MOVEMENT
• GAY RIGHTS
• SYMBOLS OF GAY AND LBIAN CULTURE

THE PK TRIANGLE: FROM NAZI LABEL TO SYMBOL OF GAY PRI

Tradnally, the symbol is drawn pla black, but more recent versns pict the double mars wh the rabow lors filled to symbolize the gays’ aterny or solidary wh other subsectors of the muny. Back the 20th century New York, gay men would wear a red necktie or bow tie or basilly any red accsory to subtly reprent their inti and help intify members of the same muny. Boston artists Daniel Thaxton and Bernie Toale ed a lavenr rhoceros to symbolize the gay muny for their 1970s public ad mpaign led by Gay Media Actn Advertisg.

To prott the creasg number of news articl agast the LGBTQ people San Francis 1969, 60 members of the Gay Liberatn Front and Society of Human Rights staged a rally on Halloween night. In the ntexts, reprents “a plete exchange of energy-that moment or span of time wns to absolute activy.” It didn’t take long for the symbol to bee associated wh Gay Liberatn. Burke, who eventually me out as one of the first-ever publicly gay profsnal athlet, ed the high five and around San Francis as a way to intify other queer dividuals the area.

In 1969, after the lol paper San Francis Examer released several articl monisg LGBTQ+ culture the regn – specifilly, queer bars and clubs – an activist anisatn known as the Gay Guerrilla Theatre group staged a prott outsi s offic.

THE GAY LIBERATN MOVEMENT

In 1974, Gay Media Actn was preparg to lnch the lavenr rho ad mpaign when officials at Metro Trans Advertisg said the mpaign uldn’t be termed a public service project, a cisn which tripled s st. As part of their missn to racially and culturally “purify” Germany, the Nazis arrted thoands of LGBT dividuals, mostly gay men, whom they viewed as Uned Stat Holot Memorial Mm timat 100, 000 gay men were arrted and between 5, 000 and 15, 000 were placed ncentratn mps.

)Corbis/Getty ImagHomosexual prisoners at the ncentratn mp at Sachsenhsen, Germany, wearg pk triangl on their uniforms on December 19, the mps, gay men were treated pecially harshly, by guards and fellow prisoners alike. “There was no solidary for the homosexual prisoners; they belonged to the lowt ste, ” Pierre Seel, a gay Holot survivor, wrote his memoir I, Pierre Seel, Deported Homosexual: A Memoir of Nazi timated 65 percent of gay men ncentratn mps died between 1933 and 1945. Horac Villalobos/Corbis/Getty ImagMemorial plaqu for homosexuals, Jehovah's Wns and Wehrmacht serters are placed where once stood one of the molished barracks Buchenwald ncentratn mp near Weimar, Germany.

In 1986, six New York Cy activists created a poster wh the words SILENCE = DEATH and a bright pk upward-facg triangle, meant to ll attentn to the AIDs crisis that was cimatg populatns of gay men across the untry. Their publitns created the sense of natnal muny that beme realized after Stonewall, and many homophile activists ntributed to the formatn of gay liberatn anizatns. Gay people anized to rist opprsn and mand jt treatment, and they were pecially galvanized after a New York Cy police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar, sparked rts 1969.

GAY RIGHTS

Although members of the gay muny were divid their opns about the rt, hundreds of people returned to the scene for the next several nights, some to ntue vlent opposn to the police and others to exprs their sexualy public for the first time.

The Stonewall Inn, shown here 2005, was signated on the State and Natnal Registers of Historic Plac 2016 to memorate the importance of the 1969 uprisg the gay liberatn movement. At the time, gay bars were often hidn and vulnerable to attacks by police, who were thorized by cy ernments to shut down tablishments that promoted what was nsired lewd behavr. Although this sometim worked, municipal officials also equently urged police to clamp down on gay bars by assertg that they did not have proper liquor licens.

SYMBOLS OF GAY AND LBIAN CULTURE

After Stonewall, however, a more radil polil nscns veloped that rulted om the formatn of many new groups, cludg the Gay Liberatn Front and Radilbians, whose members rejected the strategi and lled for a more ant rponse to homophobia.

The papers clud sectns voted to muny updat, cultural events, and personal ads, but they also highlighted new polil ncerns, namely efforts to raise awarens about the problems of gay people prisons and ncerns about gay health.

Although many var relig stutns believed homosexualy was sful, some LGBTQ people did not believe that their fah and sexual orientatn were at odds and took shelter relig muni anized by gay people. Public health thori, journalists, doctors, and even many the gay muny blamed gay liberatn and the looseng of sexual rtrictns for the epimic, but no one the medil or scientific muny actually unrstood the behavr of the vis. The pk triangle was -opted om the Nazis and reclaimed as a badge of Imag<em>Homosexual prisoners at the ncentratn mp at Sachsenhsen, Germany, wearg pk triangl on their uniforms on December 19, 1938.