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. The rainbow flag is usually a flag that represents gay pride, and sometimes it. 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. A rainbow flag with six colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. 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. In some groups the purple is changed to black as a sign of mourning by community members who have died of AIDS. During the Holocaust, Nazis forced gay men to wear pink triangles as a symbol of sexual deviance. Finally, the 6 colors of the LGBT flag that we all know: red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. 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.
1.The longest rainbow pride flag ever, in Key West in 2003.Īndy Newman/Florida Keys News Bureau/Getty Images Flags are, after all, meant to be flown - loudly and proudly! Below, we’ll walk you through the origin, meaning and colors of 21 LGBTQ flags, from the original pride flag to new pride flags flown today, so that you can understand which identity each flag celebrates. Although the symbolic use of bright colors has long been connected to queer culture, these flags, fittingly, are a highly visible, widerspread signal of queer identity compared to some of the slightly more covert LGBTQ+ symbols that preceded them. Today, there are dozens of LGBTQ+ flags representing just as many gender identities, sexualities and intersections of communities. Much like the communities they represent, these flags are in a constant state of evolution, expanding to better and more inclusively encompass every queer identity under the rainbow. Ever since the first rainbow-hued LGBTQ flag was created in 1978, pride flags have been a colorful symbol of queer identity.