Steward was born in 1909 and led many varied roles in life, including a professor at a Roman Catholic university and an author of gay pulp fiction. He was also the official tattoo artist for the motorcycle club, the Hells Angels in Oakland, California. He continued: ‘Following the national release of the movie The Wild One with Marlon Brando the original motorcycle film, it seemed to crystallize or release, the obscure and long-hidden feelings of many homosexuals.’ Steward said: ‘One change, however, came about in the homosexual attitude towards tattoos around 1954.’ Steward published his thoughts on gay men getting tattoos in his 1990 book Bad Boys & Tough Tattoos: A Social History of the Tattoo with Gangs, Sailors, and Street-Corner Punks. He said: ‘I was overwhelmed by the sudden appearance of so many of these figures… as the impulse of many homosexuals to be considered more masculine – by the addition of a tattoo – grew stronger.’ Steward believes tattoos became a symbol of masculinity for gay men, closely tied with the gay leather community. There are also examples of lesbians in the 1940s and 50s literally wearing their sexuality on their sleeve by getting a particular tattoo (but more on that later). Nazis tortured the gay prisoners by castrating some of them and sodomizing them with items like broomsticks. 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. When eye witness accounts and personal testimonies emerged several decades later, LGBTI activists began reclaiming the symbol. The earliest accounts in America date back to 1977, where LGBTI activists in Miami pinned pink triangles to their clothes to protest housing discrimination.
In the early 80s, organization ACT-UP used the pink triangle to try to raise awareness in the midst of the AIDS crisis. Instead of using the upside down triangle – as the Nazis did – activist Avram Finkelstein came up with using it the right way up. The organization used it in arguably its most famous campaign poster: Silence = Death. Since then, activists have used the symbol in various campaigns since, including in protests last year over concentration camps in Chechnya. How LGBTI people reclaimed the pink triangle The symbol went from being a badge of shame, to a symbol of pride. Many LGBTI people now proudly show off their tattoo pink triangles. ‘I got it after the Pulse nightclub shooting in Florida,’ Nick McGlynn told Gay Star News. ‘At the time, it really brought home the physical violence that’s still directed at queer people. ‘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. 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. ‘It gives me an opportunity to say out loud in public that I’m a gay man,’ he said. Greg Baillie got his pink triangle tattoo on his wrist so he can hide it under his watch if he ever feels unsafe. He said: ‘I got it to feel like part of a community whilst remembering the horror that had befitted some that had went before. When using a search engine such as Google, Bing or Yahoo check the safe search settings where you can exclude adult content sites from your search results Īsk your internet service provider if they offer additional filters īe responsible, know what your children are doing online.Jeff Ingold wanted to make his triangle tattoo special so he got a triangle outline, with the date he came out in the middle. Use family filters of your operating systems and/or browsers Other steps you can take to protect your children are: More information about the RTA Label and compatible services can be found here. Parental tools that are compatible with the RTA label will block access to this site. We use the "Restricted To Adults" (RTA) website label to better enable parental filtering. Protect your children from adult content and block access to this site by using parental controls. PARENTS, PLEASE BE ADVISED: If you are a parent, it is your responsibility to keep any age-restricted content from being displayed to your children or wards. Furthermore, you represent and warrant that you will not allow any minor access to this site or services. This website should only be accessed if you are at least 18 years old or of legal age to view such material in your local jurisdiction, whichever is greater. You are about to enter a website that contains explicit material (pornography).