Trump Posts Incendiary Pink Triangle Image on Social Media

A graphic accompanying a news story can sometimes be more disturbing than the content of the story itself. Take, for instance, one in the conservative newspaper the Washington Times published on February 19 that extolled the virtues of the military taking an aggressively butch line in their advertising for recruitment. Written by Jeremy Hunt, it extols the virtues of strong, virile men being used in recruitment ads, citing a recent one said to be from the Trump Administration. "One recent Army ad features a soldier in the gym effortlessly deadlifting 500 pounds and declaring to the camera, "Stronger people are harder to kill. The ad underscores Mr. Trump's and Mr. Hegseth's emphasis on keeping our military the most lethal and effective fighting force on the planet."

That using hot men lifting weights has homoerotic appeal doesn't cross Hunt's mind; instead he uses it as contrast to one from the Biden Administration that featured LGBTQ inclusivity. "One of the most famous ads of President Biden's term showcased an Army officer named Emma marching in an LGBTQ pride parade. Though the cartoon ad had much to do with Emma's journey of sexual identity, it had little to do with our military's core mission: to deter, fight and win our nation's wars."

What, though, is disturbing about the Washington Times piece isn't the copy, but the graphic that accompanies it. It features a soldier in fatigues with what looks like a vintage portable television over his head. On the black screen is a pink triangle with the "forbidden" symbol over it.

The story and the disturbing graphic received new life this past weekend when President Trump re-shared it on his Truth social media network over the weekend, reports the LA-based website The Pride. And with it some distressing implications.

"It is appalling to see a Nazi symbol used in concentration camps so blatantly posted on social media. After Trump has signed several anti trans and anti LGBTQ+ executive orders meant to curtail the rights of citizens of the nation, a post like this can only be seen as another attack on the community," The Pride writes.

"It is even more troubling after Elon Musk was accused of doing a Nazi salute during the Inauguration and Musk's open support of AfD, an extremist party in Germany that has called for Germany to stop atoning for the Holocaust, whose members have made antisemitic remarks, and revived the use of banned Nazi slogans."

The Washington Times could have used any number of images to place in the television set of the image, but choosing one linked to Nazi queer persecution is, at the very least, clueless of its implications in public discourse.

For those with any knowledge of incendiary imagery, the pink triangle derives from its use by the Nazis in Germany to identify homosexuals after the notorious Paragraph 175 in 1935. The law, initially passed in 1871 to penalize "unnatural indecency between men" was strengthened by the Nazis to include any kind of perceived homosexual behavior. During 1935-1945, the Nazis effectively dismantled any queer social network that existed in the country. "Scholars estimate that there were approximately 100,000 arrests under Paragraph 175 during the Nazi regime. Over half of these arrests (approximately 53,400) resulted in convictions," writes the Holocaust Encyclopedia from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum website. Of those detained, some "5,000 and 15,000 men were imprisoned in concentration camps as "homosexual" ("homosexuell") offenders. This group of prisoners was typically required to wear a pink triangle on their camp uniforms as part of the prisoner classification system. Many, but not all, of these pink triangle prisoners identified as gay."

Those so labeled, the Holocaust Encyclopedia continues, "were among the most abused groups in the camps. Sometimes pink triangle prisoners were assigned the most grueling and demanding jobs in the camp labor system. They were often subjected to physical and sexual abuse by camp guards and fellow inmates. In some cases, they were beaten and publicly humiliated. In Buchenwald concentration camp, some pink triangle prisoners were subject to inhumane medical experiments. Beginning in November 1942, concentration camp commandants officially had the power to order the forced castration of pink triangle prisoners."

A historical footnote: the odious symbol disappeared after the war, but Paragraph 175 remained on the books until finally repealed in 1994.

And while gay activists reclaimed the symbol in the 1970s and 1980s, there is no sense of queer empowerment in its use in the graphic.