The Gay Triangle: The Romance of the First Air Adventurers: 9781518620591: Le Qux, William: Books
Contents:
- THE PK TRIANGLE: FROM NAZI LABEL TO SYMBOL OF GAY PRI
- THE GAY TRIANGLE
- THE GAY STRAIGHT-TALKER
- THE GAY TRIANGLE: THE ROMANCE OF THE FIRST AIR ADVENTURERS PAPERBACK – OCTOBER 26, 2015
- GAY HISTORY: 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
THE PK TRIANGLE: FROM NAZI LABEL TO SYMBOL OF GAY PRI
Pk triangl were origally ed ncentratn mps to intify gay men. * the gay triangle *
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.
THE GAY TRIANGLE
* the gay triangle *
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. 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. “Gay people wear the pk triangle today as a remr of the past and a pledge that history will not repeat self, ” he add. 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.
THE GAY STRAIGHT-TALKER
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. The vote me about 15 years after the issug of an official apology and almost a after the unveilg of a memorial to gay Holot victims Berl. In Nazi Germany, a downward-potg pk triangle was sewn onto the shirts of gay men ncentratn mps—to intify and further humanize them.
THE GAY TRIANGLE: THE ROMANCE OF THE FIRST AIR ADVENTURERS PAPERBACK – OCTOBER 26, 2015
Homosexualy was technilly ma illegal Germany 1871, but was rarely enforced until the Nazi Party took power 1933. 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.
Jt as Jews were forced to intify themselv wh yellow stars, gay men ncentratn mps had to wear a large pk triangle. “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 ImagHomosexual prisoners at the ncentratn mp at Sachsenhsen, Germany, wearg pk triangl on their uniforms on December 19, timated 65 percent of gay men ncentratn mps died between 1933 and 1945.
GAY HISTORY: THE PK TRIANGLE: FROM NAZI LABEL TO SYMBOL OF GAY PRI
Even after World War II, both East and Wt Germany upheld the untry’s anti-gay law, and many gays remaed rcerated until the early 1970s. The next year, post-war Germany’s first gay rights anizatn, Homosexuelle Aktn Wtberl (HAW), reclaimed the pk triangle as a symbol of liberatn.
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.
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. 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.
PRI FLAGS 101: EVERYTHG YOU'VE EVER WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT GAY, TRANS, AND OTHER PRI FLAGS
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.
His legacy liv on the six-lored flag that fli proudly every Gay Pri month, regnizg the liv, and lov, of LGBT people worldwi. 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.