Online Curation Dives Into Iconic LGBTQ Tees

The LGBTQ community has a long history of using art to express its political and cultural views, and T-shirts have been a popular medium for this expression. In June, the Inker Pride Diversity Council at Custom Ink, an online retail company that makes custom tees, published a list of the 75 most iconic LGBTQ T-shirts.

The list includes a number of shirts with ties to San Francisco, including a shirt from the National Lawyers Guild San Francisco’s 1979 convention, a shirt from The Basket and the Bow gathering for Native American LGBTQ people in 1988, a shirt from the San Francisco-based GAPA, and a shirt from Harvey Milk’s campaign for San Francisco supervisor.

Two shirts relating to Proposition 8, the ballot measure banning same-sex marriage that Golden State voters adopted in 2008, also made the list. One shirt is from the NOH8 campaign, which featured photos of celebrities and political leaders with duct tape over their mouths as a symbol of their voices in support of marriage equality being silenced.

The number one shirt on the list is a shirt that features the slogan “Sounds Gay. I’m In.” The image featured comes from a shirt made by Lettershoppe.com. It is unclear who originated the saying and was first to put it on a T-shirt, but the Inker Pride Diversity Council believes that the shirt is an example of how the LGBTQ community is reclaiming the word “gay” as a positive.

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The list of 75 most iconic LGBTQ T-shirts is a celebration of the LGBTQ community’s history and culture, and it is a reminder of the important role that T-shirts have played in the LGBTQ community’s fight for equality.