![why is the gay pride symbol a rainboe why is the gay pride symbol a rainboe](https://cdn.newsy.com/images/videos/m/1623503397_r0dRIR.jpg)
The flag represents that the person builds a conscious connection to this group – or at least an imagined idea of this group (Klapeer & Laskar, 2018). A transnational community is a group of people who share certain characteristics and can connect with each other, beyond the borders of countries and states. By using the flag, one can demonstrate and express their belonging to the transnational LGBTQ community. The rainbow flag fulfils even more functions.
![why is the gay pride symbol a rainboe why is the gay pride symbol a rainboe](https://media.wired.com/photos/5b2aa0611d676a57e46672d7/master/pass/Pride-806290406.jpg)
Not only for joy and pride, but also for overcoming the obstacles, problems and injustices that members of the LGBTQ community have had to – and still have to – face. Whether it is used as a Facebook filter or flowing at the first ever gay pride rally in Ukraine, the rainbow flag has become an indispensable symbol. The display of the enormous one-mile rainbow flag, 25 years after this memorable day, marked the starting point of the rising spread of the flag. These demonstrations were later called the Stonewall riots. When in 1969 the New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay club, a riot started, ending in six days of protests and violent clashes with the police outside the bar on Christopher Street. As the 1960s were not a very welcoming time for LGBTQ Americans due to an anti-gay legal system, lots of people went to bars and clubs to seek rescue and find a place where they could express themselves openly without having to worry. These riots were a reaction to raids of gay clubs and bars in New York City in 1969. But only in 1994 the rainbow flag was really established as the symbol for LGBTQ pride, when Baker made a mile-long version of the flag for the 25th anniversary of the Stonewall riots (Morgan, 2019). Harvey Milk, who had commissioned the flag from Baker, was killed by a political opponent in November 1978, which only increased the demand for the flag. Hot pink was a difficult fabric to get hold of at the time and turquoise had to fade when organizers of the 1979 pride parade tried to split the flag into two, to decorate either side of their parade route (Wareham, 2020). During the process the pink and turquoise colors were replaced by blue. Having led to an overwhelming reaction at the parade, Baker wanted the flag to be reproduced and took it to the Paramount Flag Company.
![why is the gay pride symbol a rainboe why is the gay pride symbol a rainboe](https://www.ucf.edu/news/files/2021/05/lake-eola-pride-lgbtq-history-museum-2011.jpg)
I thought: ‘It’s better than I ever dreamed’ (Drash, 2015). And when it was flowing over people’s heads for the first time in 1978, the flag exceeded all expectations he had: ‘I saw immediately how everyone around me owned that flag. Baker saw the flag as a symbol of diversity, representing all the ways people differ from each other (Bos, 2020). The top of the flag was pink, which represented sex, then came red for life, orange for healing, yellow for the sunlight, green for nature, turquoise for art, indigo for harmony, and finally, at the very bottom, violet for spirit. With the help of friends, Baker sewed the first flag by hand, compiling eight stripes in different colors, dyed into the fabric. I was astounded nobody had thought of making a rainbow flag before because it seemed like such an obvious symbol for us’, he said 2008 in an interview with The Independent (Huppke, 2017). ‘To me, it was the only thing that could really express our diversity, beauty and our joy. Baker didn’t have to think long about a design. Milk, one of the first openly gay politicians, wanted the new flag to be displayed at the annual pride parade in San Francisco (Grovier, 2016) and gave the task of designing it to Gilbert Baker, a former Vietnam-war veteran and then drag-performer. The new symbol, the rainbow flag, was designed on the initiative of Harvey Milk, who thought that reusing the pink triangle was inappropriate, as it was stemming from this dark and painful past and felt forced upon the community. After the second world war, the pink triangle was stripped of its intended humiliation and started to become a sign of pride and the most used image for gay rights movements (Morgan, 2019). The triangle was used by the Nazis, who attached it to the clothing of men being imprisoned in concentration camps for their homosexuality. As a new symbol for the gay rights movement, the flag had to compete with the pink triangle, which had a heavy history. On the 25th of June 1978, the original rainbow flag made its debut at the San Francisco’s Gay Freedom Day Parade.