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The rainbow flag or pride flag (formerly gay 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 ...
- Overview
- History of the Pride Flag
- What the Colors of the Pride Flag Mean
- What Do the Colors in the New Pride Flag Mean?
- Reception of the New Pride Flag
- Why the Pride Flag Is Important
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Previously, you may have noticed that the LGBTQIA+ pride flag displayed every June for Pride month was a simple red-to-violet rainbow, but a new and slightly different flag has been flying in its place in the last couple of years. This new flag is called the Intersex-Inclusive Progress Pride Flag, created by Valentino Vecchietti of Intersex Equality Rights UK in 2021. It is an update to the previous Progress Pride Flag created in 2018 by Daniel Quasar.
What do the colors of the new pride flag mean? Why does the new design have some of the colors placed in a different shape rather than in a line like before? How are people responding to this new design?
This article will answer these questions to help you understand what the new flag currently looks like and where this design is headed.
The original pride flag was created in the 1970s by gay activist Gilbert Baker, friend of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California. Baker used eight colors and corresponding meanings: hot pink for sexuality, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for the sun, green for nature, turquoise for art, indigo fo...
Red
The red in the flag represents life. This makes sense if you think about how blood is red and how often blood is thought of as a vital life force of the body. Red also represents passion among many cultures. And, passion is ideally where life originates from.
Orange
Orange represents healing. As a color, orange is believed to be a fun and celebratory color. Fun and celebration are both healing activities.
Yellow
If you guessed that yellow represented sunlight, you would be correct. The color yellow functions as the flag's radiant and bright center. The color yellow is said to stimulate new ideas and thoughts.
The Progress Pride Flag was created with the inspiration of other pride flags—specifically, the Philadelphia Pride Flag from 2017 and the trans flag.
The Philadelphia Pride Flag had black and brown vertical stripes added. The trans flag, created in 1999, is pink, baby blue, and white. Both of these flags inspired the design of the new pride flag.
When the Progress Pride Flag was released, it immediately went viral. People hailed it both for being inclusive and for clearly showing that we have made progress and that we have more strides to make.
Though the Progress Pride Flag has not completely replaced the old six-color rainbow flag, it has taken over in many spaces. Where the rainbow flag gives a message of supporting LGBTQIA+ people, the Progress Pride Flag offers the message of supporting all of them.
The new flag pays homage to the people who founded the movement while simultaneously drawing attention to how POC and trans people remain underserved and discriminated against compared to White, cis queer people.
What Does Gender Nonconforming Mean?
The pride flag serves as a symbol of the LGBTQIA+ community. It is a visual reminder of the struggles and oppression that people in the community have faced and continue to face, but, it's also a sign of hope.
People have displayed the flag outside of their homes or business to signal to others in the community that they have a safe space to enter.
The widespread use of the pride flag allows LGBTQIA+ individuals to connect with each other and feel included regardless of their location. No matter where you are or how you identify, the rainbow colors are meant to signify that you are included, welcome, and safe as part of the LGBTQIA+ community.
2 Sources
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1.Human Rights Campaign. LGBTQ+ Pride Flags.
Pride flags can represent various sexual orientations, romantic orientations, gender identities, subcultures, and regional purposes, as well as the LGBT community as a whole. There are also some pride flags that are not exclusively related to LGBT matters, such as the flag for leather subculture. The rainbow flag, which represents the entire ...
May 12, 2021 · Three years later, Milk challenges Baker to create a symbol for the gay community, and the end product is the first rainbow LGBTQ flag. Each of the eight colors had a meaning: Pink: Sex. Red: Life ...
- Elizabeth Yuko
Jun 13, 2023 · The Abrosexual Flag, with stripes in shades of green, white, and pink, is believed to have been created around 2015, as a symbol for those whose sexuality is fluid. The modern Gay Men's Pride Flag ...
- christianna.silva@mashable.com
- Senior Culture Reporter
Aug 21, 2023 · The flag utilizes the six stripe pride flag as the backdrop with a black circle encompassing a raised fist with six stripes in various shades of brown and white to represent the range of human ...
It goes back to 1978, when the artist Gilbert Baker, an openly gay man and a drag queen, designed the first rainbow flag. Baker later revealed that he was urged by Harvey Milk, one of the first openly gay elected officials in the U.S., to create a symbol of pride for the gay community. Baker decided to make that symbol a flag because he saw ...
