A great tradition of the month of pride in San Francisco celebrates its 30th year. The giant pink triangle displayed each year on the face of Twin Peaks is installed for the 30th time.
On this stage, one of the triangle co-founders said he thought that the symbol’s message was more important than ever.
The volunteers gathered at Twin Peaks on Friday to build the pink outline for this year’s triangle, which extends on an acre. They faced the wind and the poisoned oak plants invaded when they installed pink borders, which are 240 feet long and five feet wide.
Patrick Carney, who has co -founded this tradition and still helps to direct it today, said that this stage of creating the outline is necessary to prepare for work on Saturday, where around 800 volunteers would fill the outline with 175 brilliant pink tarpaulins.
What started for Carney as a spontaneous project with friends has become one of the most recognizable symbols of the celebrations of the pride of San Francisco.
“We just wanted to add a little color to the pride parade and spread it through the city,” he recalls. “There is a large virgin canvas on twin peaks, so I thought:” Let’s put something up there. “”
“We put it in the darkness of the night, just so that it appears-in a way anonymously-above Twin Peaks, but we did not expect it to continue,” he continued.
Carney said that his friend had suggested installing a rainbow flag, but he wanted to have something different, because there were already a lot of rainbow sheets in the city.
“I always say that the pink triangle and the rainbow flag are the yin and the yang of the rights movement of homosexuals,” said Carney. “The pink triangle was, of course, forged in the holocaust, and the rainbow flag was born from love, hope and optimism.”
Carney said he thought it was important to use the symbol of the pink triangle once he realized that few people were aware of his story.
The triangle is from Nazi concentration camps, where the prisoners were identified with different badges sewn on their uniforms. People considered “homosexuals” were forced to wear a pink triangle badge and were often targeted.
The symbol of the pink triangle has since been recovered by the LGBTQ community. In the 1970s, it was used as a symbol against homophobia, and in the 1980s, it was used to draw attention to the AIDS epidemic.
“And I think that with what we face today, it becomes even more important,” noted Suzanne Ford, executive director of San Francisco Pride, the non -profit organization that facilitates celebrations of the pride of the city. San Francisco Pride is also a financial sponsor of the Pink Triangle display.
Ford noted that the recent actions of the Trump administration, including the targeting of transgender individuals and renamed the naval ship named for the Pioneer LGBTQ of San Francisco, Harvey Milk, make the message of the triangle particularly relevant today.
“I think it is a symbol for us: we never want to come back to a point where we would let someone else feel shameful from who we are and who we love,” said Ford.
Carney stressed that this is the goal of displaying the triangle: learning from history and trying to better in the coming decades.
Three decades later, he saw his idea grow up and be kissed by the city.
“It’s so rewarding to see this kind of support and this kind of acceptance,” he said.
On Saturday, volunteers will finish the display of the triangle from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m., community leaders will organize a commemoration ceremony.
Carney noted that volunteers are still necessary, including volunteers to help eliminate the triangle at the end of the month. The triangle will be up this year until June 29.
