Many people out there don't even recognize it, but to the queer community, it represents a great importance. There is also Stonewall. The bear at the top left corner of my blog is a called 'Stoney', after the Stonewall Inn Riots in New York. My best friend brought it back from San Francisco for me. (I took a picture of it).
In the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, the police raided the Stonewall Inn, a dingy, Mafia-run "private club" on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village with a predominantly gay clientele. The event is still a hot topic of debate in gay circles, with much disagreement about what actually precipitated the violence and who took part in it.
One legend holds that Judy Garland's funeral, held June 27, 1969, in Manhattan, fanned the flames of gay rage. Other versions of the story claim that dozens of sequined drag queens and a mysterious, unidentified butch lesbian were at the forefront of the street rebellion. But a few facts seem certain.
The inverted Pink triangle is also a symbol for the GLBT (gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and trans-gendered). The inverted pink triangle (rosa Winkel) was a symbol used by the Nazis during the Holocaust to identify male homosexual prisoners.
It was often larger than the other identifying triangles so as to allow homosexuals to be avoided and singled out at a distance. Between 10,000 and 600,000 gay men and women died in the Holocaust. In the 1970s, gay liberation groups resurrected the pink triangle as a popular symbol for the gay rights movement.
Not only is the symbol easily recognized, but it draws attention to oppression and persecution -- then and now. Today, for many the pink triangle represents pride, solidarity, and a promise to never allow another Holocaust to happen again.
Click on the flag above to find the reasons behind the rainbow colours.
