Like every year, Pride is celebrated at the end of June, a festival that claims diversity and is celebrated throughout the world by LGTBI+ groups, as well as anyone who wants to fly the gay pride flag. And precisely about the flag we are going to tell you more things, such as its origin or what it means.

The origin of the gay pride flag

More than 40 years ago Gilbert Baker created this iconic pride flag. Specifically, it was in 1978 when this artist, designer, ex-combatant in the Vietnam War and Drag Queen was commissioned by the politician and icon of the gay movement, Harvey Milk. The politician wanted a flag to represent the group for the annual parade that was already being held in San Francisco. Baker had already been tossing around the idea of creating a flag to represent the gay community. His inspiration came in the bicentennial of the United States (1976), when the country was filled with flags with stars and stripes, and he detected that he needed a similar symbol to represent his community.

Until then, the symbol that was commonly used to defend gay rights was a pink triangle, which was the same one used by the Nazis to mark homosexuals. Baker wanted to get away from that painful past and that is why he opted for a more inclusive symbol like the rainbow to create the pride flag, which has been adopted worldwide.

What does the pride flag mean?

It is quite obvious that the choice of eight colors for a flag is intended to vindicate the diversity and unity of the LGBTI+ community. Gilbert Baker chose each color for its unique meaning. Thus, dark pink represented life, red was dedicated to life, orange to healing, yellow to sunlight, green to nature, turquoise to art, indigo to harmony, and violet for the spirit. The flag that has become popular eliminated two of these colors (pink and turquoise) and replaced indigo with blue to become that of the six bars that we now know and see waving on masts, hanging on balconies and adorning clothes and any other type of object.