How was LGBTI's rainbow flag created?

Public buildings and street protests around the world have waved the rainbow flag to show solidarity with 49 people who were shot dead at the nightclub in Orlando, Florida. But how did this symbol become so popular?

It's among the world's most popular political symbols. The rainbow flag with six strips regularly waves and is proudly held at protests in the world's largest cities.

Various figures from Paul McCartney who wrapped himself up with one during a Berlin concert and the leaders of the Morey Council in northeastern Scotland who set up at his headquarters have used it to show they're one with the families and friends of the people who were killed at the nightclub. Pulse Orlando.

A rainbow flag was also raised on the Exeter cathedral in the mass held for victims. Similar commemorations have taken place in the U.S. baseball games, while the Paris Eiffel Tower was lit with the colors of the flag.

“cannot think of any other symbol that has such great global recognition and approval”, says human rights activist Peter Tatwell. “Since the early 1990s has become very popular”.

“Shows the divers spectrum within the LGBT (slebic, gay, bisexual and transgiar) community, but it also reflects the divers spectrum of a broader body”.

Accepting the rainbow flag as a symbol for the LGBT community dates back to 1978, when artist Gilbert Baker from San Francisco released his eight colour design. The first handmade flag version was waved on June 25th on Gay Freedom Day.

Baker said he wanted to give the idea of diversity and inclusion, using something inside nature that represents our sexuality as a human right”.

The use of the flag spread from San Francisco to New York and Los Angeles. In the 1990s, it was known as a global symbol of LGBT rights.

“replaced the use of the pink triangle, which in itself dates from use as a symbol of oppression in Nazi Germany”, - says Tatchell. “The rainbow tree is a more positive and happy symbol”.

The eight different colors on Baker's original flag represented each of a different aspect of life. Rose represented sexuality, red life, orange healing, yellow sunlight, green nature, blue art, blue in purple harmony, and purple the human soul.

The number of ribbons later decreased to six. The blue replaced the blue in the purple; and the pink of the blue was cut off.

It was very difficult to find material of those colors at the time”, says Graham Bartram, chief of the Flag Institute. “/so removed. At that time you had to aim along with the flags with existing materials instead of printing them, as is now”, he explains.

The reason the flag has performed so well is from simplicity, which allows it to be so comprehensive. It's kind of like the Olympic circles that were designed to display the colors used on every flag of each nation participating”.

If Baker were to add the flag to more symbols associated with male homosexuality as the symbol of the “Double March”, which shows two rings connected to the arrow, then his flag might not have been as successful as it is now, Bartram thinks.

However, design is not universally welcomed as a symbol of liberation. Jamaica's chief prosecutor, who has drafted sex criminalisation laws among the same partners, has complained about raising the flag over the US Embassy in the country after the shooting in Orlando, arguing it was the respective “mage”.

The rainbow flag has a long history and a diversity. The 18th century Revolutionary Thomas Pain suggested using one to identify neutral ships during periods of war.

Early in the 20th century, American peace activist James William van Kirk designed a flag that showed rainbow lines connected to a globe. He intended to show how people of different nations and colors could live together in harmony.

And a rainbow is also on the flag of the International Co-operation Alliance.

“Yber is something we all paint from a very young age”, said Bartram. “So we all know it and we can read in it what we like. That's why it works best”.