While most of us are most familiar with the six-color version of the rainbow flag, there are dozens of variations and other flags now used to represent different communities. The resulting six-color flag is now the most common version of the LGBTQ+ flag. Production issues involving the availability of certain dye colors led to the removal of pink and turquoise, and indigo was changed to a more common blue color. Originally, each flag was hand sewn and dyed, but as demand grew, they had to shift to mass production. In its original design, each of the eight stripes had a specific meaning: Milk and others sought a new symbol for LGBTQ+ communities that focused on inspiration rather than oppression Previously, LGBTQ+ communities had commonly used a downward pointing pink triangle as their symbol, a reference to the World War II Nazi practice of using pink triangles to identify gay men in concentration camps. Created by Gilbert Baker at the request of San Francisco City Supervisor Harvey Milk for the 1978 San Francisco Gay Freedom Day parade. The rainbow flag itself was first adopted in 1978 as an eight horizontal stripe rainbow colored flag. In 1999, Pride Month gained official national recognition by President Bill Clinton who declared June to be “Gay & Lesbian Pride Month.” LGBTQ+ Pride Month has become an annual occurrence each June commemorating the violent events at the Stonewall Inn.
By the 1980s and 1990s, the tenor for many of these events had shifted from protests to celebrations of pride and acceptance. Shortly after the Stonewall Riots in June 1969, pride marches and demonstrations were being organized in cities throughout the United States. Let’s explore the history of LGBT Pride Month and the meaning behind the LGBTQ+ Pride Flag - and its many iterations. Most of us know these flags are representative of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer pride, and that June is LGBTQ+ Pride Month, but how many of us know what those flags represent - and why there seems to be so many variations.
The white stripe completes the full sexual spectrum and also symbolises peace and union.Every June, whether it’s on television or social media, whether you’re walking down the street or visiting your favorite establishment, rainbow flags can be seen everywhere. It surfaced on 12 February 2018 at the Love Fest carnival in São Paulo. A 9-striped flag, based on the original 8-striped one, has a white stripe in the middle. Several variants of the rainbow flag have been introduced and flown at “Pride Parades” since then. The flag now has (from the top) red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet and their closest Pantone® values are 185 C, 1375 C, 101 C, 356 C, 2736 C and 2415 C, respectively. The indigo (#400098) and turquoise (#00C0C0) from the original flag were merged into one blue stripe and hot pink (#FF69B6) was removed. The present day LGBTQ+ Pride Flag has only 6 colors which are placed in equal-sized horizontal stripes. This flag had 8 stripes (from the top) – hot pink, red, orange, yellow, green, turquoise, indigo and violet which represented sex, life, healing, sunlight, nature, magic/art, serenity and spirit, respectively. The original flag was designed by Gilbert Baker and was flown for the first time on 25 June 1978 at the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade. However, this was soon done away with because of the dark history associated with the symbol – it was used by the German fascist rule of the early 20 th century to segregate homosexuals. Further expansion has led to the inclusion of queer and the community which is now LGBTQ.īefore the LGBTQ rainbow flag came into existence, the community used a pink triangle symbol as their identity. It has been used since the 1990s and replaces the term ‘gay’, which on its own, did not describe the community correctly. LGBT stands for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender.