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

Contents:

• THE PK TRIANGLE: FROM NAZI LABEL TO SYMBOL OF GAY PRI
• PRI FLAGS 101: EVERYTHG YOU'VE EVER WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT GAY, TRANS, AND OTHER PRI FLAGS
• WHAT EXACTLY IS THE GAY MEN’S PRI FLAG, AND WHAT DO IT MEAN?

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

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. Prr to World War II, there wasn’t a universal sign or object for gay, trans, and/or queer people to e to build a muny around Ameri, let alone around the world.

The pk triangle was ed Nazi Germany ncentratn mps durg the Holot to signify that a male prisoner was gay or queer.

After the end of the Nazi reign, the pk triangle no longer served that purpose, although many gay men were not eed after the Alli took ntrol of Germany 1945.

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

Many saw rceratn well to the 1970s, and Germany would not end rceratn for gay people officially until 1994. In Ameri specifilly, gay people still had ltle rights or regnized muny. When the Lavenr Sre started, which creased discrimatn and ostracizatn of LGBTQ people, beg gay or trans beme associated wh munism and th, the stctn of life and society.

Pk triangl would bee mon aga after The Men wh the Pk Triangle, the first tobgraphy of a gay ncentratn mp survivor, was published 1972. When the Gay Freedom Day Para — as ial Pri march were known — was beg planned San Francis 1978, Harvey Milk and others sought a symbol that would replace the triangle. “Adolph Hler nceived the pk triangle durg World War II as a stigma placed on homosexuals the same way the Star of David was ed agast Jews, ” said Baker.

WHAT EXACTLY IS THE GAY MEN’S PRI FLAG, AND WHAT DO IT MEAN?

They flew for one day on Gay Freedom Day on June 25, 1978. Leonard Matlovich, a gay veteran and early LGBTQ rights activist, proposed that Pri flags rporate the black strip and they only should be removed when a cure is found. Weeks later, a group of people of lor was kicked out of a gay bar Philalphia.

He was missned to create a flag by another gay in, polician Harvey Milk, for San Francis’s annual pri cisn to enlist Baker proved serendipo, as the ia of a flag to reprent the gay and lbian muny had occurred to him two years earlier. As Baker told the Mm of Morn Art durg a 2015 terview, he had been spired by the celebratns markg Ameri’s bicentennial 1976, notg that the nstant display of stars and strip ma him realize the cultural need for a siar rallyg sign for the gay muny.

And as a stgglg drag performer who was acctomed to creatg his own garments, he was well-equipped to sew the soon-to-be inic the time, the most monly ed image for the burgeong gay rights movement was the pk triangle, a symbol ed by the Nazis to intify homosexuals. At the top was hot pk, which reprented sex, red for life, orange for healg, yellow signifyg sunlight, green for nature, turquoise to reprent art, digo for harmony, and fally vlet at the bottom for the help of close to 30 volunteers workg the attic of the Gay Communy Center San Francis, Baker was able to nstct the first draft of the now world-renowned rabow flag. It was first showsed at San Francis’s Gay Freedom Day Para on June 25, the sign was unveiled, participants of the para proudly waved the new symbol solidary.