GAY SYMBOLS

The lower case of the 11th letter of the Greek alphabet was chosen as the symbol of gay liberation by the Gay Activist Alliance (GAA) of New York in 1970 after the Stonewall Riots. The letter is used in physics to designate kinetic potential. In 1974 lambda was adopted as the international symbol for lesbian and gay rights by the  International Gay Rights Congress meeting in Edinburgh, Scotland.

The symbol of unity in diversity was first waved at San Francisco's 1978 Freedom Day parade. The original flag had eight colors: red, orange, yellow, green, turquoise, indigo, violet, and pink. Replica flags have six to eight stripes chosen from the following colors: red (life), orange (healing), yellow (sun), green (nature), blue (art), violet (spirit), indigo (harmony), and pink (sexuality).

The pink triangle, or Rosawinkel in German, was sewn onto the clothes of homosexuals sent to concentration camps by the Nazis before and during World War II (1939-45). It was first used as a symbol of resistance and solidarity in the early 1970's. In 1975 it became the emblem of the Coalition of Conscience study group of the New York Civil Liberties Union, Starting in 1986, HIV-AIDS activists captioned the triangle with the words "Silence = Death." In 1987, the radical HIV-AIDS campaigning group ACTUP adopted the slogan, but inverted the triangle so that it pointed upward.