We Are Everywhere badge

This badge was designed by Ian Scott within a pink triangle, one of the key symbols of the modern gay rights movement. The pink triangle was ued as a badge in Nazi concentration camps during the Second World War (1939-45) to identify men convicted for what was considered sexual deviance, including homosexuality. It was reclaimed by the gay rights movement after the Stonewall Riots in New York in 1969 as a symbol of empowerment, and for some, a symbol of remembrance for those who suffered during the war.

In this localised version, a map of New Zealand has been added to the triangle with the slogan ‘We Are Everywhere’. This badge was part of a late 1970s campaign to normalise being gay in New Zealand - badges, t-shirts and letterhead were all printed with the logo. It aligned with the National Gay Rights Coalition's 1978 election advertising which stated that one in eight New Zealand adults was homosexual.*

Political badges were popular in the 1970s and 1980s when the gay liberation movement was strong. They capture important moments in LGBTQI+ social and political life. Badges like this 'once lived over someone's beating heart, proudly proclaiming a point of view, an identity, an alliance with a cause'.**

*Guy, L., 2002, Worlds in Collision: The Gay Debate in New Zealand, 1960-1986, Victoria University Press, Wellington, p. 106.

**Hermes, K.A., 2019, Political Buttons, in Queer Objects, ed. Brickell, C. and Collard, J., Otago University Press, Dunedin, p. 314.