San Francisco's giant Pink Triangle lights up Twin Peaks for Pride Month

More than 800 volunteers climbed Twin Peaks to lay out 175 pink tarps, restoring the giant Pink Triangle for its 31st year. The nearly acre-wide display, visible for miles on a clear day, returned as San Francisco opened Pride Month with a ritual that now carries a sharper sense of urgency.

The triangle’s meaning has always been bound up with survival. It traces back to Nazi concentration camps, where a downward-pointing pink triangle was used to identify and persecute gay men. In the 1970s, gay rights activists reclaimed the shape as a symbol of liberation, and in the 1980s it was turned upward alongside the slogan “Silence Equals Death” during the AIDS crisis. That history gave the Twin Peaks installation a significance far beyond a seasonal decoration.

Friends of the Pink Triangle has placed the symbol on Twin Peaks during Pride Parade weekend since 1995, turning a hillside above the city into one of San Francisco’s most visible markers of LGBTQ resistance. Organizers say it is the only Pink Triangle installation of this scale serving as a centerpiece for Pride celebrations, and that it has been maintained for more than three decades.

At the site, Sister Roma of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence helped frame the triangle as a beacon for the community during Pride kickoff events. Patrick Carney, founder and producer of The Pink Triangle, said its history shows “how a symbol of hate was transformed into one of pride, resilience and strength.” The message resonated with attendees who linked this year’s observance to current political anxieties, including proposed budget cuts to HIV health services.

The installation was completed Saturday morning, followed by a public dedication ceremony at 10:30 a.m. on Twin Peaks. From there, the city’s Pride kickoff continued across San Francisco, with Mayor Daniel Lurie raising the Pride flag at City Hall. The triangle is expected to remain up through late June, including Pride weekend, when SF Pride is set to fill Civic Center Plaza on June 27 and 28.

For San Francisco, the Pink Triangle remains what it has become over three decades on Twin Peaks, a familiar sight that still speaks to loss, resistance and the insistence on being seen.