Taryn Talley’s Post

Hey y'all I've noodled on this post for the last 24 hours... so I decided to share it here. This pink triangle was a symbol first used in the 1930s and 40s by the German government to identify its prisoners. The government color-coded its prisoners to visually indicate why they were imprisoned. Early on, gay men were identified by a green triangle. Eventually, the pink triangle came to identify both gay men and transgender women in its prison camps. Others in the LGBTQ community were identified by black triangles. Decades later, the LGBTQ2SIA community took back that symbol. In the late 80s, AIDS activists repurposed the triangle with the phrase "Silence=Death" to highlight the lack of medical progress in the AIDs epidemic. In the 90s, a pink triangle in a green circle were used as a sign identifying safe spaces for LGBTQ2SIA people. So you might be wondering why I'm sharing this now. Let me share my reasoning; a couple of days ago, Donald Trump re-shared content on social media featuring the pink triangle in a red circle with a red line through it. You can assume that since the community took back the symbol, that post clearly sent a message to our community that we are the target. To our allies, if you ever wondered what you would've done in the late 1930s-40s in Germany. This is your time to act. Stand with us. Support us. Make your voice heard. We've been fighting this fight for decades, the Compton cafeteria riot, Stonewall... Transgender people have been leading the resistance - we will continue to fight and bring awareness to our fight until we can live without fear and secure the full rights of every other citizen in this country and the globe. My community deserves nothing less than that from me.