Trump’s pink triangle post is horrifying for LGBTQIA+ Americans

The Trump administration has been accused of sympathizing with white supremacists in multiple instances. A recent, unofficial army recruitment poster shared by Donald Trump on social media isn’t helping the narrative.

On Truth Social, Trump reposted an opinion piece from the Washington Times. The content praises Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s avoidance of featuring LGBTQIA+ identities on military recruitment ads. The article’s featured image is a poster with a pink inverted triangle crossed out.

A pink inverted triangle inside a circle is called the “safe space emblem.” It’s supposed to symbolize support for different people, regardless of their gender and sexual identity. Crossing it out implies that the Trump administration doesn’t care or, at worst, rebukes safe spaces for people who don’t identify with heteronormativity. This shouldn’t be a surprise, given that Trump—and subsequently, Hegseth—banned transgender people from joining the United States military. The president seems to be hammering down on his stance by sharing the opinion piece and its anti-LGBTQIA+ poster.

The history of the Pink Triangle

Another interpretation of the crossed-out inverted triangle recalls a bygone Nazi-era symbol. The badge coding system in Nazi Germany was used to label political prisoners of the regime in concentration camps. Pink triangles were associated with the LGBT community, particularly homosexual men. Deutsche Welle estimates that 10,000 to 15,000 gay men were placed in German concentration camps. They were sent to German camps for “immorality,” since the Nazis criminalized sexual relationships between men.

In reality, gay peoples’ identities and existence clashed with the Nazis’ push for traditional family values and stringent gender roles. As Heinrich Himmler, a principal architect of the Holocaust, said in a speech, “However, all things which take place in the sexual sphere are not the private affair of the individual, but signify the life and death of the nation.” He argued that producing more children is necessary to achieve racial domination. Himmler would later describe killing homosexual people in his speech as an “extinguishment of abnormal life.” Basically, gay people are the enemy of Germany’s quest for racial purity.

While once a symbol of oppression, the LGBTQIA+ community reclaimed the symbol in the 1970s during the rise of the gay rights movement. It’s almost an irony for the Washington Times‘ recruitment poster to cross the pink triangle out, given its historical roots. Regardless, the poster is just an illustration from an article by the Washington Times—it’s not necessarily being used to recruit people into the army. The point of contention is that Trump shared it on his official social media page.

Pete Hegseth’s war on woke

Hegseth has been determined to rebrand the United States military by attacking diversity, equity, and inclusivity (DEI) efforts in the military. This tactic is earning praise from conservative voices online. Many of them were eager to bite on a recent recruitment ad posted by Matt Walsh, which featured a supposed serviceman carrying 200-pound weights at the gym. Comments on this ad cheer the absence of LGBTQIA+ messaging. It appears that some people care more about their perceived aesthetic of what a soldier is like.

Meanwhile, both Trump and Hegseth’s efforts will reportedly remove transgender service members unless there is an exemption. These people have already fought for the country but are punished for their gender identity.