Pride flags
Introduction
With all the recent controversy in Qatar over gay flags, armbands, and rainbow hats, it started my mind thinking about the origins of the rainbow flag and its modern-day derivatives.
Origins of the Gay Flags
An early symbol that was used by the gay rights movements was a Pink triangle, the origin of this comes from a very dark historical background.
During the Second World War Nazis used to sew Pink triangles on to the uniforms of gay concentration camp inmates . This was similar to Jews being forced to wear yellow stars.
The pink triangle was reclamed by homosexual community in the 1970s as a symbol of overcoming persecution.
The early Rainbow Pride Flag
Harvey Milk an influential gay rights activist challenged Gilbert Baker to come up with a flag to represent gay pride and the community. "we need something beautify, something from us" Gilbert a gay artist and drag queen first design had 8 stripes, with each colour having a different meaning. in his words "Our job as gay people was to come out, to be visible, to live in the truth, as I say, to get out of the lie. A flag really fit that mission, because that's a way of proclaiming your visibility or saying, this is who I am. "
Colour meanings:-
Violet:- Spirit
Indigo :- Serenity & Harmony
Turquoise :- Magic and Art
Green :- Nature
Yellow :- Sun
Orange :- Healing
Red :- Life
and Pink :- for Sexuality
This first flag debuted at San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade on 25th June 1978
Evolution
Later on, in 1978 Harvey Milk was assassinated, This led to an increased demand for Rainbow flags. When the paramount flag company was approved for mass production of the flag, but because of the lack of availability of the vibrant pink colours this colour was dropped from the Flag
1979 saw another change. where the 7 colours went down to 6. (removing the turquoise blue) this would allow the even splitting of the flag on to lamp posts on opposite sides of the parade. 3 colours on each side.
In 1994, the rainbow became a more established as a symbol for LGBQT+ people. Gilbert made a mile-long version of the flag for the 25th anniversary of the Stonewall riots in 2017, He added a lavender stripe to the top of his original flag, this was to symbolizing diversity and brought the total number of stripes to nine.
Gilber passed away in March of 2017, so this was his last contribution that he made to the Pride flag. Other alterations have been made to the original flag. later in 2017 the city of Philadelphia added black and brown stripes to classic flag, representing people of color in the LGBQT+ community.
2018 update
Daniel Quasar is a designer from the Northwest of America; He took the old pride flag and gave it a reboot / Refresh.
Daniel who identifies as nonbinary, redesigned the flag in 2018 so that it would be more inclusive. The Existing 6 Stripes were added to with the Chevron along the hoist side of the flag this represents moving forwards with LGBQT+ rights.
The chevron is made up of 5 New Colours Black and Brown Stripes to represent the LGBQT+ Communities of Colour.
The White Blue and Pink from the Trans Community
The new flags known as (Progress Pride Flag) was part of a Crowdfunding campaign in 2021 to fund manufacture and distribution. With cities like Sydney voting to replace the Rainbow Pride flag with the New one and others Like New York Boston and Portland flying it.
The Bear Flag
From research, there are loads of other flags that represent sub cultures the LGBQT+ community. Of course, I’m going to talk about the one I associate with. The Bear Flag or “International Bear Brotherhood Flag”. The flags colours are said to represent the colours of fur in the Bear Animals.
The Flag was designed in 1995 by Craig Bynes, He created the flag after doing a senior project at college. The project revolved around the emerging bear subculture at the time, and he thought of a way to identify one another in the bear community.
In the summer 1995, there was a competition held by the Chesapeake Bay bears. Craig's design was up against three others designs and won to become the representation for the bear community.
Other LGBQT+ Flags
Transgender; Bisexual; Lesbian; Pansexual; Intersex; Asexual; Non-binary; Gender-Fluid; Polysexual; Polyamory; Genderqueer; Demisexual; Twink; Rubber; Leather; Straight Ally;