The flag later dropped the indigo and turquoise stripes for a parade protesting the assassination of Harvey Milk, and replaced the with a single strip of royal blue. The flag’s first evolution was when it lost its pink stripe, for purely practical reasons: “The hot pink stripe was dropped because when went to mass produce the flags, the material wasn't available,” Erica Smith M.Ed., a queer sexuality educator based in Philadelphia who specializes in LGBTQ+ issues, tells Bustle. Per The New York Times, the colors in Baker’s original flag had the following meanings: hot pink for sexuality red for life orange for healing yellow for sunlight green for nature blue for art indigo for harmony or serenity and violet for the human spirit. With the help of his roommate, gay rights activist Cleve Jones, and others, Baker also designed and created an American flag with rainbow stripes instead of the usual red, white and blue, and both flew over the 1978 Pride parade, Refinery29 reports.Įach of the hues of the rainbow stand for a different aspect of LGBTQ+ Pride. The OG rainbow flag was dyed and sewn by hand, and featured hot pink at the top and two shades of blue, instead of just one. Oliver Byunggyu Woo / EyeEm/EyeEm/Getty Images By ’85 or ’86, everyone knew.” How The Rainbow Pride Flag Has Changed Over Time “I remember in 1980 or 1981, putting a rainbow flag on my dorm room door, and only the queers understood what I was doing.
One thing is for sure: After being displayed at the 1978 San Fransisco Pride, it quickly became the major symbol for LGBTQ+ culture, Katz says. “ "who say copied it from others,” says Katz.
He was insistent that it was his.” What’s more, Baker didn’t get any direct financial gain out of it - he actually fought to keep it free for public use, per the ACLU. “ is the one who has been credited with it,” Jonathan David Katz, Ph.D., an associate professor of Global Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of Buffalo, tells Bustle. There is some debate as to whether Baker really was the first person to come up with the idea of a rainbow flag to express queerness. We needed something that expressed our beauty, our soul, our love - that came from us and wasn’t put on us.” "I remember in 1980 or 1981, putting a rainbow flag on my dorm room door, and only the queers understood what I was doing. “The triangle came from a very negative, terrible place. “Until we had a flag, the symbol for our movement was the pink triangle, which was put on us by Hitler and the Nazis,” Baker told Refinery29 in 2015, two years before he passed away. Baker instead created the rainbow flag to represent diversity and harmony.īaker knew the symbol for pride had to be the rainbow.
Back then, the common visual association for LGBTQ+ communities was the pink triangle, a symbol the Nazis had used to signal people’s sexuality. But why do rainbows represent the queer community? When did that association begin? Where Does The Rainbow Flag Come From?Īccording to the History Channel, Harvey Milk, one of the country’s first openly gay elected officials, commissioned artist Gilbert Baker to create the first rainbow flag for San Francisco’s Gay Freedom Day Parade. I still love rainbows, and I love even more that rainbows are a symbol of LGBTQ+ pride. I also remember feeling frustrated that rainbows were associated with any sexuality - I just wanted to wear my Contempo Casuals special in peace. In the end, it would turn out that I am bisexual, but at the time, I hadn't even begun to consider my sexuality and I just really loved that shirt. I had no idea they were associated with LGBTQ+ communities until the day I was wearing my favorite rainbow baby tee (RIP) and some girl waltzed up to me and announced, " Rainbows are gay!" When I was in seventh grade, I was obsessed with rainbows.