There is some debate as to whether Baker really was the first person to come up with the idea of a rainbow flag to express queerness. We needed something that expressed our beauty, our soul, our love - that came from us and wasn’t put on us.” "I remember in 1980 or 1981, putting a rainbow flag on my dorm room door, and only the queers understood what I was doing. “The triangle came from a very negative, terrible place. “Until we had a flag, the symbol for our movement was the pink triangle, which was put on us by Hitler and the Nazis,” Baker told Refinery29 in 2015, two years before he passed away. Baker instead created the rainbow flag to represent diversity and harmony.īaker knew the symbol for pride had to be the rainbow. Back then, the common visual association for LGBTQ+ communities was the pink triangle, a symbol the Nazis had used to signal people’s sexuality.
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But why do rainbows represent the queer community? When did that association begin? Where Does The Rainbow Flag Come From?Īccording to the History Channel, Harvey Milk, one of the country’s first openly gay elected officials, commissioned artist Gilbert Baker to create the first rainbow flag for San Francisco’s Gay Freedom Day Parade. I still love rainbows, and I love even more that rainbows are a symbol of LGBTQ+ pride.
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I also remember feeling frustrated that rainbows were associated with any sexuality - I just wanted to wear my Contempo Casuals special in peace. In the end, it would turn out that I am bisexual, but at the time, I hadn't even begun to consider my sexuality and I just really loved that shirt. I had no idea they were associated with LGBTQ+ communities until the day I was wearing my favorite rainbow baby tee (RIP) and some girl waltzed up to me and announced, " Rainbows are gay!" Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.When I was in seventh grade, I was obsessed with rainbows. Window.FB.Event.subscribe('xfbml.render', function() (document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')) The New York Pride Parade is one of the largest and most well-known parades to take place, with over 2 million people estimated to have taken part in 2019. In May 2019, Donald Trump recognized Pride Month with a tweet announcing that his administration had launched a global campaign to decriminalize homosexuality, although critics have noted that actions speak louder than words. Then, from 2009 to 2016, Barack Obama declared June LGBT Pride Month. President to officially recognize Pride Month in 19. Sadly, Harvey Milk was assassinated along with Mayor George Moscone on November 23, 1978, in San Francisco City Hall by Dan White, a disgruntled former supervisor who was angry at Milk for lobbying against having him reappointed on the Board of Supervisors.īill Clinton was the first U.S.
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Speaking of the rainbow flag, it was actually gay politician Harvey Milk who asked a talented designer friend, Gilbert Baker, to design an all-encompassing symbol to take to San Francisco’s Pride March in 1978. This eventually morphed into what we now know as the New York City Pride March and was the catalyst for the formation of similar parades and marches across the world. Known as ‘The Mother of Pride,’ Brenda organized Gay Pride Week and the Christopher Street Liberation Day Parade a year after the Stonewall Riots. Pride Month is largely credited as being started by bisexual activist Brenda Howard. The message was clear - protestors demanded the establishment of places where LGBT+ people could go and be open about their sexual orientation without fear of arrest. Johnson, leading the movement to continue over six days with protests and clashes. Among the many leaders of the riots was a black, trans, bisexual woman, Marsha P. On a hot summer’s night in New York on June 28, 1969, police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay club in Greenwich Village, which resulted in bar patrons, staff, and neighborhood residents rioting onto Christopher Street outside.