UNITY, BRAVERY, HOPE

LIAM KARABO JOYCE

OF ALL THE flags in the world, the flag that represents the LGBTQIA+ community ranks as one of the best. It’s a symbol of unity, bravery and hope. And while this beautiful piece of art means so much, many people don’t know its history.

The rainbow flag is a symbol of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer pride and queer social movements. Also known as the gay pride flag or LGBTQIA+ pride flag, the colours reflect the diversity of the queer community. Using a rainbow flag as a symbol of gay pride began in San Francisco, but eventually became common at queer rights events worldwide.

Originally devised by artist Gilbert Baker, the design has undergone several changes since its debut in 1978, first to remove colours, then restore them based on the availability of fabrics.

Baker designed the rainbow Pride flag for the 1978 San Francisco Gay Freedom Day celebration, as a “symbol of hope” and liberation, and alternative to the symbolism of the pink triangle. The flag does not depict an actual rainbow. Rather, the colours of the rainbow are displayed as horizontal stripes, with red at the top and violet at the bottom. It represents the diversity of gays and lesbians around the world. In the original eight-colour version, 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.

In 1974, Baker met Harvey Milk, the influential gay leader, who later challenged Baker to devise a symbol of pride for the gay community.

Prior to the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade, the Pink triangle had been used as a symbol for the queer community, despite representing a dark chapter in the history of homosexuality. The Nazi regime had used the pink triangle to identify and stigmatise men interned as homosexuals in the concentration camps. Rather than relying on a Nazi tool of oppression, the community sought a new inspiring symbol.

A close friend of Baker's pressed him to create a new symbol at "the dawn of a new gay consciousness and freedom".

A South African gay pride flag, which is a hybrid of the rainbow flag and the national flag of South Africa, was launched in Cape Town in 2010. Flag designer Eugene Brockman said: “I truly believe we (the queer community) put the dazzle into our rainbow nation and this flag is a symbol of just that.”