June 18. I probably should have put this one earlier in the month, but there are a thousand different ideas for posts that I have been considering, and I hadn't felt like doing this one until now. But, it's here. So, history of the Pride Flag. All of the flags themselves are from the HRC link below.
So, it probably will surprise no one that the Rainbow Flag came from San Francisco. Gilbert Baker was the one to design it, but it was either at the direction of or inspired by Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in the history of California. Milk asked for a symbol of Gay Pride and it was Baker that decided on a flag because he thought it was a powerful statement, then he chose the rainbow because he saw it as a natural flag.
What might surprise you is that he actually had a pink stripe on the flag too, and a turquoise alongside the darker blue. The colors weren't just random though, because he applied meaning to them, letting them represent parts of the LGBTQ+ culture.
Pink=Sex
Red=Life
Orange=Healing
Yellow=Sunlight
Green=Serenity and Nature
Turquoise=Art
Indigo= Harmony
Violet=Spirit
Strangely, no one has a listing for what the other blue is, other than the GBLT history link below, which gave us this slightly different list:
The pink stripe got cut because of color shortages, and the turquoise got traded for a single blue stripe because the odd number of stripes somehow complicated things for some people, and the indigo/violet were combined. That's how we got the flag we all know and like.
After the assassination of Harvey Milk a few months after the introduction of the flag in June of 1978, the flag became really popular and started spreading across the country,
After spreading, as you know, the Pride Flag shifted to become about 30 different things including gender identities instead of just sexual orientation, and possibly even just some kinks. They try to include everyone, so when new options are presented, new flags are made for them.
Philadelphia added black/tan to their flag to add acceptance to people of color, who haven't always felt welcome in the LGBTQ+ community.
In 2018, Daniel Quasar from Portland, Oregon, mixed those and the trans flag colors to create a 'Progress' flag that accepted trans and colored people too.
In 2021, that got updated to include intersex people.
In the future, I have no doubt that there will be a bunch of new flags for a bunch of new options, or for old options that come back into our global culture. I look forward to seeing them. I like that people are becoming more accepting and less intolerant. Let's hope this trend continues.
Sources:
Flagmakers of UK-- History of the Pride Flag
Long Beach Current-- The Evolution of the Pride Flag
Austin Texas-- Pride Flag Update
LA county Department of Mental Health-- A brief history of the pride flag
Encyclopedia Britannica-- How the Pride Flag became a symbol of Pride
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