The rainbow flag or pride flag is a symbol of LGBT pride and LGBT social movements. The colors reflect the diversity of the LGBT community and the spectrum of human sexuality and gender. Using a rainbow flag as a symbol of LGBT pride began in San Francisco, California, but eventually became common at LGBT rights events worldwide.
Originally devised by the artists Gilbert Baker, Lynn Segerblom, James McNamara and other activists, the design underwent several revisions after its debut in 1978, and continues to inspire variations. Although Baker’s original rainbow flag had eight colors, from 1979 to the present day the most common variant consists of six stripes: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. The flag is typically displayed horizontally, with the red stripe on top, as it would be in a natural rainbow.
LGBT people and allies currently use rainbow flags and many rainbow-themed items and color schemes as an outward symbol of their identity or support. There are derivations of the rainbow flag that are used to focus attention on specific causes or groups within the community (e.g. transgender people, fighting the AIDS epidemic, inclusion of LGBT people of color). In addition to the rainbow, many other flags and symbols are used to communicate specific identities within the LGBT community.
Variations:
Original Gilbert Baker Design
Inspired by the lyrics of Judy Garland’s Over the Rainbow, and the designs used by other social movements such as black civil rights groups from the 1960s, the Rainbow Flag was created. Baker hand-dyed and hand sewed this flag which flew at the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day in June 1978.
Seven-color version due to unavailability of pink fabric
Following the assassination of Harvey Milk in 1978, many people and organisations adopted the Pride flag that he helped to introduce to the community. The demand was so great for a rainbow striped flag, it was impossible for the 8-stripe design to be made in large quantities. Both Paramount and Baker struggled to obtain the hot pink fabric and so began manufacturing a 7-stripe version.
Traditional Gay Pride Flag
In 1979 the design was amended again. The community finalised this six-colour version and this is now the most familiar and recognisable design for the LGBT flag. Numerous complications over the odd number of stripes, including the desire to split the flag to decorate Pride parades, meant that one colour had to be dropped.
The turquoise and indigo stripes were combined to create a royal blue stripe and it was agreed that the flag should typically be flown horizontally, with red at the top, as it would be in a natural rainbow. This design continued to increase in popularity around the world, being a focal point of landmark decisions such as John Stout fighting for his right to fly the flag from his apartment balcony in 1989.
Progress Pride Flag
In June 2018, designer and activist Daniel Quasar released an updated version of the Pride flag. Combining the new elements of the Philadelphia design and the Transgender flag to bring focus on further inclusion and progress. This new flag added a chevron to the hoist of the traditional 6-colour flag which represents marginalised LGBTQ+ communities of colour, those living with HIV/AIDS and those who’ve been lost, and trans and non-binary persons.
This design went viral and was quickly adopted by people and pride parades across the world. The arrow of the chevron points to the right to show forward movement, while being on the left edge shows that progress still needs to be made for full equality, especially for the communities the chevron represents.
Intersex Inclusive Progress Pride Flag
In 2021, Valentino Vecchietti of Intersex Equality Rights UK adapted the Pride Progress flag design to incorporate the intersex flag, creating the Intersex-Inclusive Pride flag 2021.
The intersex community uses the colours purple and yellow as an intentional counterpoint to blue and pink, which have traditionally been seen as binary, gendered colours. The symbol of the circle represents the concept of being unbroken and being whole, symbolising the right of Intersex people to make decisions about their own bodies.
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Theory:
Can someone who knows about the history of chemical dyes comment on this?
It sounds implausible that the world (or even regional) supply of hot pink fabric was decimated by a few gay flag sewers. And why not just use regular pink which is not hard at all?
Is there something about how hot pink is created that provides credibility to this?
This would have been like fifty years ago, right? Things were basically medieval. Big box stores weren’t really a thing yet. If you ordered something you had to call someone at the company, which you had to look up in a phone book, and tell them the item numbers you wanted to order, which you looked up in a catalgoue, and then send them a check or something, and then maybe it would show up in a month or two, but there was no tracking so who knows? Longer if it had to come from overseas.
I mean people had ways of getting things before amazon.com.
Here is a thread of people nostalgiating about fabric stores: https://www.quiltingboard.com/main-f1/good-old-days-remembering-old-fabric-shops-t133050.html I certainly bought fabric from brick n mortar locations and it is still the preferred method in a lot of situations.
A fabric store, especially one in a textile/garment district, would have been able to do special orders of cloth or dye. They would have had networks of suppliers large and small to call upon. It somewhat strains belief particularly that gays would have been unable to obtain any given solid color of fabric given their longstanding ties to fashion industry. Another group, maybe. But come on.
Unless there is something specific about this color, at this moment in history, to explain it. I looked up briefly the history of pink dye and all I found was what I already understood to be the case: pink is a particularly easy color to obtain.