In 2011, CNN published a piece from a gay man who is HIV+. The nautical star is now hugely popular among LGBTI people, including a lot of gay porn stars.Īs well as being a common tattoo for sailors (it symbolizes sailors trying to find their way home), the nautical star also points to prostitution in some circles. For this reason, the tattoo was always on the wrist where it could hide behind a wristwatch.
Police had a list of names of known lesbians. Kennedy and Davis also said the local police in Buffalo, New York knew about the practise, so it was very risky. ‘This was the first symbol of community identity that did not rely on butch-fem imagery,’ they wrote. They explained: ‘The cultural push to be identified as lesbians – or at least different – all the time was so powerful that it generated a new form of identification among the tough bar lesbians: a star tattoo on the top of the wrist, which was usually covered by a watch. Davis and Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy’s 1993 book Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community explains the phenomenon. In the late 1940s and 50s, some lesbians got a nautical star tattooed on their wrist as a signal to other lesbians. ‘This is who I am, this is my history and I won’t be ashamed of showing it off,’ he added.īisexual people also have a version of the pink triangle with a blue triangle linked. Ingold continued: ‘Along with that, my dad once told me he wished I didn’t wear my sexuality on my sleeve so much.’ He said: ‘I got this tattoo to remember all those who came before me, who fought and died for our rights and also, to place myself in that history.’ Jeff Ingold got a tattoo of the pink triangle with the date of his coming out. Jeff Ingold wanted to make his triangle tattoo special so he got a triangle outline, with the date he came out in the middle.
He said: ‘I got it to feel like part of a community whilst remembering the horror that had befitted some that had went before. Greg Baillie got his pink triangle tattoo on his wrist so he can hide it under his watch if he ever feels unsafe. ‘It gives me an opportunity to say out loud in public that I’m a gay man,’ he said. McGlynn is a teacher and says his pink triangle tattoo isn’t as obviously gay as a rainbow flag, so his students often ask him about it. ‘I was angry and I wanted to have my queerness permanently written on my body as a “fuck you” to the fear of being visibly queer in public,’ he said. ‘At the time, it really brought home the physical violence that’s still directed at queer people. ‘I got it after the Pulse nightclub shooting in Florida,’ Nick McGlynn told Gay Star News. Many LGBTI people now proudly show off their tattoo pink triangles. How LGBTI people reclaimed the pink triangle The symbol went from being a badge of shame, to a symbol of pride. Since then, activists have used the symbol in various campaigns since, including in protests last year over concentration camps in Chechnya. The organization used it in arguably its most famous campaign poster: Silence = Death. Instead of using the upside down triangle – as the Nazis did – activist Avram Finkelstein came up with using it the right way up. In the early 80s, organization ACT-UP used the pink triangle to try to raise awareness in the midst of the AIDS crisis. The earliest accounts in America date back to 1977, where LGBTI activists in Miami pinned pink triangles to their clothes to protest housing discrimination.
When eye witness accounts and personal testimonies emerged several decades later, LGBTI activists began reclaiming the symbol.
They also performed dangerous experiments on them to find cures for typhus fever and homosexuality.Īccording to estimations, between 5,000 and 15,000 gay people died in German concentration camps. Nazis tortured the gay prisoners by castrating some of them and sodomizing them with items like broomsticks.