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A TIME magazine article in 1977 noted that gay rights activists in Miami had attached the symbol to their clothes as “a show of solidarity while protesting a vote to repeal a law protecting gay people from housing discrimination.” The activists and accompanying story brought national attention to the reclaimed symbol, and the 1979 Martin Sherman play “Bent” brought even more awareness to the pink triangle’s history. It is believed that somewhere between 5,000 and 15,000 men were sent to concentration camps for reasons related to sexuality and the number of those who died may never be known. Queer iconography has long included the pink triangle - re-appropriated by the LGBTQ community after the Nazis used it to label mostly gay men in concentration camps - a dark period of our history. Here is a look at a small history of symbolism in the LGBTQ community. “The only commonality in LGBTQ+ life is the risk people take in being themselves,” wrote Smithsonian Curator Katherine Ott in a 2019 National Museum of American History blog titled “The Most Radical Thing About Stonewall Wasn’t the Uprising.” When we look back, we realize that much like the history of the LGBTQ movement, there is no one symbol to represent our community. According to historians, those were removed in a 1979 modification following the death of San Francisco politician and activist Harvey Milk. However, the flag previously had other iterations including the original that had two additional stripes, with hot pink representing sex and turquoise for magic. The six stripes in the design included red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sunlight, green for nature, blue for peace, and purple for spirit. Both designs have been met by waves of negative comments from some in the community, claiming that Baker’s 1978 design, which today is part of the Museum of Modern Art’s permanent collection, did not need to be updated and that it represented ideals of the community and not segments of its people.