The Pk Triangle: From Nazi Label to Symbol of Gay Pri | HISTORY

Contents:

• THE PK TRIANGLE: FROM NAZI LABEL TO SYMBOL OF GAY PRI
• A GUI TO GAY AND LBIAN ROURC THE TRIANGLE
• FIRST LOOK: THE TRIANGLE — A LEGENDARY GAY BAR — IS RURRECTED
• THE GAY STRAIGHT-TALKER
• 'PASSAG' DIRECTOR NOUNC 'DANGERO' NC-17 RATG ON A FILM PICTG A GAY LOVE STORY
• MOVG TO LGBT RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLA? HOW TO FD YOUR PERFECT GAY NEIGHBORHOOD!
• YEP, THE PURPLE TELETUBBY WAS GAY
• PRI FLAGS 101: EVERYTHG YOU'VE EVER WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT GAY, TRANS, AND OTHER PRI FLAGS
• OUT DIRECTOR IRA SACHS SLAMS HIS NEW QUEER FILM’S NC-17 RATG, LLG THE MPA “ANTI-GAY”
• CORONATN STREET’S DANIEL BROCKLEBANK SHAR TAILS OF SOAP’S FIRST GAY WEDDG STORYLE: ‘I’M HONOURED’

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

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.

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.

A GUI TO GAY AND LBIAN ROURC THE TRIANGLE

Fortunately, after retirg at age 27, Burke ught a send wd and domated the Gay Softball World Seri where he kept the practice of givg high-fiv to his teammat.

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.

FIRST LOOK: THE TRIANGLE — A LEGENDARY GAY BAR — IS RURRECTED

The origal pri flag was created the 1970s by gay activist Gilbert Baker, iend of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to public office California. Jt as the Nazis forced Jewish people to wear a yellow Star of David, they forced people they labeled as gay to wear verted pk triangl (or ‘die Rosa-Wkel’). And the fact that was almost impossible to nvict anyone unls he nfsed to such a crime urt meant that police jt kept a watchful eye on gay bars and events, and Germany end up beg home to a vibrant gay muny.

Historian Robert Beachy argu that, ironilly, the law spurred scientific tert the study of sexual preferenc, and that rearch tend to enurage a more scientific unrstandg of human sexualy, which further allowed the ia of gay rights to flourish. Hler saw gay men as a threat to his mpaign to purify Germany, pecially bee their partnerships uld not bear children who would grow the Aryan race he wanted to cultivate. Durg that perd, gay-iendly bars and clubs started beg shut down, thori burned the books at a major rearch stutn voted to the study of sexualy, and gay aternal anizatns were shuttered.

The efforts only creased after the Night of the Long Kniv, the 1934 purge of Nazi lears who were acced of tryg to overthrow Hler; they clud Storm Troopers lear Ernst Röhm, whom the SS murred, later cg his homosexualy as jtifitn for his murr. Some were ed as guea pigs var medil experiments to fd a cure for typh fever and a cure for homosexualy, the latter of which led the SS to ject them wh ttosterone to see if would make them straight. As one of the USHMM’s curators has poted out, even as the Allied powers refully worked to scb Nazism om Germany, they left that part alone — perhaps bee they had anti-gay and anti-sodomy laws of their own.

THE GAY STRAIGHT-TALKER

As the gay liberatn movement grew Ameri the ’70s and the ’80s, so did awarens of the persecutn of gays durg the Holot, as books and data about perd started beg published.

Data on the victims started to be ced 1977, after a statistil analysis by soclogist Rudiger Ltmann of Bremen Universy claimed that as many as 60% of the gay men sent ncentratn mps may have have died. The first reference to pk triangl TIME also appeared that year, a story about gay-rights activists Miami who attached the symbols to their cloth as a show of solidary while prottg a vote to repeal a law protectg gay people om hog discrimatn. In 1979, Mart Sherman’s play Bent, spired by Heger’s memoir, opened on Broadway; the play, one of the characters tras his pk triangle for a yellow star, “which giv him preferential treatment over the homosexuals, ” as TIME’s review put .

The activists who formed the anizatn ACT-UP to raise awarens about this public health crisis cid to e the pk triangle as a symbol of their mpaign and allud to s history when they clared, their manifto, that “silence about the opprsn and annihilatn of gay people, then and now, mt be broken as a matter of our survival.

'PASSAG' DIRECTOR NOUNC 'DANGERO' NC-17 RATG ON A FILM PICTG A GAY LOVE STORY

Earlier this year, Fkelste said that the op-ed was a “galvanizg moment, ” at a time when there was “public discsn of puttg gay men to ncentratn mps to keep the epimic om spreadg.

”) More recently, pk triangl have been visible durg gay rights monstratns worldwi that were sparked by reports that gay men were beg persecuted Chechnya. ” Three months later, the German parliament voted unanimoly to pardon gay men nvicted of homosexualy durg World War II, awardg €3, 000 to the 5, 000 men still livg, and €1, 500 for each year they were imprisoned.

A prisoner who was both Jewish and gay, for example, would have two triangl: the bottom one would be yellow and the top would be pk, formg a two-lored Star of David. Before the rise of the Nazi party, Germany was almost shockgly open: Acrdg to the Uned Stat Holot Memorial Mm, the pre-Nazi Weimar Republic was an environment where challeng to genr norms were ont and center, wh thrivg gay muni ci like Berl, Frankfurt, and Cologne.

MOVG TO LGBT RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLA? HOW TO FD YOUR PERFECT GAY NEIGHBORHOOD!

Durg their rise to power, their views on homosexualy were kept mostly on the down-low, but once they secured their foothold at the top, all bets were off. At first, was jt sort of somethg that wasn't talked about, and Röhm firmly believed what was gog on around him was more about mastream beliefs than gay rights. The Uned State Holot Memorial Mm says that wasn't long before German agenci like the Gtapo were orred to do whatever was they need to do to fd, arrt, and ta anyone even spected of beg gay.

YEP, THE PURPLE TELETUBBY WAS GAY

Spiegel says that was only 1968 that the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) reversed the Nazi-era Paragraph 175, but the stigma remaed — and the gay muny largely remaed ostracized and, many s, unr surveillance by the Stasi. It was, after all, a high-profile hate: When Gunter Lift beme the first East German to be shot tryg to cross the Berl Wall 1961, the ernment's official le was that he had been gay and fleeg om persecutn for "crimal acts. There are sr of World War II memoirs, but, acrdg to The Natnal WWII Mm, one of the only firsthand acunts om a gay perspective is 1972's "The Men wh the Pk Triangle, " a book wrten by Josef Kohout unr the psdonym Hez Heger.

The rear further explaed the current e of the pk triangle: "Gay people wear the pk triangle today as a remr of the past and a pledge that history will not repeat self.

In 1986, New York Cy activists once aga drew a le between the ernment, aths of gay men, and the Holot wh the release of a poster that featured the pk triangle — now wh the peak facg upwards — and the words "Silence = Death.

PRI FLAGS 101: EVERYTHG YOU'VE EVER WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT GAY, TRANS, AND OTHER PRI FLAGS

In 2011, The New York Tim announced the ath of 98-year-old Rudolf Brazda (pictured), thought to be the last survivor of the gay men sent to ncentratn mps to be intified wh a pk triangle. He — like many — lived a post-war life obscury, and only me forward as a survivor 2008, at the unveilg of Berl's German Natnal Monument to the Homosexual Victims of the Nazi regime.

OUT DIRECTOR IRA SACHS SLAMS HIS NEW QUEER FILM’S NC-17 RATG, LLG THE MPA “ANTI-GAY”

He had been jailed durg the Third Reich for beg one of the Swg Kids — the polar oppose of the Hler Youth — and post-war, he was one of many arrted a massive police raid that led to what beme known as the Frankfurt Homosexual Trials.

Other prisoner groups each had a lored badge to note their “crime”: polil opponents (red), Jehovah’s Wns (purple), Roma (brown), purported “anti-socials” (black) and those emed habual crimals (green) marked as “homosexuals” were forced to wear a pk triangle, possibly based on a slang word for men who had sex wh men for money: Rosarote (“pki” or “rosi”). William Shirer’s 1959 “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” is one rare exceptn, though argued that some Nazi lears were “homosexual perverts, ” th tyg the horrors of Nazism to allegedly viant sexualy. They unrstood that documentg the past was sential to batg systemic homophobia their everyday 1972, a German publisher released “The Men wh the Pk Triangle, ” the first book wrten by a gay ncentratn mp survivor.

Inspired by the book’s tle, a leftist gay group Frankfurt lled RotZSchwul beme the first anizatn the world to e the pk triangle as a symbol of gay rights activism. Knowg that the Wt German public would regnize the pk triangle as a ncentratn mp badge, gay activists ed to simultaneoly force society to acknowledge how queer people were victimized unr the Nazi regime and highlight the ongog state-sanctned persecutn of queer people. In Augt 1974, the Gay Activists Alliance beme the first group the Uned Stat to e the pk triangle as a symbol of gay activism when they displayed a New York rally supportg a gay rights activists across the Uned Stat soon began employg the pk triangle as a warng of the dangers of homophobia and the need for legal protectns for the LGBTQ+ muny.

CORONATN STREET’S DANIEL BROCKLEBANK SHAR TAILS OF SOAP’S FIRST GAY WEDDG STORYLE: ‘I’M HONOURED’

In rponse, a group of artists and activists llg themselv the Silence = Death llective signed a now inic poster featurg a fuchsia triangle on a solid black plastered all over Manhattan sprg 1987, was meant to rally people to end the epimic while also chastisg the actn, homophobic measur and harmful statements put forth by nservative lears like Buckley.

DetailsThis ntent is available only to membersTriangle Gay Men's TantraSee more eventsTriangle Gay Men's Tantraprivate groupLotn visible to membersTriangle Gay Men's Tantraprivate group. Lbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgenr, Queer/Qutng, Intersex, and Ally (sometim also Asexual)RAINBOW FLAG Use of the rabow lored flag to symbolize pri go back to 1978 at a San Francis Gay and Lbian Freedom Day Para. Inially ed as a badge of shame for "gay men" the Nazi Germany of the 1930s and 40s, [1][2] was revived the 70s and 80s as a symbol of prott agast homophobia and ever sce reclaimed as a posive symbol of self-inty and pri by the larger LGBTQIA+ muny.