The ‘Pink Triangle’: Trump shares article featuring Nazi-era symbol used to identify gay prisoners
Why did a Trump-shared article use the Nazi-era pink triangle? We examine the symbol's history, the new military transgender ban, and the wider policy shift.
Amid a flurry of posts by Donald J. Trump on Truth Social, in which he posted, without comment, dozens of articles praising his own policies, one stood out for its attached image.
The U.S. President had linked a post to an article by conservative media outlet The Washington Times, titled “Army recruitment ads look quite different under Trump”.
The image: a bright pink inverted triangle with a red “prohibited” circle-backslash symbol on top. The prohibited triangle was all placed inside an illustrated TV set, linking it to the headline about army recruitment ads.
The article itself was an opinion piece by a person called Jeremy Hunt, in which a comparison is drawn between the army recruitment ads of the Biden term with those that have appeared on screens since January 20.
The writer said a recent ad showed a soldier in the gym “effortlessly deadlifting 500 pounds”, while a Biden-era ad showcased a female army officer marching in a pride parade.
The article argued that the change in messaging signalled to the world that the U.S. military “is serious and prepared to fight”, and told potential recruits that service “no longer means 11-week diversity, equity and inclusion training programs or lessons on climate change”.
What is the ‘Pink Triangle’?
The post came to the attention of some social media users due to the use of the upside-down pink triangle in the article’s lead picture.
Triangles were used in different colours by the Nazis during World War II to identify and categorise prisoners under different categories. The triangles would often be worn on the uniforms forced onto the victims of the Nazi regime when they were imprisoned, just as the six-pointed Star of David was on the uniforms of Jews persecuted during that time.
For example, political prisoners wore red triangles, according to the Arolsen Archives, the International Center of Nazi Persecution based in Bad Arolsen, Germany.
Emigrants — German citizens who had initially left Germany but had then returned — were identified by a blue triangle, as they were suspected of espionage.
A purple triangle was used for “bible researchers”, a category used to persecute Jehovah’s Witnesses for their refusal to join Nazi organisations or serve in the military, the archive documentation shows.
Finally, the documents seen in archives documenting Nazi Germany show that the pink triangle was used for homosexual prisoners.
The inverted pink triangle has been reclaimed in more recent decades by the LGBTQ community as a symbol of perseverance and strength.
This opinion piece outlines its use from the 1970s as a memorial to the victims of the Nazis and as a protest symbol that was used during the early years of the AIDS crisis.
It was not clear which form of the symbol was being referenced in the illustration attached to the article shared by Trump, or whether the “prohibited” symbol laid over it was a reference to the president’s new approach to diversity measures, including an executive order around LGBTQ personnel serving in the military.
Trump and LGBTQ military personnel
Donald Trump has changed the rules with regard to LGBTQ personnel in the military, but gay and lesbian candidates are still allowed to serve in the U.S. forces.
A recent executive order signed by Trump relates to service by transgender people. Under the new rules, transgender individuals would not be allowed to join the military, and the military would no longer be facilitating service members who are already in the forces to undergo gender transitions.
A memo released by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth in February said: “Effective immediately, all new accessions for individuals with a history of gender dysphoria are paused. All unscheduled, scheduled, or planned medical procedures associated with affirming or facilitating a gender transition for Service members are paused.”
Hegseth said people with gender dysphoria who are already in the military would be “treated with dignity and respect”, but no further information was given about what this might mean.
The U.S. military has approximately 1.3 million active personnel, and transgender rights groups say there may be as many as 15,000 transgender service members, according to news reports on the rule change.
Change in policies for LGBTQ Americans
This is just one of a number of policies by the new administration targeting transgender people. On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order calling for the federal government to define sex as only male or female, rejecting that people can transition from one to another, while also rejecting hard-fought classifications such as non-binary or intersex.
Passports and other official documentation would be changed to reflect the new definition of sexes, according to the executive order, while a State Department website giving information on how people could change their gender marker was taken offline, according to reporting by the Associated Press.
Transgender people’s passports would remain valid until their expiry, but upon renewal people would have to comply with the new order, a White House spokesperson was cited as saying.
In a highly publicised recent case, transgender actress Hunter Schafer, who stars in the hit HBO drama Euphoria, received her new passport listing her as male despite her previous one listing her as female.
SOURCES
Donald J. Trump. (2025). Truth Social. [online] Available at: https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114132787592380677 [Accessed 12 Mar. 2025].
Arolsen Archives. (2023). Prisoner groups in the concentration camp: How the Nazis stigmatized their victims – Arolsen Archives. [online] [Accessed 12 Mar. 2025].
Eaton, A. (2021). Opinion | Pink triangle: reclaiming a symbol of hate. [online] Washington Blade: LGBTQ News, Politics, LGBTQ Rights, Gay News. [Accessed 12 Mar. 2025].
Hunt, J. (2025). Army recruitment ads look quite different under Trump. [online] The Washington Times. [Accessed 12 Mar. 2025].
Reuters (2025). Pentagon to ban trans people from joining military, pauses gender-transition procedures. [online] NBC News. [Accessed 12 Mar. 2025].
Mulvihill, G. and Johnson, C. (2025). What to know about Trump’s order to define sexes as only male and female. [online] AP News. [Accessed 12 Mar. 2025].
Looker, R. (2025). Hunter Schafer: Trans Euphoria star says new passport lists her as male. [online] Bbc.com. [Accessed 12 Mar. 2025].
You are using an image from a left wing news organization that used the "pink triangle". Trump's army is not doing that. Your article is misleading, please do further research.