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"We all felt that we needed something that was positive, that celebrated our love." It functioned as a Nazi tool of oppression," he wrote in his memoir. Adolph Hitler conceived the pink triangle during World War II as a stigma placed on homosexuals in the same way the Star of David was used against Jews. " represented a dark chapter in the history of same-sex rights. After that, rainbows started becoming synonymous with the LGBTQ+ community (so much so that many religious people have claimed that queer people "stole" rainbows from God).īaker chose colors that had happy, positive meaning not only to represent the vitality of the queer community, but also to replace the darkness of the pink triangle, which was the most prominent gay symbol at the time. Being queer didn't get quite so colorful until 1978, when a gay activist named Gilbert Baker created an eight-color flag. It's why so many LGBTQ+ people adorn themselves and their belongings with rainbow pins and stickers as soon as they come out: Because wearing rainbows is an easy way to signal to other LGBTQ+ people, "Hey, I'm one of you."īut the rainbow wasn't always a symbol of LGBTQ+ pride. "Don't you know what it means?"īecause as everyone knows (except my grandmother, apparently), swathing your body in rainbows means that you're definitely not-straight. "Mom, unless you want some old ladies to start hitting on you, you don't want to buy that belt," she said. The image is hilarious enough on its own, but it's accompanied by the sheer mortification of my mom, who grabbed the belt out of her hands while cracking up. I'll never forget the day my 60-something-year-old grandmother grabbed a rainbow belt from the shelf at Spencer's, wrapped it around her waist, and shimmied her hips down the aisle.