Gay pride flag colours and meanings

Original Gay Pride flag. Including all the colours.

The original gay pride flag known as the 'Rainbow flag' was created by Gilbert Baker (artist & drag queen) in 1978.

"We needed something beautiful, something from us. The rainbow is so perfect because it really fits our diversity in terms of race, gender, ages, all of those things," said Baker. "Plus, it’s a natural flag—it’s from the sky! And even though the rainbow has been used in other ways in vexilography, this use has now far eclipsed any other use that it had."

Before the rainbow flag was created there was a pink triangle that was related to gay people. However this is what the Nazis used to identify homosexuals in the concentration camps so there was disturbing connotations attached to the triangle. Therefore, the rainbow flag was created.

The original flag contained 8 colours and they all represented something:

Hot pink- Sexuality
Red- Life
Orange- Healing
Yellow- Sunlight
Green- Nature
Turquoise- Magic/art
Indigo/Blue- Serenity/Harmony
Violet- Spirit.

Gradually lost its stripes from 8 to 6. The flag lost it's hot pink stripe when Baker approached the Paramount Flag Company to begin mass producing them. Hot pink fabric was too rare and expensive to include.

Black has also been added to some flags as a representation of AIDS awareness.