First LGBT Pride Flag

The final LGBT artifact that I would like to discuss is the first LGBT pride flag. The original gay pride flag was created by Gilbert Baker in 1978. Baker was an openly gay artist and activist (Prisco 1.) When Baker was 27 years old, he had sewed the first gay pride flag by hand. The flag ended up being 30x60 feet (Prisco 1.) The flag was first flown at the United Nations Plaza for Gay Pride Day in San Francisco on June 25th 1978. Gilbert unfortunately passed away at age 65 on March 31, 2017 leaving behind a legacy and a flag that is now incredibly meaningful to the LGBT community.

The pride flag originally had eight colors, while today’s version that you would see anywhere only has six. In an article called “Rainbow Flag” by Linda Rapp, she states “In Gilbert's original design, each of the eight colors represented a concept. Hot pink stood for sexuality, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for the sun, green for nature, turquoise for art, indigo for harmony, and violet for spirit” (Rapp 1.) Today’s pride flag does not have pink or turquoise and indigo has been replaced with blue. The colors had been taken out due to lack of materials and production purpose after the flag had started being mass produced. Rapp explains this when she says, “Demand for rainbow flags made it necessary to find a source of mass production. The Paramount Flag Company of San Francisco undertook the job in 1979. Before commercial production began, lack of availability of materials and cost considerations caused a change in the design of the flag” (Rapp 1.) Gilbert Baker’s creation had spread like wildfire amongst the LGBT community, causing him to become one of the most influential LGBT individuals.

A subject that has widely surrounded the LGBT community for decades is the AIDS crisis. In another part of “Rainbow Flag,” Rapp talks about how “AIDS activist Leonard Matlovich proposed adding a black stripe to the bottom of the flag to symbolize the AIDS crisis. He intended that the black stripes should be removed from the flags and burned when a cure for AIDS is found. His suggestion, however, has not been widely adopted” (Rapp 1.) Every once in a while you will see a black stripe on a pride flag. Occasionally, you will even see a brown stripe on some pride flags. The brown stripes represent the issues that LGBT people of color deal with inside and outside of the LGBT community.

The gay pride flag being flown in certain places has always caused controversy, typically among religious people and conservatives. Rapp provides examples of this in her article when she states “The rainbow flag has sometimes been flown at government buildings. In June, 1999, for example, it was raised at city halls in San Francisco and Worcester, Massachusetts. The display in Worcester drew a citizen complaint at a city council meeting. Mayor Raymond V. Mariano, who called the complainant's remarks "the most obvious example of hate and bigotry" that he had heard in almost two decades on the council, and all the other councilors decided to keep the flag aloft. In the same month, a rainbow flag was displayed on the grounds of the Statehouse in Columbus, Ohio, in conjunction with a gay pride march. Charles Spingola, a street preacher, and Toni Peters, the daughter of a Baptist minister, tore down and burned the flag, for which both were convicted of criminal damaging” (Rapp 2.) Even today the flag being flown causes controversy, which was not all Gilbert Baker’s intention. Some people think that just because LGBT people are not treated as badly today as in the past that pride flags do not need to be flown. Some people even think that pride flags are unnecessary in the first place and that being gay is not something you need to be proud of. Baker created the flag knowing that not everyone would respect it, but he knew that the LGBT community needed a symbol and something to celebrate their hardships.

While LGBT individuals do face discrimination when it comes to the pride flag being flown, there are a plethora of positive aspects that LGBT individuals experience when the flag is flown. In an article called “Decolonising the Rainbow Flag” by Pia Laskar, Anna Johansson and Diana Mulinari, the authors convey “To hoist the rainbow flag on official flagpoles should therefore be an important symbolic act showing that the municipality stood openly behind the rights of all LGBT individuals” (Laskar 197.) Flying or putting up the gay pride flag shows the LGBT community that they are accepted, welcome, safe and even celebrated wherever the flag is being hung or flown. This was Gilbert Baker’s ultimate goal when creating the pride flag, to create a flag that made people feel like they were wanted and valid. Baker’s intention was not to say that LGBT people are better than cisgender heterosexuals, but simply to create a space where LGBT people feel like they are recognized and protected.

In conclusion, Gilbert Baker has created an extremely meaningful artifact for the LGBT community and is one of the most influential people to the LGBT community. He has provided the LGBT community with a flag that represents love, freedom and so many other positive characteristics. It is a symbol of power for the community, not power over anyone else but power for all LGBT individuals. Whether or not people agree with where the flag should be flown or if the flag should be flown at all, Baker’s legacy will always remain and be remembered through the pride flag.

Prisco, Jacopo. "A colorful history of the rainbow flag." CNN, 7 June 2019, https://www.cnn.com/style/article/pride-rainbow-flag-design-history/index.html.

Rapp, Linda. "Rainbow flag." GLBTQ Arts, 2005, pp. 1-4. Google Scholar.

Anna Johansson, Diana Mulinari and Laskar, Pia. "Decolonising the rainbow flag." Culture unbound: Journal of current cultural research, vol. 8, no. 3, 2017, pp. 192-217.