Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender – often called by LGBT – are now having their own part in society. Historically, gay men have been through a lot of things from punishment to death by Hitler in World War II, to present life when freedom is no longer hard to reach. Nowadays, gay men can live freely and make a good living in society. We also have seen many gay men have given good contribution for human life in general. In some countries, like Netherlands, gay marriages are allowed while some others give a real constriction for gay lifestyle and everything related to it. But whatever people think of them, however the way people see them; gay men will always live among us with all appreciations yet all insults, since not every person can accept the way they are.
Symbolism has been one important thing for gay men. It represents pride, existence, and also shows movements that have been through for many years ago. It is also helpful for gay men who are willing to be recognized, by using accessories with gay symbols. The symbols are used often as marks, so that gay people can recognize each other. Some bars, restaurants, and public services sometimes use the symbols to show that they are gay friendly, without have to make straight people aware of it.
Gay symbols can be divided into four main groups. They are flags, triangles, and gender symbols with history lies under each of them.
1. Flags
There are several kinds of flag symbols among LGBT people:
Rainbow Flags
This flag has been widely used as a symbol of gay and lesbian community in general. Composed by eight colors, hot pink, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and purple, rainbow flag was first developed by Gilbert Baker, an artist, in 1978 at San Francisco. The color stripes itself have their own meaning; pink for sexuality, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for the sun, green for nature, blue for art, indigo for harmony, and purple for spirit. In need of gay and lesbian symbols for San Francisco Gay and Lesbian Pride Parade year after year, Baker decided to bring his idea in a form of large prototype rainbow flags for the 1978 parade. It was a big hit. But when Baker wanted to mass produce the flag in San Francisco Flag Co. for the 1979 parade, he had to remove the pink color since it was not commercially available. Later, indigo color was also removed by The Pride Parade Committee so that the colors could be evenly divisible along the parade route in 1979.
So now, we know the rainbow flags used for gay and lesbian symbol are only composed by six colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple.
The Victory over AIDS Flags
This flag is basically a rainbow flag with black stripe addition at the bottom of the flag. AIDS strikes really hard on gay community, so a group in San Francisco decided to modify the rainbow flag by adding black color. Someday, when the cure for AIDS is found, the black part of the flag will be burned in Washington D.C, ceremoniously. A Vietnam War Veteran, Sgt. Leonard Matlovich proposed it when he was dying of AIDS.
Leather Pride Flags
Leather Pride Flags stand for leather community, people who love leathers, sado-masochism, bondage, domination, uniforms, rubbers, and any kind of fetishes. Created by Tony DeBlase, it was first displayed on 1989 at The Chicago Mr. Leather Contest.
Bisexual Pride Flags
Pink and blue represent female and male. What will happen if you combined those colors together on a flag? It will result in Bi pride flag. It was created by Michael Page in 1998. The flags are actually composed by pink color on top and blue at bottom, with overlap in the middle part, giving purple color in result. The purple color itself represents the bisexual’s attraction of either gender.
Bear Pride Flags
Bears are terms used for them who have abundant hair on their face, chest, and body. The Bear Pride Flag was first displayed in 1995 at Spags, a bear bar in Seattle. There are six major colors composing the flag. They are yellow, blue, white, black, brown, and green. Blue represents the sky, while green represents the ground. White, black, and brown, colors lying between the sky and the ground, each represents different races of bears. Yellow paw, as the sun on the upper left, represents spirit and brotherhood of all bears. This flags is most likely used, although some groups of bears prefer having their own individual flag.
2. Triangles
Pink triangle is the most popular triangle symbol among gay community. But actually there are more triangle symbols, like black triangle and bisexual triangle.
Pink Triangle
This symbol first showed up in World War II. About 25,000 gay people sent down to prison in 1937 until 1939, because of Paragraph 175, a clause in German Law that prohibited same-gender sexual relations. The prisoners then later were sent to concentration camps. In 1942, Hitler increased the punishment to death.
The triangles are used in concentration camp as marks for the prisoners. It also showed why they were being imprisoned. While a regular criminal was forced to wear green inverted triangle, a gay prisoner was forced to wear pink one. Red inverted triangles were for political prisoner and two overlapping yellow triangles forming A Star of David were for the Jewish. Lowest rank prisoners were the gay Jewish prisoners, marked with a Star of David superimposed with pink triangles.
There were stories from the camps, that gay prisoners often got worst tasks from the guards. Got beaten a lot, many of them also got killed. Even when the World War was over, gay prisoners were still being imprisoned when other prisoners were released. This was due to Paragraph 175 that remained until 1969.
In 1970, the pink triangle was resurrected by the gay liberation groups and used as popular gay and lesbian movement symbol, until now. And today, the pink triangle represents the pride and solidarity among gay men, also a promise that such holocaust in World War II will never happen again.
Black Triangle
Just like the pink triangle, black triangle is also rooted in Nazi Germany. It was used in concentration camp for women who were considered having “anti-social behavior”, lesbianism included. Lesbians and feminists then reclaimed that mark as a symbol of their pride and solidarity, and the symbol is still popular among lesbian women until now.
Bisexual Triangle
The history of this triangle is still a bit mysterious. It uses pink triangle overlapping with blue one, creating purple color. It is said that pink may refer to homosexuality, and blue refers to heterosexuality. The purple triangle result from the overlapping pink and blue is the triangle of bisexuality.
3. Gender Symbols
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender, each has its own symbol. The symbols are related (mostly) to symbols of gender, male and female, which were symbols of Roman Gods, Mars and Venus.
Gay Homosexuality Symbol
A circle with arrow attached to it, is a symbol of masculinity. It was a symbol given for Mars, the God of War. Nowadays, it is quite popular as a male symbol.
In 1970, gay men began to use two interlocking male gender symbol as their symbol of homosexuality.
Lesbian Homosexuality Symbol
When there is male symbol, of course there is a female symbol. Female is symbolized by a circle with a cross extending down, which were given for Venus, the God of Love and Beauty.
Lesbian women use this two interlocking female gender symbol, just like gay men, to represent their homosexuality.
Bisexual Symbol
If gay and lesbian symbol uses two interlocking gender symbol, bisexuality is represented by two different gender symbols interlocked to both sides of a gender symbol. The gender symbol in the middle indicates the sex of bisexual person. Then if the bisexual person is male, he will have two interlocking male symbols, with female symbol attached to one of them.
Transgender Symbol
Transgender people are those who possess both male and female genitalia and find difficulty in identifying their own sex and gender. It is actually not a kind of sexual orientation, since a transgender person has a specific attraction toward sexes.
There are two choices of symbols for transgender. First, is a combination of arrow and cross down attached to a circle; it is a combination of male and female signs in one circle. Second, is a female symbol with crescent moon at the top, representing masculinity, which was actually a symbol given for Mercury.