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![triangle gay pride symbol triangle gay pride symbol](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/448xn/p09622jt.jpg)
Gay rights activists were working hard to fight for justice and expose discrimination against gay people around the world-including those who were forced to wear the pink triangle under the Nazi regime.ĭuring this time, gay rights activists reclaimed the pink triangle. The gay rights movement really began to take hold in the United States and parts of Europe in the ‘70s. Nazi treatment of the gay community was seldom recognized following WWII. According to one study analyzing records from Nazi concentration camps, those who bore the pink triangle on their chest pocket were subjected to “exceptionally cruel treatment.” Most men who engaged in such “sexual acts” were punished with fixed imprisonment terms, but many-especially those considered “repeat offenders”-were sent to concentration camps. The number of people convicted of violating Paragraph 175 remained low-in the hundreds-before Hitler’s rise to power, as it was uncommon to catch people in the act.īut Hitler broadened the definition of “relations” to include a whole range of “sexual acts,” thereby making the statute easier for police to enforce. The original statute banned “intercourse-like” relations between men. When Adolf Hitler assumed his position as the Chancellor of Germany in 1933, he revised a previously enacted statute titled Paragraph 175. The pink triangle was initially used by the Nazi regime as a way of identifying and persecuting anyone who was thought to be gay. The pride that the pink triangle symbolizes today stems from a history of oppression and resistance that spans decades. This Pride Month, we reimagined our beloved Capri sneaker with three sets of interchangeable wool-terry patches, one of which is a nod to the pink triangle-a symbol of pride and solidarity for the LGBTQ+ community.