Badg, Buttons and Ps – A Gay Man's Story Snapshots

Contents:

• THE PK TRIANGLE: FROM NAZI LABEL TO SYMBOL OF GAY PRI
• A GAY MAN'S STORY SNAPSHOTS
• ‘PRI’: FROM A NORMAN BOAST TO A GAY BADGE OF HONOR
• GAY RIGHTS
• WOE UPON WOE: ANHSER-BCH LOS ITS GAY BADGE FOR NOT STANDG BY FAKE WOMAN DYLAN MULVANEY

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

But let remember the above quote explag why Straight Pri isn’t actually a thg: “Gay Pri was not born of a need to celebrate beg gay, but our right to exist whout persecutn. In Nazi Germany, a downward-potg pk triangle was sewn onto the shirts of gay men ncentratn mps—to intify and further humanize them. 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.

)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. 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.

A GAY MAN'S STORY SNAPSHOTS

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.

I doubt I am the only nsistent attene at Sunday School who end up gay bars a few years after that achievement.

‘PRI’: FROM A NORMAN BOAST TO A GAY BADGE OF HONOR

Startg wh the rise of the Gay Liberatn movements the 70s, wearg a badge beme an stant way to show our lours, so to speak; to proudly e out public. Therefore was a way to signal to others that “I’m gay too” at the same time as mimizg the risk of gettg bashed by haters who wouldn’t have a clue as to what the symbol meant. One of the first generic symbol for beg gay to take hold was the Greek letter, lambda, which is equivalent to our letter “L”.

GAY RIGHTS

The story go that this symbol was chosen by the New York chapter of the Gay Activists Alliance 1970 for their group. In December 1974, the lambda was officially clared the ternatnal symbol for gay and lbian rights by the Internatnal Gay Rights Congrs Edburgh, Stland. I have only two badg that refer specifilly to the Gay Liberatn movement om the early 70s and, tertgly, neher of them e the lambda symbol om that perd; probably to differentiate themselv om what they would have seen as a more nservative and closety symbol.

On the right is the well known London Gay Liberatn Front badge which subtly ed the male/female genr symbols along wh a powerful fist.

WOE UPON WOE: ANHSER-BCH LOS ITS GAY BADGE FOR NOT STANDG BY FAKE WOMAN DYLAN MULVANEY

Durg this perd, the double terlockg male and female symbols me to reprent, somewhat ls obscurely than the lambda, gays and lbians and they turned up a variety of ways on badg. The Nazis forced the gay and bisexual men and transgenr women prisoners their ncentratn mps the 1930s and 40s to wear verted pk triangl (or “die Rosa-Wkel”), siar to how they also forced Jews to wear a yellow Star of David.

In the early 1970s, this pk triangle of shame was reclaimed as a posive symbol of self-inty the gay muny.

Here is a black and whe photo of me taken by a prs photographer at a monstratn agast a church Sydney that had fired s warn bee he had me out as gay on Atralian televisn 1972. It shows that, those early days, we had to expla, even to other gay men and lbians, what the pk triangle meant. For the first time, lbians and gays worked wh the mers their stggle to keep jobs and, return, the mers supported our stggl.