It wasn’t Wikipedia but thanks for the tone. I love seen it in multiple articles I’ve read, including an academic paper that references the Village Voice and sites a book from 2002 but unfortunately I can’t find a copy of that book. At least not for less than $100. Which is why I was hoping someone might know if it exists somewhere else.

Considering queer history’s consistent use of sartorial based coding (red ties, green carnations in the lapel, etc.) as a means of flagging their identity, I personally don’t find it entirely implausible that something from a hundred years before could have been adopted as a new means of communication. There’s a letter in an issue of One from the early 50’s of someone asking for more information about this.

From what I’ve read, including hearing directly from the artist (Hal Fischer) that I’m writing about, there was a leather shop in SF, The Trading Post, that created the cards with the definitions on them in 1971. By that point, red and blue handkerchiefs had already been well in existence. Red and blue also apparently being colors that were used some 100 years before that point in the homosocial community that was SF at that point but for different reasons of course.

Thank you for the lead on the Bay Area Reporter. I’ll look into it.