THE RAINBOW

The rainbow flag has become one of the most widely used and recognized symbols of the gay pride movement. The concept of the rainbow is hardly a new one. Rainbows have used since ancient times in all kinds of cultures- Greek, African, Native American and Celtic, to name only a few. Even Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition has made use of the rainbow has a freedom symbol.

Use of the rainbow flag by the gay community began in 1978 when it first appeared in the San Francisco Gay and Lesbian Freedom Day Parade. Borrowing symbolism from the hippie movement and black civil rights groups, San Francisco artist Gilbert Baker designed the rainbow flag in response to a need for a symbol that could be used year after year. Baker and thirty volunteers hand-stitched and hand-dyed two huge prototype flags for the parade. The flags had eight stripes, each color representing a component of the community: hot pink for sex, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sun, green for nature, turquoise for art, indigo for harmony, and violet for spirit.

The next year Baker approached San Francisco Paramount Flag Company to mass-produce rainbow flags for the 1979 parade. Due to production constraints -- such as the fact that hot pink was not a commercially-available color -- pink and turquoise were removed from the design, and royal blue replaced indigo. This six-color version spread from San Francisco to other cities, and soon became the widely-known symbol of gay pride and diversity it is today. It is even officially recognized by the International Congress of Flag Makers. In 1994, a huge 30-foot-wide by one-mile-long rainbow flag was carried by 10,000 people in New York's Stonewall 25 Parade.

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In the Nazi concentration camps, prisoners were classified by patches of different colors corresponding to their crimes. Jews were forced to wear a yellow star (two yellow triangles sewn together); political prisoners (liberals, socialists, communists) a red triangle; anti- or asocials (alcoholics, vagrants, prostitutes, and others) a black triangle; hard-core criminals a green triangle; and Jehovah's Witnesses a purple one

Gay men were forced to wear pink triangles placed point down on both the left shirt sleeve and right pant leg.  These men were sent to the camps under German law, Paragraph 175, which made illegal not only same-sex sexual acts, but also embraces, and even male homosexual fantasies. The law did not cover homosexuality in women.  Authorities responded to this ¡§oversight¡¨ by sending supposed lesbians to the concentration camps wearing black triangles, under the charge of being asocials

Some witnesses have reported that in the concentration camps, gay prisoners were treated so horrendously that people wanted yellow stars rather than pink triangles

We don't know for sure how many people were put to death under the sign of the pink and black triangles, but they number in the thousands. (The most common estimate for men wearing the pink triangle in the camps is about 15,000.) After the liberation, homosexuality remained against the law in virtually every allied country.  When the troops learned the meaning of the pink triangles, they threw many gay men in jail, rather than free them. Though the pink and black triangles represent the highest form of oppression that our communities have endured, the pink triangle (and to a lesser degree the black one) has been transformed into an empowering symbol of strength and resistance to bigotry

Today in Amsterdam, the "Homomonument," a large stone plaza that includes three pink triangles in its design, stands as a tribute people everywhere who have suffered the indignities of homophobia. Prior to this symbolic representation of the pink and black triangles, the Greek letter Lambda (a symbol for wavelength in quantum physics suggesting dynamism, and an abbreviation for Lesbian) was used to identify the gay, lesbian, and bisexual rights movements.  In recent years, bisexual people have adopted their own symbol: two triangles, one pink and one blue, overlapping to create a lavender triangle in the center

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Victory Over AIDS Flag

The gay community has been one of the hardest hit by the AIDS epidemic. A San Francisco group suggested a modification to the traditional rainbow flag by adding a black stripe to the bottom of it to commemorate everyone who we've lost to the AIDS virus over the years. Sgt. Leonard Matlovich, a well-decorated Vietnam War Veteran who is dying of AIDS, proposed that when a cure for AIDS was found, all of the black stripes shou

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Pink Triangle

Gay liberation groups in the 1970's started using the pink triangle as a symbol for the gay rights movement.

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Black Triangle

The black triangle represents lesbians and feminists as a symbol of pride and solidarity.

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Bear Pride Flag

 "Bear" is an affectionate term used for a gay man with an abundance of body hair, especially on his face and chest. Bears also tend to be a bit older and chubbier, but this is a convenient stereotype. The Bear Pride Flag symbolizes this group. It was developed by a Seattle bear bar named Spags. The blue stripes represents the sky and the green stripe represent the earth. In between these two are all the bears of the world- white for polar bears, black for black bears, and brown for brown bears. The yellow paw print is the sun, representing the spirit. While this is the most widely seen bear symbol, it is not really official. Bear groups tend to develop their own individual flags and symbols to represent them.

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Gender Symbols are common astrological signs handed down from ancient Roman times. The pointed Mars symbol represents the male and the Venus symbol with the cross represents the female. Double interlocking male symbols have been used by gay men since the 1970s. Double interlocking female symbols have often been used to denote lesbianism, but some feminists have instead used the double female symbols to represent the sisterhood of women. These same feminists would use three interlocking female symbols to denote lesbianism. Also, some lesbian feminists of the 1970's used three interlocking female symbols to represent their rejection of male standards of monogamy

Also in the 1970s, gay liberation movements used the male and female symbols superimposed to represent the common goals of lesbians and gay men. These days, the superimposed symbols might also denote a heterosexual aware of the differences and diversity between men and women. A transgendered person might superimpose the male and female symbols in such a way that the arrow and cross join on the same single ring

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The astrological sign of Mercury is traditionally the symbol of transgendered people. In Greek mythology, Hermes (the Greek version of the Roman god Mercury) and Aphrodite (the goddess of love) had a child named Hermaphroditus. That child possessed both male and female sexual organs, hence the term hermaphrodite. Also, rituals associated with the worship of Aphrodite are believed to have been highly sexual, involving castration, transvestism, and homosexual relations

In the symbol itself, the crescent moon at the top is supposed to represent the masculine, and the cross at the bottom represents the feminine. The ring represents the individual, with the male and the female balanced at either side

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Inspired by the gender symbols, the IFGE Logo is another symbol for transgendered peoples. The International Foundation for Gender Education is an educational and charitable organization addressing cross-dressing and transgender issues. One of the organizations logos, this symbol combines the lavender color and the pink triangle shape with a ring denoting various genders all fused into one. This is a copyrighted symbol, but you can use it for non-commercial purposes to denote transgendered or gender-supportive individuals. For more information, visit IFGE

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The first Bi Pride Flag was unveiled on Dec 5, 1998. The intent and purpose of the flag is to maximize bisexual pride and visibility

The pink color represents same sex attraction (gay and lesbian), the blue represents attraction to the opposite sex (straight) and the resultant overlap color purple represents sexual attraction to both (bi). The key to understanding the symbolism of the Bi Pride Flag is to know that the purple pixels of color blend unnoticeably into both the pink and blue just as in the "real world" where bi people blend unnoticeably into both the gay/lesbian and straight communities

The Bi Pride Flag is the only bisexual symbol that is not patented, trademarked or service marked. This flag continues to be distributed on a global scale through BiCreations. In it's short history, the Bi Pride Flag has been visible in many important GLBT events world-wide

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Newly updated Bi-Symbol

The double moon symbol has been adopted by several countries in Europe -
 

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contributed by  Fabian Doles

Purple Rhinoceros

The purple rhino made its first appearance in December 1974. It was created by  two Boston gay rights activists: one source names Bernie Toal and Tom Morganti, another says it was Bernie Toal and Daniel Thaxton. The entire campaign was intended to bring gay issues further into public view. The rhino started being displayed in subways in Boston, but since the creators didn't qualify for a public service advertising rate, the campaign soon became too expensive for the activists to handle. The ads disappeared, and the rhino never caught on anywhere else.

As Toal put it, "The rhino is a much maligned and misunderstood animal and, in actuality, a gentle creature." But when a rhinoceros is angered, it fights ferociously. At the time, this seemed a fitting symbol for the gay rights movement. Lavender was used because it was a widely recognized gay pride color and the heart was added to represent love and the "common humanity of all people." The purple rhinoceros was never copyrighted and is public domain.

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