We've seen them all around us for years, some younger guys have known about them all their lives. But what were their origins and what exactly do they mean? I'm talking about the symbols that we in the gay community take for granted as meaning homosexual - our sexual orientation and lifestyle.
Perhaps the oldest symbol is the lambda, which is simply a lower case letter in the Greek alphabet. After the Stonewall riots took place in 1969 an organization was formed called the Gay Liberation Front, which was one of the earliest modern gay activist organizations. When the GLF started working alongside civil and women's rights organizations, the members that wanted to concentrate only on gay rights broke away forming their own organization, the Gay Activists Alliance. There is some dispute over the exact meaning, but some say the lambda represents liberation, while others say the lambda indicates love. One reason a Greek letter was chosen was so members could wear the symbols and those not in the know might confuse the wearer as being a member of a fraternity and not a gay rights organization. The headquarters for the GAA were torched by an arsonist and the organization closed down, but the symbol itself lives on today.
The original eight-color flag was designed by artist Gilbert Baker in 1978 as a symbol for the San Francisco Gay Pride Parade in 1978. The original colors chosen for the flag were: hot pink (for sexuality), red (for life), orange (for healing), yellow (for the sun), green (for nature), blue (for art), indigo (for harmony) and violet (for spirit). The idea of the flag symbol for the parade was so popular the pride organization decided to have the flags mass produced for the 1979 parade. The hot pink color was not commercially available so they decided to drop that color from the flag. When they decided to adorn the parade route with flag colors they wanted to use three colors on one side of the street and three colors for the other side, so the indigo stripe was dropped producing the six-color flag we have today. Almost overnight, the six color flag caught on nationwide and was officially recognized by the International Congress of Flag Makers in 1980.
Eventually other versions of the flag found their way into gay society. One version used the stripes from the rainbow flag and added the star field from the U.S. flag in the upper left corner. Another version adds a black stripe on the bottom and it stands for victory over AIDS. Yet another version removed the violet stripe and replaced it with a black stripe indicating leather pride.
The black stripe leather pride flag never caught on and in 1989 artist Tony DeBlase displayed his own version of the leather pride flag at the Chicago Mr. Leather Contest, which includes black, blue and white stripes with a red heart in the upper corner. The flag was developed to represent the leather community as a whole, which included people into sadomasochism, bondage, domination, uniforms, rubber and other kinds of sexual fetishes. This flag is most often found in the gay community, but it encompasses all orientations.
Another flag used by the gay community is the Bear Pride Flag, which was developed by a Seattle bear bar, Spags. The blue stripe represents the sky and the green stripe represents the earth. In between these two fields are all the bears of the world: white for polar bears, black for black bears and brown for brown bears. The yellow paw print is the sun, representing the spirit.
Before World War II, Germany's government passed a law referred to as Paragraph 175, which prohibited homosexual relationships. When Hitler and his Nazi party took over, he extended the law to include homosexual kissing, embracing and even fantasies. An estimated 25,000 people were arrested between the years 1937 and 1939 for crimes against Paragraph 175 and were sent to concentration camps in which the punishment could include castration and/or death. Though Paragraph 175 did not affect lesbians, they too were often arrested for “anti-social behavior”, which would also include prostitution.
Criminals in death camps were identified by a colored triangle on their clothing to indicate the crime for which they were being held. Regular criminals (bank robbers, etc.) were identified with green triangles, political prisoners wore red triangles, Jews were indicated by overlapping yellow triangles forming the Star of David, those arrested for anti-social behavior wore a black triangle and those arrested on crimes against Paragraph 175 wore pink triangles. When allied forces overtook the Nazis and liberated the concentration camps, those held on regular crimes were transferred to regular prisons, political and anti-social prisoners and the Jews were released, but those arrested on crimes against Paragraph 175 continued to be held in the camps until 1969, when the law was finally repealed. In the 1970s the pink triangle started to be used in conjunction with the gay liberation movement.
The Red Ribbon Project was created by singer/songwriter Paul Jabara and the New York-based Visual AIDS group in 1991 to indicate AIDS awareness. The red ribbon was originally inspired by the yellow ribbons prominently displayed during the Gulf War in support of U.S. soldiers. The color red was chosen because it is the color of blood (because AIDS and HIV are blood-related diseases) and because of the color's symbolic connection to passion and love. The red ribbon made its public debut when host Jeremy Irons wore it during the 1991 Tony Awards.
