The original gay pride flags flew at the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade celebration on June 25, 1978. In 1974, Baker met Harvey Milk, an influential gay leader, who later challenged Baker to devise a symbol of pride for the gay community. After an honorable discharge, Baker taught himself to sew. Gilbert Baker, born in 1951 and raised in Parsons, Kansas, had served in the US Army between 19. Six-color version popular since 1979, with royal blue replacing both turquoise and indigo.
In addition to the rainbow, many other flags and symbols are used to communicate specific identities within the LGBT community. LGBT individuals and allies currently use rainbow flags and many rainbow-themed items and color schemes as an outward symbol of their identity or support. The flag is typically flown horizontally, with the red stripe on top, as it would be in a natural rainbow. Baker's first rainbow flag had eight colors, though the most common variant consists of six stripes: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. Originally devised by artist Gilbert Baker, the design has undergone several revisions since its debut in 1978, first to remove colors then restore them based on availability of fabrics. Using a rainbow flag as a symbol of gay pride began in San Francisco, but eventually became common at LGBT rights events worldwide. Also known as the gay pride flag or LGBT pride flag, the colors reflect the diversity of the LGBT community and the spectrum of human sexuality and gender. Designed for one parade in 1978, it's now one of the most recognized symbols in the world.The rainbow flag is a symbol of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender ( LGBT) and queer pride and LGBT social movements. The LGBT pride version of the flag designed by Gilbert Baker has become the most famous of the rainbow flags. And in Peru and Bolivia, the rainbow "Flag of Cusco" is a symbol of the indigenous Inca people. The Jewish Autonomous Oblast based in Birobidzhan, a sort of satellite government of Russia located on the Chinese border in Birobidzhan, uses a rainbow flag as its own symbol. In Italy, it's used as a symbol of peace, often with the word "PACE" written in white across the flag's stripes. In 2001, one version added a black stripe for AIDs awareness.Īside from LGBT pride, rainbow flags have other historic and political meanings that persist today. One version unfurled in Philadelphia this year added black and brown, for racial inclusivity. The flag has been modified in different places at different times. The White House illuminated in rainbow colors after 2015's Supreme Court ruling legalizing gay marriage.
Judy Garland, the star of "The Wizard of Oz," has a large following as a gay symbol, and is famous for singing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" in the movie. The rainbow also has some pop culture significance for the LGBT community.
The rainbow is so perfect because it really fits our diversity in terms of race, gender, ages, all of those things." We needed something beautiful, something from us. It came from such a horrible place of murder and holocaust and Hitler.
"It was necessary to have the Rainbow Flag because up until that we had the pink triangle from the Nazis - it was the symbol that they would use. The rainbow flag was a way of taking these various colors and turning them into a coherent symbol, reclaimed by the LGBT community. During the Holocaust, Nazis forced gay men to wear pink triangles as a symbol of sexual deviance. Oscar Wilde wore a green carnation, and yellow served the same purpose in Australia, and purple provided that function in some communities in the United States. I realized I would have to make some compromises in order for this to really function as a symbol."Ĭloseted gay people have also historically used bright colors to signal their homosexuality to each other, as Forrest Wickman wrote in Slate. "Even to do four-color printing for photographs like this was complicated. " One of the reasons I had to adapt the eight-color version to the six-color version of the flag - the one we use today - is because in 1978 eight colors was expensive," Baker told the Museum of Modern Art. The longest rainbow pride flag ever, in Key West in 2003.Īndy Newman/Florida Keys News Bureau/Getty Images