Happy Pride, San Francisco!
June is here and we’re ready to get started celebrating Pride Month – it sounds like the City is, too!
The famous pink triangle was installed this morning for the 26th time since 1996. The Pink Torch Procession will begin at Oakland City Hall, starting at 11:30am Tuesday, June 1. It will go through Lake Merritt and downtown SF before arriving at Twin Peaks, where Mayor London Breed will perform the ceremonial lighting.
The Pink Triangle rests high above the City at Twin Peaks “as a visible yet mute reminder of man’s inhumanity to man,” according to its website. The enormous glowing shape is 200 feet across and can be seen from 20 miles away. It will be illuminated nightly all month with thousands of LED lights courtesy of Illuminate SF.
The emblem of the pink triangle symbolizes pride for many members of the LGBTQI+ community, and its annual installation is an exciting way to kick off Pride 2021 in SF.
That being said, it is essential to recognize the pink triangle’s tragic origins. It began as a badge from Nazi concentration camps, used to label and shame gay prisoners. Guards routinely used this symbol to single out and torment homosexual male prisoners, and many of the survivors were simply sent to prison when the rest of the camps were finally liberated.
The Pink Triangle’s website describes the temporary monument as an “an educational tool for all to see.” They cite 78 countries where homosexuality is still illegal, to demonstrate “what can happen when hatred and bigotry become law.”
Advertisement
You can visit the Pink Triangle at the top of Twin Peaks, accessible via Christmas Tree Point Road. If you want to volunteer with Friends of the Pink Triangle, consider signing up here. For almost 30 years, volunteers have installed, maintained, monitored, and cleaned up the site.
The Triangle will glow atop Twin Peaks for all of Pride Month, to be taken down on July 1st.
Learn more about the Pink Triangle here.
Featured Image: Peter Thoeny via Flickr