The Story of Pink
How Queer + Trans Liberation and Feminism have always been Intertwined
So apparently today was the first time a lot of people on my timeline learned what a TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminist) is, so I’m going to educate y’all on some more queer history since it’s shockingly unknown. For today, let’s talk about the color pink.
Before World War II, pink was considered the masculine color. No, really, it was. It was associated with blood, particularly warfare (think bloody rags), and was associated in the west with masculinity, strength, and courage.
In the late 1800s/early 1900s, a marketing strategy was implemented that encouraged parents to dress their boys in pink and their girls in blue. It was most likely a scheme to get parents to buy multiple sets of children’s clothes, because before that, children’s clothes were usually white and completely gender neutral. Parents would usually repair and pass down the same set of clothes regardless of their child’s gender. This marketing scheme was hugely successful, especially in the wake of WWI, when masculinity through warfare was a major part of the propaganda that encouraged young men to enlist in the deadliest war of all time. So for the survivors, glorifying the blood and death as masculine was attractive. And they dressed all their little boys in pink to prove it.
The shift towards pink being feminine began as women, in the 1920s, also acted more “masculine” as more liberated, independent standards for women began to arise. (Think classic flapper girl.) One of the ways a woman could signal her independence (which was, at this time, highly fashionable), was to present in more masculine ways. This included shorter haircuts, chest compression (yes really!), and of course, wearing pink.
So the cultural double standard was set in place; pink was both the color of hyper-masculinity… and the color co-opted to rebel against it. This cultural confusion eventually leads us to WWII.
TW for genocide, fascism, antisemitism, and Holocaust discussion
In the course of severe discrimination that eventually escalated to the targeted extermination of “undesireables” from Germany and conquered areas, people were labeled according to their class. Most famously, Jewish people were targeted, but also targeted were Roma peoples, people of color (particularly black people), disabled people, the mentally ill, and queer people.
Prior to WWII and the rise of fascism, Germany was the world leader in queer rights, including those of trans people. The Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Institute of Sexual Sciences) was an active group of activists, sociologists, scientists, and more, actively fighting for (and gaining) queer rights. It also provided sex education, treatment for venereal diseases, and fought for the rights of women. Trans people really have always been here! Enjoy some gorgeous trans flappers.
In 1933, what was then the queer rights capital of the world was burned by the burgeoning Nazi party. Most notably, all books from the institute were burned. This was nearly 20,000 tomes of queer history, knowledge, science and theory, many of which did not have additional copies. This was to prevent the spread of dangerous ideas that were “converting youths into unclean lifestyles”. The famous photographs of Nazi book-burnings are nearly always from the burning of the Institute, a near-full decade before WWII, and a fact which is conveniently omitted from most conversations about this. Queer people, especially trans people, were targeted first in the rise of fascism. It’s happening again, and with the same rhetoric as before. It is also important to note that although the Nazis burned the Insitute’s literature, they did not burn the medical records or patient files, but instead used those to hunt down and target patients and practitioners of queer medicine, science, and sex education.
Part of the labeling of “undesirable groups” is famous because the Star of David was used to mark Jewish people. Few cishet people seem to know that “homosexuals” (a term applied universally to both gay men and trans women at the time) were labeled with a pink triangle.
This was a play on both the cultural perceptions of pink at the time. It is also important to note that the black triangle, which was labeled “asocial”, was attributed to lesbians and trans people assigned female at birth. At first, the Nazi party tolerated queers, then they tolerated us as long as we didn’t “spread it”, then they oppressed us, and then they tried to eliminate us, starting with trans people. This should sound eerily familiar.
When allied soldiers broke through and opened the gates of concentration camps, they learned of the Nazi classification system of prisoners. Overnight, pink became gay. And this means that overnight, straight men decided that pink was “effeminate”. The fact that Berlin had been the queer cultural hub of the world was not unknown to everyone. Many gay people joined the military at this time, some for personal cause and some because it allowed for same-sex relationships. The queerness of the US military during WWII was one of the worst-kept secrets of the age. Famously, one of the legends passed down from that time was of Nell “Johnnie” Phipps, a soldier in the Women’s Army Corps, who was supposedly asked by General Eisenhower to “ferret out the lesbians” in her unit. As the story goes, she replied that if he wanted that, he’d have to ask someone else, because she’d be the first to go. Supposedly that made Eisenhower give up this mission.
Similarly at this time, men were drafted together for long periods, making same-sex behavior more accepted (especially as the alternative, prostitution, was increasingly frowned upon). And women, left to run the country in their absence, took on increasingly masculine and independent roles, including those in manufacturing, leadership, and the military. The famous image of Rosie the Riveter was a character (based on a real woman) who was used as a propaganda tool to encourage women to join the workforce during the labor shortage and massive increase in production that accompanied WWII.
Pink became gay.
After WWII, reactionaries were eager to get back to the “traditional way of things”. The encouragement of bending of gender and sexual roles in wartime abruptly reversed post-war.
The modern concept of the “American Dream” was born, and pink was for girls. Of course pink was for girls! It always had been! That’s why the gays were labeled pink, for their effeminate nature! That’s why the flappers wore pink.
Pink was for girls, and revisionist history was in vogue.
So what about pink triangles? You’ve all seen them. Although largely suppressed in general culture, pink triangles became a symbol of queer rebellion, of a refusal to disappear or be killed off. The pink triangle made its major reemergence during the AIDS crisis, when groups such as Act Up! adopted it as a powerful symbol. Similarly to how citizen complacency allowed for genocide to go on during the Holocaust, citizen complacency during the AIDS crisis allowed for millions of deaths.
The crisis was so much worse than you’ve been led to believe. It is downplayed and suppressed because it is comprised of incomprehensible cruelty and negligence. This photo was taken in 1993.
The dead were turned away by their families. Cemeteries refused their bodies. Illegal burials and mass or unmarked graves were very real. AIDS as a disease doesn’t kill outright, it weakens the immune system so that other things do. Pneumonia, the common cold, fungal infections, etc.
Landlords turned off the heat in apartments where they knew gay tenants lived, literally to try to kill them off to clear the apartments. Hospitals refused them. People would look their own deaths in the face and use them as protest, choosing where they would die in protests known as “die-ins”, because they knew their bodies wouldn’t be buried respectfully either way. These die-ins meant that individuals who were close to death would die on the steps of government buildings in protest, using their literal corpses as items of protest. Keith Haring, one of the most famous artists of the 80s and 90s, made extensive art about the crisis. You’ve almost definitely seen it, and not known what it means. He died at age 31 of AIDS. That was in 1990.
Think about that. The 1990s. If you’re my age, the entire generation that would have been our elders either died or was irreparably traumatized. We are the lost generation of queers, and it’s so important to know our history. But also, my parents grew up during this. So did yours. They were silent.
To really wrap your head around the tragedy of the crisis that’s unspoken, untaught, and actively silenced, I would recommend (with extreme caution) reading the digitized AIDS quilt.
In the midst of the crisis, when respectful burials did not exist, 48,000 panels of the AIDS quilt were made in memoriam. Each was for a specific person who had died, often by their friends or spouses left behind. The quilt is one of the rawest things I have ever seen.
Can you imagine if, during the coronavirus, when people began dying in droves, the government openly ignored the crisis? No, not like the Trump admin. Like refusing to acknowledge its existence altogether. Like refusing to fund medical research. Like feeding into the idea that the AIDS crisis was righteous wrath upon the queer community by God himself?
The end death toll is unknown, partially because it was so stigmatized to die of AIDS, but partially because the crisis never truly ended, it simply petered out. AIDS still plagues disadvantaged communities, particularly queer and trans communities, houseless communities, communities of color, and many communities in developing areas.
The conservative Christian anti-queer campaigns began at this time, and stayed put. Homophobia could now be justified as fear of contagion. And the seemingly endless death and destruction became politicized and blamed on “the other side”, even as it didn’t stop.
Now, more than ever, this history is necessary.
Teach queer history.
Queer people have always been here.
Fascism never stops without accountability.
Traditionalism is revisionist history.
Do not get complacent. None of this is over. Do not go silent.
Homophobia, transphobia and misogyny have always been, and will always be, incredibly intertwined. TERF history is revisionist history.
“Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
In the United States, we are currently seeing an unprecedented uptick in anti-queer legislation, particularly anti-trans legislation. Make your voice heard, and please stand with our community to protect trans people and combat the rise of fascism in the United States.
Link to original thread (this Medium piece has been updated):
