Pink Triangle towers over S.F. as beacon of hope in face of rising intolerance

San Francisco Chronicle​

11 hours ago

Britnee Barnes and her wife sat on the slope of Twin Peaks on Saturday morning, listening to the steady 'tap-tap' as volunteers behind them nailed pink tarps into the hillside.
It took only a few hours for the hundreds of volunteers to install the massive triangle, the slash of pink quickly covering the steep slope, visible for miles from vantage points across the Bay Area.
'This symbol has made so many comfortable, it's so public, so much clear support' for the LGBTQ community, Barnes said.
The couple had risen at 4:30 a.m., driving from Vacaville to San Francisco to participate in this year's installation of the Pink Triangle, one of the many events that mark the start of the city's Pride festivities.
The symbol hearkens back to Nazi Germany, where gay men were forced to wear pink triangles and subject to extraordinary persecution and murder in concentration camps, alongside Jews, Roma, political dissidents and others that Adolf Hitler and his administration considered 'undesirables.'
After the Allies defeated the Nazis, most of those in concentration camps were freed — but many of those marked with a pink triangle were put back in prison under a law barring homosexuality, said Pink Triangle founder Patrick Carney. Germany didn't officially recognize gay men as victims of the Nazi regime and worthy of compensation until 2002.
Carney, who attended Saturday's event in an all-pink ensemble including a bejeweled tennis visor and glittering pink shoes, first installed the triangle with a few friends in the dead of night in an act of 'renegade art' 30 years ago. In the years since, the triangle has grown exponentially larger, doubling in size four times, Carney said. Now, the event has won the endorsement of the city, and hundreds of volunteers decked out in pink shirts show up every year to install the triangle and deconstruct it weeks later.
This year's triangle measured 230 feet on a side, made up of 175 pink tarps held in place by 5,000 steel spikes.
Nearly an acre in size and visible from across the Bay Area, the symbol serves as a massive, 'in your face, educational tool,' Carney said.
The installation took place Friday afternoon and Saturday morning, when hundreds of volunteers hammered down the mesh tarps as they chatted and laughed together.
Hours later, Carney led a ceremony to mark this year's triangle, with civic leaders including Mayor Daniel Lurie, state Sen. Scott Wiener, Supervisors Rafael Mandelman, Matt Dorsey and Joel Engardio, and other local elected officials.
'San Francisco is the only city in the world with a giant triangle over its Pride festivities,' Carney said. 'It's a huge reminder and warning of what can happen when hatred can become law.'
In his remarks, Lurie said the Pink Triangle — now a beacon of hope and remembrance in San Francisco — has taken on deeper meaning in the face of rising antigay rhetoric and legislation.
'Silence is not an option,' he said. 'We must be loud and lead with compassion, action and pride.'
States and cities across the country are enacting anti-LGBTQ legislation. Earlier this week, news emerged that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the renaming of the U.S. Navy ship Harvey Milk, christened after the San Francisco gay rights icon. And after his second election, President Donald Trump has ordered drastic cuts to the nation's HIV-prevention efforts and issued executive orders purging members of the transgender community from the military.
SF Pride Executive Director Suzanne Ford noted the increasing assaults on the nation's trans community, first in red states and now by the federal government.
'We've been surviving and reacting,' said Ford, a trans activist. 'We must draw a line here in San Francisco and say, 'This persecution will not stand,' and look forward to the day we will be liberated from this MAGA regime,' she said, referring to Trump's Make American Great Again movement.
Wiener reminded the audience Saturday that Nazis did not take power through a coup, but through a democratic election.
'The Holocaust started almost a decade after that election. It was a buildup over time,' he said. 'This is what we're dealing with now. It's not an overnight thing. This is going to be a fight over years. … We have to be in this in the long run to defend our community, our health care, our democracy and our immigrant community.'