In July 2021, in an Instagram story the artist, Gray Wielebinski, mused “Still thinking about how fucking bizarre it was when they tried to rebrand supporting the NHS/essential workers with the rainbow flag here last summer for no reason except so homophobic/transphobic people could put rainbows up without shame anymore.” Guillaume Vandame, “symbols” (2019-2021), Leadenhall Market, on display for the 10th edition of Sculpture in the City, London (photograph: Nick Turpin, courtesy the artist) The rainbow enamel pins that had been used by doctors and nurses to suggest alliance with the gay community were now just an inane form of self-promotion. This is clearly not the case, as we saw with Peter Blake’s iconic pop design.
One friend suggested that the difference was that the rainbows supporting the NHS were handmade but the rainbows for the gay community were mechanical. However, in the midst of the pandemic, the rainbow suddenly became a symbol for the NHS in the United Kingdom and the association it once had with the gay community quickly dissipated. The rainbow also relates to gender identity, discrimination based on this identity, and the general stigma around homosexuality that regards it as something taboo and debased. It readily appears as a queer symbol even when it is not in its original format and functions as a stand-in for all these original core values, as well as the continued pursuit of human rights and equality, in terms of issues such as the decriminalization of homosexuality, the age of consent, and the right to get married and adopt children. In recent art history, the rainbow has appeared frequently in the contemporary art of Rob Pruitt, Jonathan Horowitz, Ugo Rondinone, Polly Apfelbaum, David McDiarmid, among other artists, as a symbol for the LGBTQIA+ community. Does that make the original Pride flag outdated? It seems like the Pride flag changes just as quickly as the latest smartphone.
#WHY IS THE GAY PRIDE SYMBOL A RAINBOE PLUS#
A new and somewhat controversial version appeared in Philadelphia in 2017 with black and brown stripes to represent people of color, then an updated Progress Pride flag by Daniel Quasar in 2018 included these stripes, plus the colors of the Trans Pride flag, and now there is a third version, made by Valentino Vecchietti in June 2021, riffing on Quasar’s version with the addition of the Intersex Pride flag designed by Morgan Carpenter in 2013. Some might say it has been overproduced and lost its meaning even within the gay community. As Pride points out, a plethora of other flags were designed to represent different groups within the LGBTQIA+ community.Since that time, the Pride flag has become the basic model for numerous flags representing the spectrum of identifications via gender, sexuality, and fetish.
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Today, there are even more pride flags out there. Here are the meanings behind the colors in the current pride flag: The blue that replaced the indigo now symbolizes harmony. Baker dropped yet another stripe, which resulted in the six-stripe version of the flag we use most often today-red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. According to Baker's estate, that was because when it was hung vertically from the lamp posts of San Francisco's Market Street, the center stripe (turquoise) was obscured by the similarly-colored lamp post itself.
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As excerpted on the website for his estate, Gilbert's memoir, Rainbow Warrior, includes his memory of deciding to make the rainbow flag: The trio encouraged Baker to create a positive emblem for the LGBTQIA+ community.īaker agreed and he looked to his community for inspiration, specifically those dancing at San Francisco's music venue Winterland Ballroom one night. In the late '70s, Baker was living in San Francisco when he met writer Cleve Jones, filmmaker Artie Bressan, and rising activist Harvey Milk. The First Rainbow FlagĮnter: Gilbert Baker, the man who would create the first rainbow pride flag. Still, activists recognized the need for a more empowering symbol.
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"Gay people wear the pink triangle today as a reminder of the past and a pledge that history will not repeat itself," read one 1977 letter to the editor in Time. In the late 1970s, the pink triangle was somewhat reclaimed by the gay community. Throughout the Holocaust, the Nazis forced those whom they labeled as gay to wear inverted pink triangle badges, just as they forced Jewish people to wear a yellow Star of David. This triangle, however, had a loaded, anti-gay history. Before the rainbow pride flag was created, there was another symbol for the LGBTQIA+ community: a pink triangle.