Over the course of its history, the
LGBT community has adopted certain
symbols for
self-identification to demonstrate unity,
pride, shared values, and allegiance to one another. These symbols communicate ideas, concepts, and identity both within their communities and to mainstream culture. The two symbols most recognized internationally are the
pink triangle and the
rainbow flag.[1][2][3]
The female and male
gender symbols are derived from the
astronomical symbols for the planets
Venus and
Mars respectively. Following
Linnaeus, biologists use the planetary symbol for Venus to represent the
female sex, and the planetary symbol for Mars to represent the
male sex.
Two interlocking female symbols (⚢) represent a
lesbian or the lesbian community, and two interlocking male symbols (⚣) a
gay male or the gay male community.[4][5] These symbols first appeared in the 1970s.[5]
The combined male-female symbol (⚦) is used to represent
androgyne or transgender people; when additionally combined with the female (♀) and male (♂) symbols (⚧) it indicates gender inclusivity, though it is also used as a transgender symbol.[6][7]
Lambda
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".[8]
The term bara (薔薇), "
rose" in Japanese, has historically been used in
Japan as a
pejorative for
men who love men, roughly equivalent to the English language term "
pansy".[16][17]: 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,[17]: 34 and later with Barazoku (薔薇族, lit. "rose tribe") in 1971, the first commercially produced
gay magazine in
Asia.[18] The use of the rose as a prominent symbol of love between males is supposedly derived from the
Greek myth of
King Laius having
affairs with boys under rose trees.[19] Since the 2000s, bara has been used by non-Japanese audience as an umbrella term to describe a wide variety of Japanese and non-Japanese gay media featuring love and sex between
masculine men.[20] The rose is also the sacred flower of
Eros,[21] the Greek god of love and sex, and patron of love between men.[22] Eros was responsible for the first rose to sprout on Earth, followed by every flower and herb.[23] Roses are a symbol of
pederasty in ancient Greece:
handsome boys were metaphorically called roses by their
male admirers in homoerotic poems such as those by
Solon,
Straton,
Meleager,
Rhianus, and
Philostratos.[24]
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.[25][26]
Violets and their
color became a special code used by lesbians and bisexual women.[27][28][29] 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.[30][31] In 1926, the play La Prisonnière by
Édouard Bourdet used a bouquet of violets to signify lesbian love.[32] When the play became subject to censorship, many Parisian lesbians wore violets to demonstrate solidarity with its lesbian subject matter.[33]
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"),[34] which describes the portrayal of intimate love, sex, or emotional connections between women.[35] The term Yurizoku (百合族,
lit. "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.[36][37] While not all those women were lesbians, and it is unclear whether this was the first instance of the term yuri in this context, an association of yuri with lesbianism subsequently developed.[38] In
Korea and
China, "lily" is used as a
semantic loan from the Japanese usage to describe female-female romance media, where each use the direct translation of the term – baekhap (백합) in Korea[39] and bǎihé (百合) in China.[40]
In response to this popularity, IKEA Canada hosted a giveaway in November 2022, offering transgender people a special edition Blåhaj in the colors of a transgender pride flag, with the winner's name embroidered on its fin.[43]
Lavender rhinoceros
Daniel Thaxton and Bernie Toale created a
lavenderrhinoceros 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. (Lavender had already been used
to represent LGBT people in other contexts).[44][45][46] However, in May 1974, Metro Transit Advertising said its lawyers could not "determine eligibility of the public service rate" for the lavender rhinoceros ads, which tripled the cost of the ad campaign. Gay Media Action challenged this but were unsuccessful. The lavender rhinoceros symbol was seen on signs, pins, and t-shirts at the
Boston Pride Parade later in 1974, and a life-sized papier-mâché lavender rhinoceros was part of the parade. 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. The lavender rhinoceros continued as a symbol of the gay community, appearing at the 1976 Boston Pride Parade and on a flag that was raised at
Boston City Hall in 1987.[47]
Outside of Boston,
Theatre Rhinoceros, located in
San Francisco, and founded in 1977, based its name on this symbol.[48] Theatre Rhinoceros, also called Theatre Rhino, or The Rhino, is a gay and lesbian theatre.[49] It claims to be the world's longest-running professional queer theatre company.[50] An online bookstore focused on LGBTQ authors and books called "The Lavender Rhino" launched in 2023.[51]
Unicorns have become a symbol of LGBT culture due to earlier associations between the animal and rainbows being extended to the
rainbow flag created in 1978 by
Gilbert Baker.[52]
Alice Fisher of The Guardian wrote in 2017, "The unicorn has also done its bit for the LGBT community in the last century... Rainbows and unicorns are so intrinsically linked (the association is also a Victorian invention) that it's unsurprising that the magic creature started to appear on T-shirts and banners at Gay Pride around the world, with slogans such as 'Gender is Imaginary' or 'Totally Straight' emblazoned under sparkling rainbow unicorns."[53]
Gay Star News said in 2018 that unicorns are the "gay,
LGBTI and queer icons of our time".[54]
Other symbols
Symbols of the LGBT community have been used to represent members' unity, pride, shared values, and allegiance to one another.
One of the oldest of these symbols is the downward-pointing
pink triangle that male homosexuals, male bisexuals, and transgender women in
Nazi concentration camps were required to wear on their clothing. The badge is one of several
badges that internees wore to identify what kind of prisoners they were.[55] Many of the estimated 5,000–15,000 gay men imprisoned in
concentration camps did not survive.[56] 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.[57][58] 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."[59]
The pink triangle was used exclusively with male prisoners, including transfeminine individuals, as cisgender lesbians were not included under
Paragraph 175, a statute which made homosexual acts between males a crime.[60] Lesbian sexual relations were illegal only in Austria and historians differ on whether they were persecuted or not, due to lack of evidence.[61] Some lesbians were imprisoned with a
black triangle symbolizing supposed "asociality", this symbol was later reclaimed by postwar lesbians.[58]
Pink triangle
Black triangle
Pink and yellow triangles
The downward-pointing pink triangle used to identify homosexual men and transgender women in the concentration camps.
The downward-pointing black triangle used to mark individuals considered "asocial". The category included homosexual women, nonconformists, sex workers,
nomads,
Romani, and others.
The downward-pointing pink triangle overlapping a yellow triangle was used to single out male homosexual prisoners who were
Jewish.
Michael Page stated that when designing the
bisexual flag he took the colors and overlap from the biangles.[65]
Double crescent moon
Some bisexual individuals object to the use of a
pink triangle in the biangles symbol of bisexuality (see above), as it was a symbol that
Adolf Hitler's regime used to tag and persecute homosexuals. In response, a double crescent moon symbol of bisexuality was devised by Vivian Wagner in 1998.[66][67] This symbol is common in
Germany and surrounding countries.[67]
Asexual and aromantic symbols
The ace ring, a black ring worn on the middle finger of one's right hand, is a way
asexual people signify their asexuality. The ring is deliberately worn in a similar manner as one would a
wedding ring to symbolize marriage. Use of the symbol began in 2005.[68][69]
The aro ring, a white ring, worn on the middle finger on one's left hand is a way
aromantic people signify their identity on the aromantic spectrum. Use of the symbol began in 2015.[70]
This was chosen as the opposite of the ace ring which is a black ring worn on the right hand.[71]
Another symbol often used by aromantic people is
arrows or an arrow as the word arrow is a
homophone to the shortened word aro used by aromantic people to refer to themselves.[74]
Freedom Rings
Freedom Rings, designed by
David Spada in 1991, are six aluminum rings, each in one of the colors of the
rainbow flag. These rings are worn by themselves or as part of necklaces, bracelets, and key chains.[75] They are a symbol of gay pride, and were originally sold as a fundraiser for the 1991
San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade and quickly became a national trend. In June 1992, several of
MTV's on-air hosts wore Freedom Rings in recognition of
Pride Month, elevating their visibility.[76][77] They are sometimes referred to as "Fruit Loops".[78]
Gaysper
Gaysper is an LGBT symbol based on the
ghostemoji (U+1F47B, "👻") of
Android 5.0. It is a modification of the original icon that uses a background with the colors of the
rainbow flag. 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
LGBT movement began to use it as a symbol.[79][80] The icon has established itself as an example of the phenomenon of
reappropriation of elements of the anti-LGBT discourse in contemporary society through social networks.[81][82] Other versions derived from the original symbol involving other flags belonging to the LGBT community, such as the
transgender flag, or the
bisexual flag, have also become popular.[81][83][84]
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".[85][86] It was popular among the gay
leather community of the United States[87] and the
cruising scene more broadly.
Clipped and filed nails, either on all ten fingers or on the index and middle finger of the
dominant hand in particular, are considered a symbol of queer women after the origin of the practice as a practical measure to allow for safe
digital penetration between cisgender women.[91][92]
Purple hand
On October 31, 1969, sixty members of the
Gay Liberation Front, the Committee for Homosexual Freedom (CHF), and the Gay Guerilla Theatre group staged a protest outside the offices of the San Francisco Examiner in response to a series of news articles disparaging people in San Francisco's
gay bars and clubs.[93][94] The peaceful protest against the Examiner turned tumultuous and was later called "Friday of the Purple Hand" and "Bloody Friday of the Purple Hand".[93][95][96][97]Examiner employees "dumped a barrel of printers' ink on the crowd from the roof of the newspaper building", according to
glbtq.com.[98] Some reports state that it was a barrel of ink poured from the roof of the building.[99] 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.[93][96][95] 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. Somebody could have been hurt if that ink had gotten into their eyes, but the police were knocking people to the ground."[93] The accounts of
police brutality include women being thrown to the ground and protesters' teeth being knocked out.[93][100] Inspired by
Black Hand extortion methods of
Camorragangsters and
the Mafia,[101] some gay and lesbian activists attempted to institute "purple hand" as a symbol against anti-gay attacks, but the symbol was only briefly used.[102][103] In Turkey, the LGBT rights organization MorEl
Eskişehir LGBTT Oluşumu (Purple Hand Eskişehir LGBT Formation), also bears the name of this symbol.[104]
White knot
The white knot is a symbol of support for
same-sex marriage in the United States. The white knot combines two symbols of marriage, the color white and "
tying the knot," to represent support for
same-sex marriage.[105] The White Knot has been worn publicly by many celebrities as a means of demonstrating solidarity with that cause.[106]
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
LGBT persons across the nation.[107]
A
pride flag is any
flag that represents a segment or part of the
LGBT community. Pride in this case refers to the notion of
LGBT pride. The terms LGBT flag and queer flag are often used interchangeably.[110]
Numerous communities have embraced distinct flags, with a majority drawing inspiration from the rainbow flag. These flags are often created by amateur designers and later gain traction online or within affiliated organizations, ultimately attaining a semi-official status as a symbolic representation of the community. Typically, these flags incorporate a range of colors that symbolize different aspects of the associated communities.
For information on entering these symbols in a document, see
Unicode input.
The meanings given here are those formally associated with the symbol in Unicode. They may be used with other meanings elsewhere. See also
Gender symbols#Encoding.
^Also used as equivalent to U+26AC MEDIUM SMALL WHITE CIRCLE (⚬) Engaged, betrothed (genealogy), wedding ring. Cf. also U+25CB WHITE CIRCLE (○), female in genealogies and pedigrees.
^Conner, Randy P.; Sparks, David Hatfield; Sparks, Mariya (1998). Cassell's Encyclopedia of Queer Myth, Symbol and Spirit. UK: Cassell. p. 133.
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^Welker, James (2008). "Lilies of the Margin: Beautiful Boys and Queer Female Identities in Japan". In Fran Martin; Peter Jackson; Audrey Yue (eds.). AsiaPacifQueer: Rethinking Genders and Sexualities. University of Illinois Press. pp. 46–66.
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^Reilly, Andrew; Saethre, Eirik J. (2013-10-01). "The hankie code revisited: From function to fashion". Critical Studies in Men's Fashion. 1: 69–78.
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^Kepner, Jim (1977).
Alternate. p. 36. October 31 [1969]: San Francisco gay-rads picket San Francisco Examiner over "queers and fairies" story. Purple ink dumped on pickets who ink handprints on building. Lawrence and 11 others busted for defacing. Purple hand briefly a gay lib symbol.
^
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuMcElroy, D.R. (2020). Signs & Symbols of the World: Over 1,001 Visual Signs Explained. New York, New York: Wellfleet Press. p. 198.
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^Nixon & Düsterhöft (2017) Sex in the Digital Age, p. 150
^
abcdefghiCampbell, Andy (2019). Queer X Design: 50 Years of Signs, Symbols, Banners, Logos, and Graphic Art of LGBTQ. Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers. p. 218-221.
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^ralatalo (September 20, 2021).
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