If you would like to order a Canadian Mayhem run pin, send $5 and a self-addressed #10 envelope (that’s the regular business letter size) to:
Canadian Mayhem run pins
220 – 2150 Pandora St
Vancouver, BC
V5L 1N5
Pins are 1″, triangular, metal/enamel, and are loyal to their new owners.
The history of the triangle begins before WWII, during Adolph Hitler’s rise to power. Paragraph 175, a clause in German law prohibiting gay relations, was revised by Hitler in 1935 to include kissing, embracing, and gay fantasies as well as sexual acts. Convicted offenders–an estimated 25,000 just from 1937 to 1939–were sent to prison and then later to concentration camps. In 1942 Hitler’s punishment for homosexuality was extended to death.
In the 1970’s, gay liberation groups resurrected the pink triangle as a popular symbol for the gay rights movement. Like the pink triangle, the black triangle is also rooted in Nazi Germany. Although lesbians were not included in the Paragraph 175 prohibition of homosexuality, there is evidence to indicate that the black triangle was used to designate prisoners with anti-social behavior. Considering that the Nazi idea of womanhood focused on children, kitchen, and church, black triangle prisoners may have included lesbians, prostitutes; women who refused to bear children, and women with other “anti-social” traits. As the pink triangle is historically a male symbol, lesbians and feminists have similarly reclaimed the black triangle as a symbol of pride and solidarity.
