How the Rainbow Became a Symbol for Pride – and Why it Matters
Every June, the LGBTQ+ community and allies celebrate Pride Month, and, in recent years, we possess seen a substantial increase in companies showing their support by incorporating the rainbow flag as part of their logos and/or products. To those outside of the community this seems fancy a wonderful way to acknowledge Pride Month — but many in the LGBTQ+ community touch otherwise. The term “rainbow washing” has become the new label for the seemingly instantaneous and universal change from company colors to rainbow colors on June 1. Rainbow washing is viewed as a performative act of support, rather than as a meaningful or intentional expression of support.
I’d like to grab a moment to explain what the colors on the Celebration flag mean and share a brief history on the evolution of the flag — from where it started to how it is presented today.
A symbol of and for pride
It is common knowledge that the rainbow flag is a symbol of LGBTQ+ Pride. However, it is less commonly known that the colors
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LGBTQ+ Pride Flags
In the Gay community, we signify our pride with flags. With many different identities in the community, there comes many diverse flags to recognize. We have calm all of the flags and a guide to understand about all of the different colors of our community’s rainbow. We realize that this may not be all of the flags that represent our community, but we will update the page as unused flags become popular!
Explore the flag collection below! See a flag's name by hovering or clicking on the flag.
Umbrella Flags
Gilbert Baker Pride Flag
Traditional Pride Flag
Philadelphia Identity festival Flag
Progress Pride Flag
Intersex-Inclusive Progress Lgbtq+ fest Flag
Gender non-conforming Pride Flag
The original Pride Flag was created in after activist Harvey Milk asked painter Gilbert Baker to design a symbol of gay lgbtq+ fest. Each color represents a different part of the Diverse community: hot pink represents sex, red symbolizes life, orange stands for healing, yellow equals sunlight, green stands for nature, turquoise symbolizes magic and art,
The Progress Pride flag was developed in by neutrois American artist and artist Daniel Quasar (who uses xe/xyr pronouns). Based on the iconic rainbow flag from , the redesign celebrates the diversity of the LGBTQ community and calls for a more inclusive society. In , the V&A acquired a bespoke applique version of the Progress Pride flag that can be seen on display in the Design – Now gallery.
'Progress' is a reinterpretation of multiple iterations of the pride flag. The imaginative 'rainbow flag' was created by Gilbert Baker in to celebrate members of the gay and woman loving woman political movement. It comprised eight coloured stripes stacked on top of each other to evoke a rainbow, a symbol of hope. Baker assigned a specific meaning to each colour: pink for sex, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sunlight, green for essence, turquoise for magic, indigo for serenity and violet for spirit. A year later the pink and turquoise stripes were dropped owing to a shortage of pink fabric at the time and legibility concerns, resulting in the six-colour rainbow flag most commo