Pink triangle, rainbow and other symbols

A green carnation, the yin-yang symbol, the pink triangle, the Labrys axe, and the rainbow flag: many symbols are connected to LGBTQ+ people and their struggle for emancipation. The earliest ‘secret’ symbols were mainly meant for mutual recognition. From the 1970s onward, the symbols took on new roles — being visible to everyone, expressing pride. These symbols refer not only to the user’s identity, but also to their history, desires, and sense of belonging to a community of their own.

Secret symbols

At a time when homosexuality was considered a sin, a disease, or a crime, most gay men and lesbian women kept their sexual orientation hidden. Only on special occasions would they sometimes drop a hint through eye-catching clothing, jewelry, or accessories. A man dressed as a dandy or a woman wearing a jacket and trousers didn’t necessarily have to be that way, but they did send a signal that the possibility existed. Other ways to do so could include ‘casually leaving around’ a novel with homosexual or lesbian themes while receiving visitors. A guest might then notice a book by Oscar Wilde or The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall lying on the coffee table — cover facing up.

It was the same Wilde who, in the 1890s, asked his admirers to wear a green carnation visiting the theatre (the color was created by adding dye to the water). For a few years, the practice was popular in London and Paris, and anyone wearing such an “unnatural” flower on the lapel of his jacket was suspected of having “unnatural” inclinations. If questioned about it, one could always say — as Wilde himself did — “I just think it’s beautiful; it has no special meaning.” The use of such symbols usually didn’t last long and remained limited to a small geographic area.

Certain colors and flowers have long been associated with homosexuality, although usually in ways bound to a specific time and place. Their meanings were often known only to a small circle of insiders.

Green, the color of Wilde’s carnation, was thought in 19th-century England to be the favorite color of homosexuals. Other colors associated with queers in the 19th and 20th century included red, pink, and various shades of purple. In addition to the (green) carnation, other flowers were linked to “unnatural” love: the sunflower, the lily, the violet, and the hyacinth (through association with the Greek hero Hyacinthus, lover of Apollo).

'The yin-yang symbol was another of these secret signs. From the mid-1950s until 1964, it served as the logo of the COC. The symbol refers, among other things, to inner harmony and the union of the masculine and the feminine. COC members could wear a small pin featuring the symbol to recognize one another while convincing outsiders that they were simply inspired by Chinese yin-yang philosophy.

Pink triangle

From the 1970s onward, as gay men and lesbians became more visible and publicly fought for their rights, new symbols with a different character emerged. The most well-known of these is the pink triangle, introduced in 1972 by a radical German gay group (RotZSchwul from Frankfurt) and later widely adopted across Europe and North America.

The pink triangle originates from Nazi Germany, where from mid-1935 not only sexual acts between two men were criminalized, but also acts “with a sexual intent,” such as kissing or exchanging glances between two adults or between an adult and a minor of the same sex. Those arrested risked being sent to a concentration camp, a fate that befell tens of thousands of men in Germany. It is estimated that 15,000 of them did not survive.

From 1937 onward, a system was implemented in the concentration camps in which all prisoners wore a triangle in a color corresponding to their “offense.” Homosexual men were assigned a pink triangle, which was larger than the other triangles, making their “deviation” immediately recognizable. In the camps, they held the lowest status and were usually assigned the hardest labor.

Because lesbian sex was not legally punishable, the Nazis did not take specific action against women on that basis. However, many lesbian women still ended up behind barbed wire for being deemed “work-shy,” communist, or "asocial". The ones falling into that last category were marked with a black triangle on their camp uniforms.

What was originally, for the Nazis, a sign of degeneracy, antisocial behavior, and corruption—and for homosexual prisoners themselves a symbol of victimhood—was transformed by radical German gay activists into a badge of defiance. It came to signify not only discrimination and oppression but also pride and militancy. In the Netherlands, the Rooie Flikkers (Red Faggots) in Nijmegen adopted the symbol in 1975, quickly followed by other groups. In Utrecht, it were primarily the more progressive members of the interest group COC and youth organisation Pann who wore the pink triangle.

The pink triangle met a need at a time when flikkers (faggots) and potten (dykes) (also two reclaimed names) required a strong symbol to present themselves and confront the heterosexual world with their existence and battle. The triangle was worn as pins, buttons, and pendants, and for years it was an almost indispensable element in the design of posters and book covers. Both the cover of the national COC magazine Sek and the books in the Gay Studies Utrecht publication series featured a triangle in the upper left corner for many years. In the 1980s, the AIDS activist group Act Up reversed the triangle — point upwards — often in combination with the slogan “Silence = Death.”

Because the pink triangle referred to men imprisoned during the Nazi era, its use among lesbian women was less obvious and sometimes controversial. The initiative to wear a black triangle instead of a pink one was not followed by many people. From the same 1970s onward, (lesbian) feminist groups increasingly used the color purple, as seen in the radical lesbian activist group Paarse September (Purple September). The double female symbol and the Labrys axe also made their appearance during those years.

The triangle also helped make the color pink popular within the queer movement and as a reference to LGBTQ+ activities. That popularity endured, even after the triangle gradually disappeared from public spaces. This is reflected in still-existing names such as Roze Zaterdag ('Pink Saturday', an annual nationwide demonstration), Roze Maandag ('Pink Monday', at the Tilburg fair), the Roze Loper ('Pink Carpet', a certification mark for sexual diversity in healthcare and welfare organizations), and Roze Links ('Pink Left', a national network within left-wing politcal party GroenLinks). The pink triangle was “immortalized” in Amsterdam’s Homomonument (Gay monument), consisting of three large granite triangles, two of which directly refer to the wartime past. Their points are directed toward the Anne Frank House and the National Monument on Dam Square, respectively.

'Classical' symbols

The growth of the queer movement from the 1970s onward was accompanied by the introduction of other symbols alongside the pink triangle. And, just like with that triangle, these were often the movement’s own “reinterpretations” of preexisting symbols—frequently ones originating from classical antiquity.

When the doubling of the signs for masculine and feminine, ⚢ and ⚣, became popular on buttons and as necklace pendants, users may not have been aware that they originally referred to the Roman astrological signs for Mars (masculine) and Venus (feminine).

Also with the introduction of the Greek letter Lambda, the classical origins did not seem to matter. The lowercase lambda (λ) was adopted in 1970 by the New York Gay Activists Alliance as a symbol for the American gay movement. Four years later, participants at the Gay Rights Congress in Edinburgh adopted the sign as an international symbol. Designer Tom Doerr chose the lambda because in chemistry it symbolizes the concentration of energy. Its meaning was later expanded to represent the letter L for “Liberation” and to convey synergy—the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The symbol was (and is) used primarily in North and South America, but it it became less popular in Europe and the Netherlands.

The labrys also has a classical background. The double, mirrored axe was a sacred symbol in various ancient cultures. For lesbian-feminists, the connection with the Amazons was particularly important. This was the name the Greeks gave to a mythical, female-dominated warrior people from the Far or Near East who lived without men (who were welcome only once a year for procreation). As early as the beginning of the last century, a connection was made between the Amazons and lesbian culture. For lesbian-feminists in the 1970s and beyond, the "Amazon axe" or labrys was a symbol of strength and emancipation.

Rainbow flag

The origin of the now globally popular rainbow flag dates back to 1978. That year, Gilbert Baker (1951–2017), an artist and a member of the drag activist group "Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence" in the 1980s, designed a flag with eight colored stripes. He chose the rainbow as a symbol of diversity and hope, allegedly inspired by Judy Garland’s song “Over the Rainbow.” Large, heavy, hand-sewn versions of the flag were first used at the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade on June 25, 1978.

At that time, the eight stripes did not represent different identities, but rather characteristics of the gay and lesbian community: hot pink (sexuality), red (life), orange (healing), yellow (sunlight), green (nature), turquoise (magic), indigo (serenity), and violet (spirit). Both the rainbow symbol and these eight attributes were deeply rooted in the hippie and Love & Peace movement on the American West Coast.

For mass production, the number of colors had to be reduced to six. It was this version that conquered the world in the 1990s and became the basis for later variations. This was easily possible because Baker and his assistants had deliberately not applied for copyright.

In 2017, American queer activist Amber Hikes added black and brown stripes to the flag as a symbol of the struggles of queer people of color. A year later, non-binary American artist Daniel Quasar designed a version with pointed stripes on the left in those same colors, plus pink, blue, and white to represent trans identities. Black came to represent victims of violence and AIDS. In the “Intersex-Inclusive Pride Flag” used today, the white triangle on the left was replaced with a yellow triangle featuring a purple circle—taken from the intersex movement flag—at the initiative of British activist and artist Valentino Vecchietti.

Over the years, dozens of variations of the flag have been created by various thematic, local, and regional groups. On the occasion of its 25th anniversary, a 1.6-kilometer-long flag was made in Key West in 2003. Much shorter, yet still impressive, is the flag held aloft by dozens of hands during the Walk of Love in Utrecht, in recent years as part of the Utrecht Queer Culture Festival in October.

The colors of the flag can be seen on pedestrian crossings and bike paths (as in Utrecht), on all kinds of merchandise, and projected onto government and other buildings on special occasions—such as the Dom Tower in Utrecht. The flag also flies above the entrances of queer shops and queer-friendly businesses. Queer pride without the rainbow has become unthinkable.

Maurice van Lieshout