Some historians have argued that the idea of the rainbow flag came about because of the rainbow’s link to actress Judy Garland. The flag was first flown in San Francisco’s United Nation’s Plaza in June of 1978. Something from us.” Harvey Milk being sworn into office. Despite the Pink Triangle’s prevalence, Baker argued that there was a need for a new symbol “We needed something beautiful. The Pink Triangle was used in Nazis concentration camps to identify men imprisoned for their homosexuality. Several communities at the time had reclaimed the Pink Triangle as a symbol of queer power.
#Original gay pride flag series
“Flags are about proclaiming power” Baker said.īaker was inspired by the United States flag, with its series of stacked lines, and also by Pop Art of the time. He was approached by Harvey Milk, the first openly gay person elected to public office in California, in 1977 to create a symbol of pride for the community. The history of the rainbow flag is a rich, fascinating, and very recent one!Īrtist and activist Gilbert Baker is credited with creating the first pride flag, meant to represent the gay community.
As times and people change, all new visions of equal rights will be happily accepted by her.Kua, Benson. Although her flag design is the most displayed and flown, Helms has said that she welcomes new interpretations of pride flags, including Trans Pride. Pellinan’s design, though not as widely known as the design by Helms, is welcomed by the former seaman as a unique and artistic expression of Trans Rights. The 3 purple stripes represent the diversity of the TG community as well as genders other than male and female.” The pink and the blue represent male and female. Pink, light purple, medium purple, dark purple, and blue. Introduced on her (now defunct) Geocities site, The Transgender Flag Project, Jennifer said, regarding her public domain flag design, “The colors on the flag are from top to bottom. Other than her original flag, the most enduring of the group is a five-color design that depicts a gradient transition of color from blue to pink. Monica Helms, when interviewed in 2016, Monica Helms said that she had encountered at least 6 different designs for alternate Transgender Pride flags. The flag she designed is a play on blue and pink traditional gendered colors, with a white stripe symbolizing outside of the binary. Three years later, the flag she created as a symbol of Trans rights and diversity debuted at Phoenix’s pride parade. She began her journey as a woman in 1997.
She might have hoped during those years that she spent deep inside a United States Navy submarine, that by the year 1999, the same year that she created the Trans Pride Flag, she would be moving closer than ever to her lifelong goal of transitioning to female.Ī Phoenix native, Helms went straight from high school into the military and subsequently served in the US Navy until 1978. When the mother of two (and grandmother of two) worked in the engine room of a US Navy submarine from the mid to late 1970s, she probably couldn’t have guessed that her handiwork would be hanging in such a high-profile forum. at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. The original pink, blue, and white striped flag that Monica Helms sewed together in Macon, Georgia, in 1999 now hangs in Washington D.C. Monica Helms & the transgender pride flag There is a square in Paris, France, dedicated to his memory – it celebrates his many years as a gay rights activist, whose iconic imagery has symbolized a worldwide civil rights movement since the 1970s. Gilbert Baker, also known as Busty Ross: seamstress of the original Pride flag, passed away in 2017. New designs are welcomed and embraced by the diverse flag creators. Various takes on the original gay rights flag have spawned since its creation, including the Trans Pride flags. The abridged flag design has become iconic, serving as a symbol for gay pride worldwide. The first Pride flag had eight colors they represented:īecause of printing problems on a mass scale, two of the eight original colors, hot pink and indigo, had to be dumped from the flag design (boo). He was very vocal in gay rights activism and belonged to a drag group at one point, calling his drag character Busty Ross. Baker, the midwestern judge’s son, landed in San Francisco in 1972 while serving in the U.S. They suggested he use his talents to create a flag that represented Gay Pride. (© teksomolika – )In 1978, legendary former San Francisco city supervisor Harvey Milk was one of the several “friends and colleagues” of the artist and activist Gilbert Baker. With thread & needle, Busty Ross sewed an iconic flag