LGBTQ symbols
Over the course of its history, the LGBTQ community has adopted certain symbols for self-identification to demonstrate unity, pride, shared values, and allegiance to one another.
[6][7] In 1970, graphic designer Tom Doerr selected the lower-case Greek letter lambda (λ) to be the symbol of the New York chapter of the Gay Activists Alliance.
[8][9] The alliance's literature states that Doerr chose the symbol specifically for its denotative meaning in the context of chemistry and physics: "a complete exchange of energy–that moment or span of time witness to absolute activity".
[16][17] According to some interpretations, American poet Walt Whitman used the sweet flag plant to represent homoerotic male love because of its phallic connotations.
[19][20]: 40 Beginning in the 1960s, the term was reappropriated by Japanese gay media: notably with the 1961 anthology Ba-ra-kei: Ordeal by Roses [ja], a collection of semi-nude photographs of homosexual writer Yukio Mishima by photographer Eikoh Hosoe,[20]: 34 and later with Barazoku (薔薇族, lit.
[27] Animals that lovers gave as gifts to their beloved also became symbols of pederastic love, such as hares, roosters, deer, felines and oxen, as a metaphor for sexual pursuits.
[30][31][32] The symbolism of the flower derives from several fragments of poems by Sappho in which she describes a lover wearing garlands or a crown with violets.
[36] White lilies have been used since the Romantic era of Japanese literature to symbolize beauty and purity in women, and are a de facto symbol of the yuri genre (yuri (百合) translates literally to "lily"),[37] which describes the portrayal of intimate love, sex, or emotional connections between women.
"lily tribe") was coined in 1976 by Ito Bungaku, editor of the gay men's magazine Barazoku (see above), to refer to his female readers.
[52] Early origins of this are traced back to around 2020 and in 2021 IKEA ran an ad-campaign to support same-sex marriage in Switzerland featuring the shark.
[54] Daniel Thaxton and Bernie Toale created a lavender rhinoceros symbol for a public ad campaign to increase visibility for gay people in Boston helmed by Gay Media Action-Advertising; Toale said they chose a rhinoceros because "it is a much maligned and misunderstood animal" and that it was lavender because that is a mix of pink and blue, making it a symbolic merger of the feminine and masculine.
Money was raised for the ads, and they began running on the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority's Green Line by December 3, 1974, and ran there until February 1975.
[69] The pink triangle was later reclaimed by gay men, as well as some lesbians, in various political movements as a symbol of personal pride and remembrance.
[70][71] AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT-UP) adopted the downward-pointing pink triangle to symbolize the "active fight back" against HIV/AIDS "rather than a passive resignation to fate.
[73] Lesbian sexual relations were illegal only in Austria and historians differ on whether they were persecuted or not, due to lack of evidence.
[75][76] The design of the biangles began with the pink triangle, a Nazi concentration camp badge that later became a symbol of gay liberation representing homosexuality.
In June 1992, several of MTV's on-air hosts wore Freedom Rings in recognition of Pride Month, elevating their visibility.
It became popular in Spain from April 2019 following a tweet posted on the official account of the populist far-right party Vox, after which a multitude of users belonging to the LGBTQ movement began to use it as a symbol.
[92][93] The icon has established itself as an example of the phenomenon of reappropriation of elements of the anti-LGBTQ discourse in contemporary society through social networks.
[94][96][97] In the 1970s, the modern handkerchief (or hanky) code emerged in the form of bandanas, worn in back pockets, in colors that signaled sexual interests, fetishes, and if the wearer was a "top" or "bottom".
There are many origin stories of the high five,[101] but the two most documented candidates are Dusty Baker and Glenn Burke of the Los Angeles Dodgers professional baseball team on October 2, 1977, and Wiley Brown and Derek Smith of the Louisville Cardinals men's basketball team during the 1978–1979 season.
[111] The protestors "used the ink to scrawl slogans on the building walls" and slap purple hand prints "throughout downtown [San Francisco]" resulting in "one of the most visible demonstrations of gay power" according to the Bay Area Reporter.
[105][108][107] According to Larry LittleJohn, then president of Society for Individual Rights, "At that point, the tactical squad arrived — not to get the employees who dumped the ink, but to arrest the demonstrators.
[118] The white knot was created by Frank Voci in November 2008, in response to the passage of Proposition 8 in California and bans on same-sex marriage and denial of other civil rights for LGBTQ persons across the nation.
