The History Behind The Pride Flag
Did you know that the original Pride flag had eight different colors on it? In today’s episode, we are going to be learning about the Pride flag and how it came to be the symbol of a movement and one of the most recognized symbols in the world. We will discuss the creator of the flag, some of his background, the pride flags over time, and some of my own analysis in the symbolism of the flag and its meaning to the LGBTQ+ community and movement.
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📕 TABLE OF CONTENTS 📕
00:00 Closeted History Podcast Intro
00:34 Introduction
01:29 Gilbert Baker: The Flagmaker
05:45 Creating The Rainbow Flag
10:07 Symbolism and The Pride Flag
12:01 Pride Flags Over Time
14:32 Conclusion
📚 Resources Mentioned In the Show
The Original Pride Flag: https://www.glbthistory.org/rainbow-flag
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Hi, welcome to Closeted History! Your number #1 spot to learn the Queer and Trans history you never knew! To learn more, check out our website ➡️ [www.closetedhistory.com] Wanna work with us? Check out our media kit ➡️ https://beacons.ai/closetedhistory/mediakit
My name is Destiny (she/they) and I am the creator behind the podcast. Educator, creative, and fellow LG(B)T(Q)+ community member.
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Full Transcript
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Hey everyone, this is Destiny Clarke from "Discovered with Destiny," and you're listening to Closeted History: LGBTQ+ Stories in the Past, the show where together we out the queer history you never knew. It's all about education, learning, and making the LGBTQ+ stories of the past that have previously been hidden from our society more accessible for everyone.
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Hey there! I am so glad you're here. How are you doing? Thanks so much for coming back for Season One, Episode Three of Closeted History: LGBTQ+ Stories of the Past. If this is your first time tuning in, welcome! And I hope that you stick around to learn more LGBTQ+ history with me. I'm your host, Destiny Clark. My pronouns are she/her. And let's get learning!
In today's episode, for the very last week of Pride Month, we're going to be learning about the pride flag and how it came to be the symbol of a movement and one of the most recognized symbols in the world. We will discuss the creator of the flag, some of his background, the pride flags over time, and some of my own analysis on the symbolism of the flag and its meaning to the LGBTQ+ community and the movement.
So, let's start with the flag's creator, Gilbert Baker, known as the gay Betsy Ross. He was a drag queen, activist, and LGBTQ+ icon. One of his most important titles was flag maker, which is actually called a vexillographer. I didn't know that word before, by the way, but he makes flags and banners for all kinds of things, but most notably, he made the rainbow flag in June of 1978.
So, a little background about him: he was born on June 2nd, 1951, in a rural town in Kansas. His mother was an educator, and his father was a judge and lawyer. He had an outgoing and creative personality, and he found comfort in creating art as a young child. He wanted to be an artist but was heavily discouraged by his parents, and after graduating from high school, he went to college for a year but then was drafted by the Army in 1970.
As he began his experience with the military, he was harassed and threatened with dishonorable discharge because of his sexual orientation. Remember that it was not uncommon for people in the military to be discharged for this because of the discriminatory practices towards the LGBTQ+ community from the federal government. The Lavender Scare happened in the 1950s and '60s, but it definitely had lingering effects on the ability to be out in the military. So, he was mistreated by many of his officers, and one day, after feeling fed up with the threats and intimidation, he refused to carry a weapon and demanded a discharge as a conscientious objector. His colonel was pissed, accused him of treason, but his staff sergeant talked to Baker in his office and suggested that he become a medic instead. So that's what he did, and he did really well in his classes and later on became a nurse.
But before nursing, he worked as a medic and met another soldier named Jim. Get out the tissue because this is such a sad and sweet love story. So Jim and Gilbert lived in the same barrack, and they worked in the same facility. They became friends and explored the city together. They went out to the forests, the beaches, and other neighborhoods around their station. They ended up falling in love with one another, but Jim was afraid of being caught. So, when they finished their nursing programs, they were actually sent to separate hospitals. Jim went to Okinawa, and Baker was stationed there in San Francisco. When asked about the experience, Gilbert says, "I dreamed about him every night. A while later, I heard from a friend that Jim had gotten married and gone back to Tennessee. I cried, but I wasn't going to go back into the closet and get married like him. I was not going to lie about being gay anymore. Falling in love with Jim had changed me. The power of love opened my closet door." It was then that Gilbert came out to his family, and unfortunately, they disowned him. This story is so sad, and I just wonder how many other people in the community experienced something like this too. Like, I wonder how many people went on with their lives like Jim did, not being able to be with the one that they love because they can't be themselves. And poor Gilbert, not only had he lost the one that he loved, but he was also disowned from his family for living in his truth and sharing that honesty and vulnerability with them.
But Baker was able to avoid detection of being gay for the remainder of his military service and was honorably discharged in February of 1972. He stayed in San Francisco and joined the Gay Liberation Movement. Afterward, he became really involved with the movement and politics in a community where he was finally accepted.
So, now that we know who created the flag, a little bit about him, let's talk about the actual creation of the rainbow flag and kind of how it came to be. So, in 1978, while preparing for that year's Gay Freedom Day celebration, City Supervisor Harvey Milk and other activists approached Gilbert Baker to create a new symbol for the LGBTQ+ community that would be unveiled in June at that event. Up until this point, the only symbol of the LGBTQ+ community was the pink triangle, but it represented a darker chapter in LGBTQ+ history because it was used as a tool of oppression and persecution during World War II. An inverted pink triangle was worn as a label and subjected inmates to terrible and horrific treatment inside of the concentration camps. But that's another story for another time. According to Gilbert's memoir, "Rainbow Warrior," he and his fellow activist friends felt, and this is a quote, "that we needed something that was positive, that celebrated our love." He first felt inspired to create a flag when him, Cleve Jones, and filmmaker Artie Bressan had gone out to see the movie "Citizen Kane" at the Strand Theater and were walking after the film, just kind of hanging out. While walking around, Gilbert noticed all of the flags flying from the many government buildings that were around the Civic Center. And he says, and this is a quote, "I thought of the American flag with its 13 stripes and 13 stars, the colonies breaking away from England to form the United States. I thought of the vertical red, white, and blue tricolor from the French Revolution and how both flags owed their beginnings to a riot, a rebellion, or revolution. I thought a gay nation should have a flag too, to proclaim its own idea of power." Later that week, Gilbert felt inspired by his experience in the crowd at a show at the Winterland Ballroom and decided that he would make a rainbow flag. And again, in his memoir, he says, and this is a quote, "A rainbow flag was a conscious choice, natural and necessary. The rainbow came from the earliest recorded history as a symbol of hope. In the Book of Genesis, it appeared as proof of a covenant between God and all the living creatures. It was also found in Chinese, Egyptian, and Native American history. A rainbow flag would be our modern alternative to the pink triangle. Now the rioters who claimed their freedom at the Stonewall Bar in 1969 would have their own symbol of liberation." And I just love that, and I love his sources of inspiration to create the flag.
But let's talk about how it was actually made. The flag was created by being hand-stitched and dyed with the help of volunteers and friends. The original design had eight colors, which I did not know until I did this research, and I'll leave a picture down below for you in the show notes, and I'll also put it on the podcast Instagram. So if you're not following us over on Instagram, then it is at closetedhistory. But so here are the colors and their meanings: pink representing sex, red meaning life, orange is healing, yellow representing the sun, green is nature, turquoise for art and magic, blue (and it's like a duke blue, so it's a little bit darker) is for serenity, and then last is purple, which represents the spirit. The first 30 feet by 60 feet wide design underwent several revisions due to cost and display considerations. In 1979, the hot pink stripe was dropped due to the unavailability of flag fabric in this color. And Baker also removed the turquoise stripe to create an even number of stripes for display on each side of the street lamps for the parade. And so this altered design became what we see probably most often today, which is the six-colored rainbow flag.
But so, we've talked about the creator, a little bit about his life, and what went into actually creating the flag. So now I'd like to talk to you about symbolism for a minute and how that kind of relates to the pride flag. So, we recognize symbolism in our everyday lives, whether it's the iconic yellow arches in the backdrop of a clear, cloudless day or the very well-recognized check mark on a billboard. See, even there, I've mentioned two, and I bet you can know which companies I'm talking about even without words. You can see the red background and the yellow M, and you know it's McDonald's. I think that the rainbow flag has created a similar type of representation where when people see it, they recognize it immediately, and they are aware that wherever that flag is, they're trying to show their support to the LGBTQ+ community. There's even deeper symbolism in the fact that the flag is represented by a rainbow. Rainbows are literal spectrums; they usually appear after it rains. And I think there's just something so beautiful about that because of what it can mean for the community. Because to me, it represents the resilience and a reminder to celebrate after the rain. So, I think the rainbow flag is a literal and figurative representation of the milestones and the growth that the community has made because it was created 10 years after Stonewall. So, it's literally like a rainbow after the storm. And it doesn't mean that the LGBTQ+ community didn't experience more storms, but I think that it's really nice to look up and see the rainbow after the rain, and the flag enables us to do that.
But so, let's take a look at how the flag has changed over time and kind of how it's been adapted since the original design. So, we talked about the original design earlier. The first flag was created by Gilbert Baker in 1978. The GLBT Historical Foundation and Museum, as of April 2021, actually received a fragment of one of the two original rainbow flags that had thought to be lost for over 40 years. Again, I'll leave a picture in the show notes for you, and it'll be over on the Instagram for the podcast. But it's a really incredible picture to be able to see, like, the original flag.
The next kind of design is the Philadelphia flag. So, in 2017, in response to a lot of racism and prejudice that was happening in Philadelphia's neighborhood, the city commissioned a new design of the flag that included black and brown stripes to recognize the contributions of LGBTQ+ black and brown folks. And this flag actually remains the official LGBTQ+ flag of the City of Philadelphia, and I just love that so much because it's so, so important to recognize that a lot of the icons and historical figures in LGBTQ+ history were black and brown people. So, I love that addition.
The next change that we see is the intersectionality flag. Designer Daniel Quasar, they created the progress flag, which combines elements of the 2017 Philadelphia flag that we just talked about and the trans flag with the traditional rainbow flag. So, it's kind of like a trifecta of all three. According to the designer, the colors in the chevron represent trans individuals, people of color, those living with HIV or AIDS, and deceased members of the LGBTQ+ community. And I did want to give the 1994 rainbow flag kind of like an honorable mention because this flag was actually a mile-long rainbow flag for the 25th anniversary of the Stonewall rebellion, and it took 5,000 people to carry it. It was unveiled in the same place the community was persecuted by the police in the streets of New York. And so, I just loved that and wanted to mention that as well.
Charlie Beale, who is the president of the Gilbert Baker Foundation, and Terry Beswick, who is the executive director of the GLBT Historical Society, they both have been quoted as saying, "For LGBTQ+ people, there are few artifacts that carry the historic, political, and cultural significance of this seminal work of art, the original rainbow flag. We trust that its message of diversity, liberation, and hope will continue to inspire queer people for generations to come."
This brings us to the end of the episode today. We learned all about the pride flag, who made it, how it's changed over time, and how the flag's symbolism in the community and of the movement made it a prominent character in the story of LGBTQ+ history. Thanks for joining me, and I can't wait to learn with you again. Thanks for making it all the way to the end of the episode with me. You can find the transcript and all the links listed in the show notes. I'd love to hear what you thought of this episode. You can send me a message on the podcast Instagram at Closeted History or reach out to me via my website, discoveredwithdestiny.com/contact. If you'd like to support the podcast, the best way to do so is to share an episode with a friend and leave a review. I hope you continue to learn more LGBTQ+ history with me in the next episode and as we embark on our learning journey together. As always, thank you for listening. You are important, and your story matters. Until the next time, friend.
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