# How did the gay guys get pink as their color? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 26, 2020, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-gay-guys-get-pink-as-their-color/921565 "2020-09-26T07:07:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![razordance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e47774/32.png) [@razordance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/razordance)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2020, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-gay-guys-get-pink-as-their-color/921565/1 "2020-09-26T07:07:43Z")
Pink is every STRAIGHT guy’s favorite color! ---
**Author:** ![FinsToTheLeft](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finstotheleft/32/2930_2.png) [@FinsToTheLeft](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinsToTheLeft)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2020, 8:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-gay-guys-get-pink-as-their-color/921565/2 "2020-09-26T08:31:12Z")
Umm, [The Nazis](https://time.com/5295476/gay-pride-pink-triangle-history/)? ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2020, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-gay-guys-get-pink-as-their-color/921565/3 "2020-09-26T10:40:00Z")
The Nazis certainly solidified it. The color pink is strongly associated with femininity in American culture, so it’s a way of saying homosexual men are effeminate or “girly” - not sure how strong the association is in Europe, and I don’t know if that tied into pink Nazi triangles in the camps. ---
**Author:** ![DorkVader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/73ab20/32.png) [@DorkVader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DorkVader)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2020, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-gay-guys-get-pink-as-their-color/921565/4 "2020-09-26T14:23:06Z")
But it wasn’t always that way, useta be that blue was girly and pink was manly. Here is a [link](https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/65058/when-did-pink-become-girl-color#:~:text=Whether%20it's%20the%20deep%20tones,for%20worse%2C%20associated%20with%20femininity.&text=The%20reason%20is%20that%20pink,is%20prettier%252) to a mental floss article that talks about it. (This isn’t my original source, just the first result on google) That article isn’t exactly the same about the timeline as what I read orginally, but the main thoughts are identical. Thanks a lot capitalism, screwed up another thing for men, ya jerk! ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2020, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-gay-guys-get-pink-as-their-color/921565/5 "2020-09-26T16:12:38Z")
Cite that pink is the color of “the gay guys”. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2020, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-gay-guys-get-pink-as-their-color/921565/6 "2020-09-26T16:19:17Z")
> [@bobot](#): > > Cite that pink is the color of “the gay guys”… Yeah, I question this too. It’s certainly a color that’s used to _label_ gay men, I’m far less sure that it’s seen as any kind of symbolic identifier by gay men themselves? ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2020, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-gay-guys-get-pink-as-their-color/921565/7 "2020-09-26T19:30:04Z")
> [@DorkVader](#): > > But it wasn’t always that way, useta be that blue was girly and pink was manly Cecil’s take on this blue/pink for children. [https://www.straightdope.com/21343917/was-pink-originally-the-color-for-boys-and-blue-for-girls](https://www.straightdope.com/21343917/was-pink-originally-the-color-for-boys-and-blue-for-girls) ---
**Author:** ![Celyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9dc877/32.png) [@Celyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Celyn)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2020, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-gay-guys-get-pink-as-their-color/921565/8 "2020-09-27T00:33:45Z")
In the UK, there has long been a newspaper for gay people named “The Pink Paper”. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2020, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-gay-guys-get-pink-as-their-color/921565/9 "2020-09-27T04:59:52Z")
Pink has been our color for ages, long before the Nazis. Lavender too. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2020, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-gay-guys-get-pink-as-their-color/921565/10 "2020-09-27T05:37:09Z")
In Thailand, each day of the week has its own color, and Tuesday’s is pink. This is why Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok has pink as its school color, because King Chulalongkorn, whom the school was named after, was born on a Tuesday. (I was born on a Tuesday too, so pink is also my color.) ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2020, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-gay-guys-get-pink-as-their-color/921565/11 "2020-09-27T05:42:49Z")
> [@Celyn](#): > > In the UK, there has long been a newspaper for gay people named “The Pink Paper”. “Long been…”? It only started in 1987, and ended as a newspaper in 2009 (lasted 3 more years as online only). That’s hardly long ago. And it’s 50+ years after the Nazi’s solidified the association with pink triangles for gays in their death camps. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2020, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-gay-guys-get-pink-as-their-color/921565/12 "2020-09-27T06:19:05Z")
The first thing “pink” reminds me of is a certain cartoon cat and Henry Mancini music. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2020, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-gay-guys-get-pink-as-their-color/921565/13 "2020-09-27T12:00:30Z")
> [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](#): > > “Long been…”? It only started in 1987, and ended as a newspaper in 2009 (lasted 3 more years as online only). That’s hardly long ago. > > And it’s 50+ years after the Nazi’s solidified the association with pink triangles for gays in their death camps. The much more famous “pink paper” is the Financial Times, which has very few gay connotations. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2020, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-gay-guys-get-pink-as-their-color/921565/14 "2020-09-27T12:27:25Z")
What you call pink in English takes its name from a variety of carnation and was first used as a name for a color relatively late in the 17th Century. Something similar happened with orange three centuries before, btw. when it substituted the word saffron for the same colour. But other laguages tend to use another flower for what you call pink in English: the rose. French: rose, rosé and rosâtre; Spanish: rosa, rosado, or color de rosa (= colour of the rose); Portugese: cor-de-rosa, rosa, rosado, rosáceo; Italian: rosa; Dutch: roze; Swedish and Norwegian: rosa; Hungarian: rózsaszín; Polish: różowy. What Germans call pink would be a subset of your pink, a very bright, somewhat blue-ish pink. It probably entered the German language as an English loan word with the Pink Panther cartoons`[citation needed]`. Spanish does not have a word for this hue, it is aggregated under _rosa_ (and the Pink Panther is called La Pantera Rosa). The colour assotiated with gays stems from yet another flower: the lilac. At least in Spanish, Italian (also: finoccio, fennel), German and French, if my memory serves me right. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2020, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-gay-guys-get-pink-as-their-color/921565/15 "2020-09-27T13:12:35Z")
> [@razordance](#): > > Pink is every STRAIGHT guy’s favorite color! Says the guy who thinks he’s straight… … I’ve always wondered why we have names for primary and secondary colors… and then a name for only ONE “tint” of a color. We don’t have a universally-used, common name for Light Blue or Light Yellow… but we have PINK as a common label for Light Red. Oh, and, no one says “Oh, that carnation is such a beautiful Light Red”; if you did someone would say "Huh? You mean _pink?"_ ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2020, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-gay-guys-get-pink-as-their-color/921565/16 "2020-09-27T13:18:31Z")
Other languages have names for other “tints”. Spanish has celeste, for instance, for light blue, like the sky (cielo = sky). You could see gray as light black (or dark white?). And beige as light brown. Do not think pink is the only one, not even in English. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2020, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-gay-guys-get-pink-as-their-color/921565/17 "2020-09-27T14:34:01Z")
Aquamarine, taupe, maroon, cyan, magenta, navy are all tints that spring directly to mind. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2020, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-gay-guys-get-pink-as-their-color/921565/18 "2020-09-27T15:02:38Z")
“Lavender” was already used in this very thread. Violet is similarly used. And lilac. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2020, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-gay-guys-get-pink-as-their-color/921565/19 "2020-09-27T15:16:45Z")
Mr Pink: “Why can’t we pick our own colors?” ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2020, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-gay-guys-get-pink-as-their-color/921565/20 "2020-09-27T15:30:20Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > The much more famous “pink paper” is the Financial Times, which has very few gay connotations. Those British bankers are pretty fabulous, you have to admit. 😉 [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-gay-guys-get-pink-as-their-color/921565.md?page=2)