Beyond The Chador Regional Dress From Iran
10. Breaking the rules
Cross-dressing (sometimes called transvestism), when a person of one gender wears dress assigned to another gender, has historically been allowed under certain circumstances. These circumstances may be religious. In parts of India today, male devotees wear women’s clothing to honour female deities in certain Hindu temple ceremonies (click here). Cross-dressing was and continues to be allowed in other popular religious-based festivals, such as Carnival, Mardi Gras, and Purim. Cross dressing is allowed, too, as entertainment (e.g., male actors played women in Elizabethan English theatre and in Japanese kabuki). At the same time ,cross-dressing was and is often viewed with suspicion and unease (for a short history of cross dressing around the time of the playwright William Shakespeare, click here).
One of the earliest laws in the US against cross dressing appeared in 1848, when the city of Columbus, Ohio, made it illegal for anyone to appear in public ‘in a dress not belonging to his or her sex’. This law was not overturned until 1974 (see Arresting Dress: Cross-Dressing, Law, and Fascination in Nineteenth-Century San Francisco, by Claire Sears, 2015, Durham: Duke University Press.). In the following decades after Columbus over forty US cities issued comparable laws.
The motivation behind this law may not have been policing gender, but rather to prevent deception. Some historians speculate that the spate of American laws following the Columbus regulation was designed to stop Civil War-era (1860-1865) male military deserters escaping detection by posing as women.
As mentioned earlier, during the 1950s-60s, police in New York and other American cities enforced a “three-item rule” which targeted people wearing the ‘wrong’ gender clothing. In order to avoid arrest for public disguise or impersonation, a person had to wear three items of gender appropriate clothing. Lesbians who wore men’s clothing in public were particular targets of the “three-item rule”, but so too were gay men, transgender people and unlucky heterosexual party-goers.
9. “Murdered for her way of dressing”
A recent (24 June 2019) BBC report from Chile talks about camionas, a slang term for lesbians who wear short hair and ‘masculine’ clothes, such as baggy jeans, checked shirts and baseball caps. In a particular district in Chile, camionas have been physically assaulted. Three butch lesbians, including Nicole Saavedra Bahamondes, have been murdered and others attacked in the district.
"I think Nicole was murdered for being a lesbian, for her way of dressing," said a cousin of Nicole in the report. "Because she dressed in a more masculine way."
"Camionas do not want to identify with typically feminine styles imposed on women through a male gaze," said a Chilean activist in the report. "The clothing is a big part of that. It's a way to recognise each other in the street. In the lesbian community, camionas are our courageous sisters who, despite lesbophobia, dare to show their lesbianism" (click here).
8. Codes, clothes and cross-dressing
Dress is a symbol of identity. Dress influences both the wearer’s self-image and how others see them. What we choose to wear sends a message to others of how to perceive us. Our clothes reflect our aspirations as to social status, age and occupation. Most crucially, what we wear reflects our gender identity (for more information click here).
Many cultures recognize three or more genders. Depending on the culture and the individual, third gender people might identify themselves as male, female, both, neither—or anywhere in between. Examples of third (or more) gender people include fa’afafine (Samoa); warias (Indonesia); hijra or kinnar (India); nadleehi (Navajo); xanith (Oman); and the mashoga (Kenya) (see also here or here).
Although often used interchangeably, gender and sex mean different things. Gender refers to cultural ideals, expectations and roles about how men and women, boys and girls, should dress, look and act. Gender changes from culture to culture and over time, as ideas about masculinity and femininity change. Sex, on the other hand, refers to female and male biological characteristics, such as reproductive organs, sex chromosomes and hormones, which do not change from culture to culture.
Dress is closely linked to social norms. These include gender and sexual identity, but also social status. Wearing the ‘wrong’ clothing upsets the social order and can be seen as subversive, or an attempt to usurp, imitate, or mock those with power or privilege. Wearing the clothes of the ‘wrong’ gender can be seen as especially threatening to social control and contrary to the natural order. Allowing such a threat can potentially provoke divine retribution. This thinking may be the origin of religious prohibitions such as those found in the Bible (Deuteronomy 22:5), which states: “A woman must not wear men’s clothing, nor a man wear women’s clothing…”
As dress is so crucial to identity, who can wear which form of dress has often been closely regulated throughout history. Both religious and sumptuary laws restricted the use of certain clothing, colours and materials to different social groups, and punished those who violated such restrictions. Violating written or unwritten laws about dress and gender can have serious consequences. Today, in many places, lesbian women who wear masculine clothing (sometimes referred to as ‘butch’ lesbians), gay men who wear feminine clothing and trans people are subjected to bullying, harassment and physical attacks. The choice of what to wear can be life-threatening.
7. Multiple Identities
Many objects in the TRC’s LGBTQ+ collection reflect and celebrate the multiple identities of contemporary LGBTQ+ people. Textiles donated by long-time activist and university lecturer Walt Kilroy illustrate this intersection. The pink cotton T-shirt (TRC 2019.1992) from the Irish lesbian and gay choir Glória (see illustration) has a large stylized shamrock on its back, along with the machine embroidered words “Various Voices Dublin”. While the pink refers to a gay identity, the shamrock has been associated with Irish identity since the late sixteenth century. This version of the choir’s many T-shirts was worn at the Various Voices LGBT International Choral Festival, hosted in Dublin (Ireland) in 2014 (For more on the Dublin-based choir, click here; for more on the shamrock as a symbol of Irish identity, click here).
A white cotton T-shirt from the 2000 Dublin Pride celebration (TRC 2019.1993), which features a printed logo of a rainbow circle with a spiral, Celtic-like motif, likewise symbolises a coming together of different identities.
A white cotton T-shirt from the 2000 Dublin Pride celebration. TRC Collection (TRC 2019.1993). For more information, click on the illustration.
Religious identity is also important for many LGBTQ+ people, who may sport a rainbow coloured Sikh turban to a rainbow decorated Christian stole. The TRC collection also includes two kippahs, the traditional skullcap worn by religious Jews. The cotton, crocheted caps, one white (TRC 2019.1607), the other black (TRC 2019.1608), both feature a rainbow coloured edge around the bottom. “I just am a queer Jew living in Israel and have plenty of Jewish queer friends, some more observant and some less so,” writes Elam B., founder of the online business 2QueerJews, which sells the kippahs. “I always thought the options for combining Jewish identity with queer identity were lacking. Most rainbow kippahs I saw were either handmade, or really ugly, so I wanted to create better options for queer Jews to symbolise their identity, while also helping me and my friends make a living.”
6. The pink triangle
The most commonly recognized image for gay and lesbian movements in the 1970s, however, had a darker history. This image was the pink triangle. Today the pink triangle is a widespread symbol of LGBTQ+ pride. It is seen on everything from buttons to sweatshirts, such as the pink sweatshirt with blue collar and cuffs from the Dublin-based LGBTQ+ choir Glória (TRC 2019.1991, early 21st century, Ireland).
The pink triangle originated in Nazi concentration camps, where color-coded triangles were sewn on to prisoners’ uniforms as identification. Jews wore yellow triangles, while political prisoners (including socialists, social democrats, trade unionists and others) wore a red triangle. Gay male prisoners wore a pink triangle. Male homosexuality, illegal in Germany under a 1871 law known as Paragraph 175, was seen as a threat by Nazi leaders.
In 1987 the first monument to commemorate the homosexual victims of the Third Reich was dedicated in Amsterdam. It is in the form of pink triangles. Photo: S. Anderson, 2019.The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) estimates that 100,000 men were arrested during the Nazi regime for violating Paragraph 175, and that between 5,000 to 15,000 men were sent to concentration camps for homosexuality. In camps prisoners with pink triangles were segregated, for fear homosexuality was contagious, and faced threats such as sexual violence, castration and medical experimentation (e.g, being injected with testosterone to test if this could ‘cure’ homosexuality).
Gay survivors of concentration camps were neither commemorated nor given compensation after the war. Some gay camp survivors were jailed after liberation, as homosexuality was still illegal. Paragraph 175 was only repealed in 1994. USHMM textile conservator Lizou Fenyvesi, who has worked on some 250 camp uniforms for the Museum, speculates that one reason uniforms with pink triangles are so rare, was because of the shame associated with, and the continued criminalization of, homosexuality (see Reading Prisoner Uniforms: The Concentration Camp Prisoner Uniform as a Primary Source for Historical Research by Lizou Fenyvesi, 2006, University of Nebraska-Lincoln 2006, click here).
Lesbians, as women, were viewed by the Nazi regime as lesser threats and as potential wives and mothers. While lesbian publications and bars were shut down, the number of lesbians sent to camps is unknown. In concentration camps, lesbians were identified by a black triangle, a category assigned to ‘asocial’ people such as thieves, the homeless, murderers and prostitutes. In 1940 the Jewish lesbian Henny Schermann was arrested and sent to the women’s concentration camp Ravensbrück. The back of her prisoner photo reads: "Jenny (sic) Sara Schermann, born February 19, 1912, Frankfurt am Main. Unmarried shop girl in Frankfurt am Main. Licentious lesbian, only visited such [lesbian] bars. Avoided the name 'Sara.' Stateless Jew." Henny Schermann was murdered by gas in 1942.
In 1972, The Men with the Pink Triangle, written by Heinz Heger, was published in German. It was the biography of survivor Josef Kohout (1915-1994) and one of the first published accounts of a gay concentration camp survivor. In 1973 Germany’s first post-war gay rights organization, Homosexuelle Aktion Westberlin (HAW), adopted the pink triangle as a symbol.
In 1986, six New York City activists used a pink, upward facing triangle in a poster with the words “SILENCE = DEATH”. The poster protested the inaction and fear around the AIDS crisis in the USA. The design was quickly adopted and spread by the activist group ACT UP. Since then the pink triangle has become an international symbol for LGBTQ+ liberation, replicated on clothes, badges, jewellery, T-shirts and art work (click here).
5. Lambda and Labrys
In the 1970s, a number of symbols were adopted by gay and lesbian activists to show a new-found pride. Such symbols helped to identify each other and to create a sense of community and solidarity. These symbols were used in organisations’ names and on posters and publications. The symbols were displayed on badges, which were produced and distributed cheaply and quickly, and easily worn. The symbols were also reproduced on T-shirts and jewellery, affordable objects often made by gay and lesbian entrepreneurs. Community groups and projects also sold such garments and accessories in order to raise funding.
These symbols included the lowercase lambda (the 11th letter in the modern Greek alphabet). Graphic designer, Tom Doerr, selected this symbol for the New York chapter of the Gay Activists Alliance in 1970. The lambda denotes action in chemistry and physics and was chosen to represent “a commitment among men and women to achieve and defend their human rights as homosexual citizens.” Many LGBTQ+ organizations, from civil rights groups to literary foundations, still use this symbol, both in their name and in logos.
Silver earring in shape of labrys. Peru. TRC Collection (TRC 2019.1617). For more information, click on the illustration.Interlocked or double signs for the female sex (from the astrological symbol for Venus) were worn by lesbians (see TRC 2019.1629), while the double sign for the male sex (from the astrological symbol for Mars) was used by gay men.
Another symbol adopted by Western lesbians around this time was the labrys, or double axe (TRC 2019.1617). This image was associated with the (presumed) goddess-worshipping Minoan culture of ancient Crete, and with the Amazons, tribes of women warriors mentioned in the Iliad and by the Greek historian, Herodotus.
Lesbians wore labrys images to signify pride in their independence and a willingness to fight for their rights. The image helped to create a shared sense of continuity with an imagined past history.
Mosaic of Amazon with double headed axe, 4th century CE, Turkey. Now in the Louvre (AGER MA 3457). Photo: S. Anderson
4. Blue for me, pink for you
It is worth noting that the colours pink and blue have only been ‘traditional’ for girls and boys in Western countries since the 1930s-50s. A popular American women’s magazine (USA) called Ladies' Home Journal reported in a June 1918 article that, "The generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl." Major clothing stores in US cities also advised parents to buy pink clothing for boys (quoted in Pink and Blue: Telling the Girls From the Boys in America, by Jo B. Paoletti, 2013, Bloomington: Indiana University Press).
The appropriate colour for a gender to wear is changeable and culturally determined, like gender roles themselves.
Like the colours pink and blue for trans people, the colour purple has been adopted by many bisexuals as a marker of identity. The bisexual pride flag, with pink, purple and blue stripes, was designed in 1990 by Michael Page to increase bisexual visibility. "The pink color represents sexual attraction to the same sex only (gay and lesbian). The blue represents sexual attraction to the opposite sex only (straight) and the resultant overlap color purple represents sexual attraction to both (bi)…. The key to understanding the symbolism of the Bisexual pride flag is to know that the purple pixels of color blend unnoticeably into both the pink and blue, just as in the 'real world,' where bi people blend unnoticeably into both the gay/lesbian and straight communities" (click here).
A variety of garments and accessories such as footwear, hats and jewellery have been produced in these different colours to express different identities.
Different colours of the hanky code, used in flagging. 2019, the Netherlands. TRC Collection (TRC 2019.1999-2001). For more information, click on the illustration.A different sort of flag also involves colours. Flagging, also called the hanky code, involves wearing a coloured handkerchief (or neck bandana, or, more recently, fingernail polish) to signal what specific sex act the wearer wants. The handkerchief (the colours range from different shades of red to pink, blue or green to yellow) is worn in the left pocket or the right. The side indicates whether the wearer wants to be passive or active during sex. Flagging was popular in gay bars and cruising areas in the 1970s, when homosexuality was criminalized and discretion was necessary in order to avoid police arrest or harassment. Flagging’s origin is uncertain, though some historians think it dates to at least the late 1840s or mid-1850s. There are reports that heterosexuals have adopted the practice of flagging.
3. Rainbow colours
From the red and black sarong of a Karen woman, signifying that she is married, to the yellow only worn by China’s imperial rulers, colour in clothing has always carried meaning. Colours can show membership of a certain group and convey a political view, like the yellow jackets of France’s gilets jaunes or the black clothes of the USA’s Black Panther Party. “Throughout history, colour has been used as a tool of self-expression and peaceful protest,” Hannah Craggs, senior colour editor at the WGSN trend-forecasting agency, said in a recent interview (TeenVogue, May 2019, click here).
Crosswalk in northern Dutch town of Alkmaar, painted in support of LGBTQ+ equality.
Rainbow colours were everywhere during 2019’s fiftieth anniversary celebrations. Today the six-striped rainbow flag is an internationally recognized symbol of LGBTQ+ rights. The flag is waved during Pride parades, while its rainbow colours are printed on T-shirts and trainers, and painted on city streets to show support for LGBTQ+ communities. A special 2019 Pride T-shirt was designed with rainbow colours by design duo Viktor & Rolf for the Dutch department store chain HEMA. The footwear and apparel company Converse produced a limited edition sneaker featuring rainbow coloured laces and soles, with “special-edition Pride patches” and “colours inspired by rainbow and transgender flags”.
The rainbow flag was designed in 1978 by the American artist, Gilbert Baker (1951--2017), for San Francisco’s (USA) Gay and Lesbian Freedom Day Parade. “We needed something to express our joy, our beauty, our power. And the rainbow did that,” Baker later explained. He dyed and hand sewed together a 30 x 60 foot (approximately 9.14 x 18.28 metre) flag of eight colours, and assigned a meaning to each colour: pink (sex), red (life), orange (healing), yellow (sunshine), green (nature), turquoise (magic), blue (harmony) and purple (spirit).
Commemorative 2019 Pride T-shirt created by the Dutch design duo Viktor & Rolf for the popular department store chain HEMA, with the slogan “Love is for Everyone” in rainbow colours (Netherlands). TRC Collection (TRC 2019.1994). For more information, click on the illustration.Demand for the flag was high by the following year’s 1979 Freedom Day Parade. Baker asked the Paramount Flag Company of San Francisco to mass produce the flag. The dye for pink was difficult to obtain, so that colour was dropped. Organizers wanted an even number of stripes, so the flag could be split and hung vertically as a banner, so turquoise was also dropped. The result was today’s six striped flag. The flag is still evolving. In 2019, Pride Parade organisers in Manchester (UK) added black and brown stripes to the rainbow flag, to be more inclusive of people of colour (click here).
Other flags followed suit. A flag for transgender pride was designed in 1999 by American trans woman Monica Helms. She explained the design: "The stripes at the top and bottom are light blue, the traditional colour for baby boys. The stripes next to them are pink, the traditional colour for baby girls. The stripe in the middle is white, for those who are intersex, transitioning or consider themselves having a neutral or undefined gender. The pattern is such that no matter which way you fly it, it is always correct, signifying us finding correctness in our lives."
2. What does LGBTQ+ Mean?
The term LGBTQ+ refers to a wide range of gender identities and sexual orientations. L stands for lesbian, women who are primarily attracted to other women. G refers to gay, or men who are attracted to other men (throughout the 1960s and earlier, gay was slang for any homosexual, whether a man or a woman). B stands for bisexual, people who are attracted to both women and men. T refers to transgender, people who were assigned one gender at birth but who identify as a different gender. Q stands for queer, once an insult for homosexuals but now an accepted and inclusive term that covers many different identities. Q also refers to questioning, for people who are exploring or questioning their gender and/or sexual identity.
Rainbow flags on Zeedijk, Amsterdam. Photo: S. AndersonThe terms LGBTQIA and LGBTQIAP+ are also used. The I refers to intersex, people whose biological sex is difficult or impossible to determine at birth; it may also refer to inquiring, someone who is exploring their sexual and gender identities. A refers to asexual; and P to pansexual.
Some people prefer another term: LGBQT2. The 2 refers to two-spirit (one person with both a masculine and feminine spirit), a word used first in the late 1980s by North American Indian activists to describe Native lesbians and gays (click here and, for more more nuanced explanation, here).
Sometimes the words “non-binary”, “gender fluid” and/or “gender-nonconforming” are added to these terms, in order to include people who do not identify with or who feel restricted by mainstream ideas about gender. The term LGBTQ+ has been chosen for simplicity’s sake in this digital exhibition, with the plus sign symbolizing inclusivity.
1. The beginning
The year 2019 marked fifty years since the modern movement for the human rights of LGBTQ+ people began. This movement was kick started by a police raid on a gay bar called The Stonewall Inn in New York City (USA) in 1969. Such raids, along with beatings, blackmail and imprisonment, were not unusual for LGBTQ+ people at the time.
Dress played an important role in the uprising, as police tried to enforce the “three-item rule”: to avoid arrest for impersonation, a person had to wear three items of gender appropriate clothing. During the raid a lesbian dressed in men’s clothing was dragged by police from the bar. She reportedly shouted at the crowd gathering outside, “Why don’t you guys do something?”
The crowd, which included drag queens, transgender sex workers and homeless gay youth, erupted. The police barricaded themselves inside the bar, to be rescued hours later by more police and a fire brigade. For several days, crowds of up to a thousand people gathered in the neighbourhood and fought the police. It was a turning point and a very public declaration that LGBTQ+ people would no longer tolerate unequal treatment.
In the aftermath of Stonewall, community groups were organized and committees formed. The following year (1970), on the anniversary of Stonewall, small marches were held in three US cities (New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago) to call for gay liberation.
Since 1970 thousands of Pride marches and parades have taken place around the world, from São Paulo to Entebbe, Tokyo to Tel Aviv. Much has changed since Stonewall (for more information, click here or here). Same-sex marriages are now legal in 28 countries (the Netherlands was the first country in the world to legalize same-sex marriages in 2001).
Approximately seventy countries have decriminalized homosexuality, including Botswana in 2019. The human rights of transgender people are increasingly recognized. In 2014, for example, India’s Supreme Court ruled that "It is the right of every human being to choose their gender," and recognized transgender and intersex people as a third gender.
The area around The Stonewall Inn in New York is now an official US National Monument, in recognition of its importance to LGBTQ+ history. Commemorations to celebrate Stonewall’s 50th anniversary, such as the World Pride Parade in New York City, were organized around the globe.
Grey cotton T-shirt with slogan “Gay rights are human rights”, with official Hillary Clinton presidential campaign logo. USA, 2016 (TRC 2016.1914.) For more information, click on the illustration.
Sign in gay tourist information stand Amsterdam. Photo S. Anderson
