We’re celebrating actual positive change in people’s lives. With this colorful, joyous flag, we’re not just celebrating abstract symbols and ideas. I am an immigrant in this country, and thanks to that ruling, which led to a modification of federal immigration policies, I was eventually granted permanent residency in the United States. That same day, the Museum of Modern Art in New York installed in its foyer the flag, which had entered the design collection a couple of weeks earlier. On June 26, 2015, while I was working at my desk at the Getty Research Institute, the US Supreme Court decided that the Fourteenth Amendment required all States of the Union to recognize same-sex marriages. I want to finish this brief introduction on a personal note.
Like many songs that have become anthems in our community, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” is about the hope and longing for a future “where troubles melt like lemon drops,” about overcoming all obstacles and becoming stronger and happier in the process. It has also been suggested that the rainbow was chosen as a reference to Judy Garland, a beloved intergenerational gay icon who first recorded the Academy Award-winning song “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” (from The Wizard of Oz). (The artist, by the way, would sometimes dress in drag and adopt the name Busty Ross in honor of Betsy Ross, the upholsterer from Philadelphia who’s credited with making the first American flag.) Gilbert recounted on several occasions that the idea of making a flag came about during the United States’ bicentennial celebrations of 1976, when the stars and stripes were embraced as a symbol of national unity. Starting at least from the 18th century, different versions of the rainbow flag have been used to symbolize different identities, beliefs, and struggles, such as Andean indigenous cultures, Buddhism, and the Peace Movement, to name a few.
#New gay men flag plus#
The particular version of the flag we decided to honor here includes the eight original colors (which stand for sexuality, life, healing, light, nature, magic, serenity, and spirit), plus brown and black, meant to symbolize the value of diversity and inclusion of all people.Īs is the case with many effective symbols and great works of art, the rainbow flag was not born out of a single person’s stroke of genius, and its pole is firmly driven into several layers of history and popular culture. The SILENCE = DEATH campaign during the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s drove home the idea that when you say nothing, you’re complicit. Pride, as we know it today, grew out of the June 1969 Stonewall uprisings led by activists of color Marsha P. Over the decades, it has become the most prominent symbol of Pride and equal rights advocacy for all people identifying as LGBTQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and everybody else in an expansive community, including our straight allies).Īs the concept of representation by the flag broadened over time, so its colors and their meaning changed: from the eight-stripe version of 1978, down to the most common six-stripe one, developed for practical reasons having to do with the availability of the colored fabric, up again to ten stripes.Īs the Black community currently fights for equality and justice, we honor the people of color who are part of our LGBTQ+ community. The rainbow flag was designed by a group of volunteers led by artist and activist Gilbert Baker at the Gay Community Center in San Francisco, and first waved in the sky at the Gay and Lesbian Freedom Day Parade on June 25, 1978. 1.By Ludovic Bertron from New York City, Usa – CC BY 2.0, Link 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.