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It goes back to , when the artist Gilbert Baker, an openly gay man and a drag queen, designed the first rainbow flag. Baker later revealed that he was urged by Harvey Milk, one of the first openly gay elected officials in the U.S., to create a symbol of pride for the gay community. The rainbow flag or pride flag (formerly gay pride flag) is a symbol of LGBTQ pride and LGBTQ social movements.

The colors reflect the diversity of the LGBTQ community and the spectrum of human sexuality and gender. Artist Gilbert Baker created the rainbow flag as a symbol of pride for the LGBTQ community in the s. Here’s why he chose the colors and what they mean.

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The Two-Spirit Pride Flag represents Indigenous American that identity as two-spirit individuals meaning they fall outside of the M-F binary. The feathers represent masculine and feminine identities. The rainbow Pride flag's colors are important. Here's the history of the Pride flag and its color meanings, going back to gay rights activist Gilbert Baker.

The original 'rainbow flag' was created by Gilbert Baker in to celebrate members of the gay and lesbian political movement. It comprised eight coloured stripes stacked on top of each other to evoke a rainbow, a symbol of hope. Baker assigned a specific meaning to each colour: pink for sex, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sunlight, green for nature, turquoise for magic, indigo for serenity and violet for spirit.

A year later the pink and turquoise stripes were dropped owing to a shortage of pink fabric at the time and legibility concerns, resulting in the six-colour rainbow flag most commonly used in the first decades of the 21st century. Baker's flag was embraced internationally as the symbol of the LGBTQ community and inspired many designers and activists to create subsequent flags for more specific identities, such as the light blue, white and pink transgender flag , created by Monica Helms in Today, the pride number of flags is considerable and illustrates the many identities that fall under the umbrella of the LGBTQ community.

Because some subgroups are more visible than others, recent pride flag redesign projects have sought to increase the representation of discriminated minority identities within the community. In , Philadelphia City Hall in the United States revealed a pride flag including black and brown stripes to highlight the discrimination of black and brown members of the community.

A year later, the US city Seattle added five new colours to the rainbow flag: black and brown to represent people of colour, and pink, light blue and white to represent trans, gender non-binary, intersex and those across the gender spectrum. Detractors of the Philadelphia and Seattle pride flags have criticised their legibility, explaining that stacking colours linked to identity on top of the original colours assigned to values confuses and lessens the community's message.

Quasar resolved this design issue by placing the black, brown, light blue, pink and white stripes in the shape of an arrow, on the left of the Progress Pride flag. This solution not only sought to improve the flag's legibility, but also placed discriminated minorities at the forefront. From one flag reboot to another, the coloured stripes are imbued with different meanings.

For Quasar, the light blue, pink and white stripes represent trans and non-binary individuals and the brown and black ones represent marginalised People of Colour POC communities. The black stripe has a double meaning as it is also intended for "those living with AIDS and the stigma and prejudice surrounding them, and those who have been lost to the disease". Quasar plays with the idea of a diverse community, and states that the fight for inclusivity needs to come from both within and outside the LGBTQ community — from all spheres of society:.

The Progress flag was an immediate success. On 6 June , Quasar posted the design on social media and woke up the following day to find it had gone viral. A Kickstarter campaign was launched to respond to the dozens of requests for merchandising. Subsequently released under a Creative Commons licence allowing others to copy, distribute and make use of their work non-commercially , the Progress Pride flag has become a blueprint design used by identities underrepresented within the LGBTQ community.

To respond to numerous requests of redesigns accommodating other identities, Quasar even developed merchandising in which the flag's arrow and background are interchangeable.

This initiative shows that even the design of the flag is always a work in 'Progress'. Explore the range of exclusive gifts, jewellery, prints and more. Skip to main content Become a Member. Alternatively search more than 1. Become a Member. The Progress Pride flag. Based on the iconic rainbow flag from , the redesign celebrates the diversity of the LGBTQ community and calls for a more inclusive society.

Museum no. Daniel Quasar. Find out more: danielquasar. Shop Explore the range of exclusive gifts, jewellery, prints and more.