Our position
An artist working on a gay heritage code owes the people who made it a clear statement of what this is, what it is not, and how we behave. This is that statement. Last updated 18 September 2026.
What this work is
HankyFamily makes editioned contemporary artworks on the grammar of the hanky code: a colour, a position, a word. The prints are art. The pages are history and commentary. The quiz is a way of holding a colour for a minute. None of it is instruction, advice or an invitation to any act, and none of it tells anyone who they are.
Whose history it is
The hanky code was built by gay and bisexual men in the bars of the 1970s and carried by the leather and queer communities after them. It belongs to them. We are custodians of a record, not owners of it. Every historical meaning on this site is reported from a published source — Fischer 1977, Damron 1980, Townsend 1983, and the archives that hold them — and is shown as a matter of record. We do not endorse, recommend or explain any historical meaning for use, and we do not present the adult wording of the code on the public site at all: it is kept in the archive, behind an 18+ door, so the history can be told without editing it and without putting it in front of a sixteen-year-old.
The 2026 words
The HankyCode Originals — the 136 codes for who you are rather than what you want — are the studio’s own artworks, written in 2026 on the same grammar. They are marked as Originals wherever they appear. They are a continuation offered in the open, not a claim on the history and not a claim to speak for anyone.
What we will not do
We will not give medical, legal, relationship or identity advice, and we will not describe any clinical step. We will not sell to a child, appeal to a child to buy, or ask a child for data. We will not use a real person’s name, face or likeness. We will not use countdowns, scarcity claims or any language that treats a print as an investment. We will not put an act, a kink practice or the mature 1970s wording on the public domain.
The voice
The Hankyfamily on our channels is an AI-generated art construct and says so wherever it appears. It has no lived experience and never claims any. A person at the studio handles money, complaints, and anything a person should handle.
The mark and the prints
HANKY FAMILY® is a registered trade mark (UK00004351805). Every print is © Hanky Family Studio. The historical colour meanings are not ours and are not claimed. You may quote, screenshot and link with credit for review, criticism, news or study. You may not reproduce a print or the mark for sale, and you may not present anything as signed, official or affiliated when it is not.
Conduct on our channels
Comments and messages that are sexual, that harass, that target a person, or that name an act under a post young people can see are removed and the account may be blocked. We do not reply to sexual questions. We do not message under-18s. Distress is met with the Support page, never with advice.
Corrections, credit and takedown
If we have a source wrong, a name wrong, or a community would rather something were said differently, tell us at hello@hankyfamily.com. We acknowledge within two working days and correct, credit or remove within ten. Every page carries the date it was last built. We consult where we can and we say so when we have.
Where we stand
This work exists because the code deserved to be kept, shown and continued with care. If at any point the people it belongs to tell us we have that wrong, we would rather change it than defend it.