US President Donald Trump on Sunday, March 9, shared an essay on his Truth Social program. The post included an picture of the Pink Triangle, a mark used during the Holocaust to detect gay people in Nazi concentration camps.
Since the beginning of his second term, Trump has signed numerous professional commands affecting LGBTQ+ plans. These include recognizing only two sexes in government policy and removing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion ( DEI ) programs from government and the military. Transgender citizens have been banned from serving in the military repeatedly, and care for transgender adolescents has also been restricted.
The post Trump shared is titled” Army recruitment advertising look quite different under Trump” and was written by former US Army knowledge captain Jeremy Hunt for The Washington Times. The featured picture in the content is credited as” Military recruitment advertisements picture by Linas Garsys / The Washington Times”.
The post discusses changes in the government’s target under Trump and US secretary of defense Pete Hegseth. It says that their policies stress anger and mortality, moving away from diverse communication. It contrasts this with a selection campaign from the previous Biden administration that featured an Army official attending a Pride festival. The post says,” For most leaders, main social change in our nation’s armed troops doesn’t happen overnight. It often takes ages for a commander in chief to leave a mark on the defense. But President Trump and secretary of defense Pete Hegseth are accomplishing what often takes years in a matter of days. This government’s downfall of Biden-era interruptions and the focussing of the Pentagon on mortality are moving at rapid speed… Consider the striking comparison between the military recruitment advertisements today and those from the Trump era. One of the most popular advertising of President Biden’s word showcased an Army officer named Emma moving in an LGBTQ pleasure parade”.
This is the second instance where people linked to Trump’s presidency have been connected to images associated with the Nazis. Trump officials Elon Musk and Steve Bannon were formerly seen making’ Roman Salutes’ at the opening and at CPAC. Then, Trump has shared an essay that includes an image of the Pink Triangle, a mark connected to Nazi concentration camps.
Interpretation of the Pink Triangle
The Pink Triangle was used by the Nazi program to detect gay people, related to how the bright star was used for Israeli people. From 1933, Nazi laws targeted gays as part of work to “purify” Germany.
In concentration tents, persons marked with the Pink Triangle were subjected to various types of abuse, including health tests, circumcision, and mass killings. The color red was used to identify the belief that queer men were “feminine”. Some homosexuals were likewise assigned the Pink Triangle, but most were given a black square, which labeled them as “asocial” because they did not fit into the Nazis ‘ appropriate family structure.
As per Sydney Jewish Museum site, a statue featuring the Pink Triangle, known as the Gay and Lesbian Holocaust Memorial, is located in Sydney’s Green Park, opposite the Sydney Jewish Museum. Opened in 2001, the memorial recognizes and remembers the persecution of the LGBTQIA + community during the Holocaust.
In Berlin, the Memorial to Homosexuals Persecuted Under Nazism was never established until 2008.
The Pink Triangle was afterwards reclaimed by the homosexual community during the AIDS epidemic. Protesters from the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) used the image, turning it up to reflect weight. It was featured in the Silence = Death campaign to raise consciousness about the AIDS crisis and condemn state silence.
Now, the Pink Triangle is sometimes used to recognize ACT UP or to consider gay and transgender people persecuted during the Holocaust, whose story remained mostly overlooked for many years.
