Who Designed The Pride Flag? Interesting Facts About The Rainbow LGBTQIA+ Flag

Culture Janvi Manchanda 6th June 2023

American artist, designer and activist, Gilbert Baker created the rainbow Pride flag in 1978. 

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Baker created the flag along with other activists like Lynn Segerblom, James McNamara and more. 

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The original flag had 8 colours - hot pink, red, orange, yellow, green, turquoise, indigo and violet. 

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Between 1978 to 1979, Baker dropped hot pink from the flag as the colour was tough to find and the demand for the Pride flag was on the rise. In 1979, the flag has to be split in two to decorate street lamps so, Baker removed turquoise from the flag. 

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In order to represent diversity, in early 2017, Gilbert Baker added a 9th stripe of lavender colour above the hot pink stripe. 

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The same year, Philadelphia revised the flag with a black and brown stripe on top of the six-colour flag. 

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In 2018, Estêvão Romane designed an eight-stripe flag with a white stripe in the middle to represent peace among all humans. 

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The same year, designer Daniel Quasar revised the Philadelphia Pride Flag and trans pride flag to highlight the progress. This flag featured a six-stripe rainbow base with an arrow made with 5 different coloured stripes. 

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Activist Moulee revised Quasar's flag in 2018 and released it in Chennai during the Queer LitFest. 

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