Gilbert Baker sat at his sewing machine in a San Francisco attic in 1978 and stitched together eight strips of fabric. He had no idea he was making the most recognized symbol in LGBTQ+ history. Almost five decades later, that flag has been redesigned, debated, flown from government buildings, and carried through streets on every continent. Here's how it happened.
Gilbert Baker and the Original Eight Stripes
Baker was a self-taught vexillographer (flag designer) and Army veteran living in San Francisco's Castro District. Harvey Milk, the city's first openly gay elected official, asked him to create a symbol for the gay community. At the time, the most common symbol was the pink triangle, a shape forced on gay men in Nazi concentration camps. Milk wanted something that felt like celebration, not persecution.
Baker and about 30 volunteers hand-dyed and sewed the first two rainbow flags in the attic of the Gay Community Center at 330 Grove Street. Each flag measured roughly 30 by 60 feet. They debuted at the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade on June 25, 1978.
The original had eight stripes, and Baker assigned a specific meaning to each one:
★ Original 8-Stripe Meanings (1978)
| Hot Pink | Sexuality |
| Red | Life |
| Orange | Healing |
| Yellow | Sunlight |
| Green | Nature |
| Turquoise | Magic/Art |
| Indigo | Serenity |
| Violet | Spirit |
Five months after that parade, Harvey Milk was assassinated at San Francisco City Hall. Demand for the rainbow flag spiked overnight as the community rallied around his memory.
How Eight Stripes Became Six
The flag lost its hot pink stripe almost immediately. Baker had hand-dyed that fabric himself, and when the Paramount Flag Company began mass-producing the design in 1979, hot pink wasn't available as a standard textile color. Commercial production simply couldn't replicate it at scale.
Then the turquoise stripe went, too. When San Francisco organizers wanted to split the flag evenly down the center of Market Street for the 1979 Pride parade, an odd number of stripes (seven) wouldn't divide cleanly. They dropped turquoise to get six, and the six-stripe version stuck.
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1979 The year the six-stripe rainbow flag became the standard. It's been the most recognized version for over 45 years. |
Baker reportedly wasn't thrilled about the changes. He continued to advocate for the original eight-stripe design until his death in 2017. But the six-stripe version had already taken on a life of its own.
The Flag Goes Global
Through the 1980s and 1990s, the rainbow flag moved from a San Francisco symbol to an international one. The AIDS crisis accelerated this. As communities organized, protested, and mourned across the United States, Europe, and Australia, the flag became shorthand for solidarity and resistance.
Key milestones that spread the flag worldwide:
| 1 | 1994: 25th Stonewall Anniversary. Baker created a mile-long rainbow flag for the NYC celebration. It required thousands of volunteers and stretched from the West Village to Central Park. The Guinness Book of World Records recognized it. |
| 2 | 2003: Baker's 25th anniversary edition. For the flag's own silver jubilee, Baker restored the original eight colors and created another record-breaking flag stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean in Key West, Florida. |
| 3 | 2015: U.S. marriage equality. When the Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges, the White House was lit up in rainbow colors. The flag became front-page news worldwide. |
| 4 | 2017: Baker's death and MoMA acquisition. After Baker passed away on March 31, 2017, the Museum of Modern Art in New York added the rainbow flag to its permanent design collection. It joined symbols like the @ sign and the recycling logo. |
By the 2010s, the flag appeared on everything from embassy buildings to corporate logos during June. That ubiquity sparked its own set of debates, which we'll get to.
The Progress Flag and What Came After
In 2018, Portland-based designer Daniel Quasar created the Progress Pride Flag. It added a chevron with black and brown stripes (representing communities of color) and the pink, white, and blue of the transgender flag to the left side of the traditional six-stripe rainbow.
The redesign addressed a real critique: that the rainbow flag, while technically representing everyone, didn't explicitly acknowledge the specific struggles of trans people and LGBTQ+ people of color. The Progress flag made that inclusion visible.
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In 2021, Valentino Vecchietti took it further with the Intersex-Inclusive Progress Flag, adding a yellow triangle with a purple circle to represent intersex people. This version has been adopted by several organizations, including the European Parliament.
Baker himself had always said the rainbow flag belonged to everyone and shouldn't be trademarked. Quasar, by contrast, initially released the Progress flag under a Creative Commons license. The question of who "owns" pride symbols became a conversation of its own.
The Debates Around the Flag
Not everyone loves the redesigns, and that's worth talking about honestly.
Some people feel the original six-stripe rainbow already represented everyone. Adding chevrons and extra colors, they argue, creates a hierarchy of identities. Others point out that the original flag was specifically designed for the gay community in 1978, and updating it to reflect a broader understanding of gender and race is a natural evolution.
DEBATE 01
"The rainbow already includes everyone"
Baker designed the rainbow to symbolize diversity as a whole. The counter-argument: symbolic inclusion and real-world inclusion are different things. Making specific groups visible on the flag signals that their struggles are being actively acknowledged.
DEBATE 02
Corporate co-opting ("rainbow capitalism")
Every June, brands slap rainbows on products. Critics say it commodifies the movement. Supporters note that mainstream visibility, even when profit-driven, normalizes LGBTQ+ existence in ways that matter for younger generations.
DEBATE 03
Too many flags?
With dozens of identity-specific pride flags now in circulation, some worry the rainbow is losing its unifying power. Others celebrate having a flag that speaks to their specific experience. Both perspectives have merit.
DEBATE 04
Flag bans and legal battles
Some municipalities and school districts have banned pride flags from public spaces. These fights have turned the flag into a flashpoint for First Amendment and equal protection cases across the U.S.
These debates aren't weaknesses. They show that the flag matters enough to argue about. A symbol nobody cares about doesn't generate this much conversation.
Flying Your Own Rainbow Flag
Whether you prefer the classic six-stripe, the Progress version, or one of the many identity-specific designs, there's never been more choice in how you express pride.
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The Classic LGBTQ+ Pride Flag The original six-stripe design that started it all. 3x5 ft, double-stitched polyester with brass grommets. Shop Now → |
For a deeper look at display options, check out our guide on how to display a pride flag at home. And if you want to explore the full range of pride flags and their meanings, our complete guide to every pride flag covers all 18+ designs.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who designed the original rainbow pride flag?
Gilbert Baker, an artist and Army veteran living in San Francisco, designed it in 1978 at the request of Harvey Milk.
Why does the rainbow flag only have six stripes now?
The original had eight. Hot pink was dropped because the fabric wasn't available for mass production. Turquoise was removed so the flag could split evenly for a 1979 parade display.
What is the Progress Pride Flag?
Designed by Daniel Quasar in 2018, it adds a chevron with black, brown, pink, white, and blue stripes to the left side of the traditional rainbow. The extra colors represent communities of color and transgender people.
Is the rainbow flag copyrighted?
Gilbert Baker intentionally never trademarked the six-stripe design, believing it belonged to everyone. The Progress flag was released under a Creative Commons license by Daniel Quasar.
What do the six colors of the pride flag mean?
Red stands for life, orange for healing, yellow for sunlight, green for nature, blue for serenity, and violet for spirit. These meanings were assigned by Gilbert Baker when he created the original design.
When is the rainbow flag typically flown?
June is Pride Month and the biggest time for flag displays, but many people and organizations fly them year-round. There's no rule limiting when you can display a pride flag.
For the story behind the eight-stripe pride flag with black and brown stripes added on top, read our Philadelphia pride flag guide.
For more context on the holiday itself, our deep dive on why Pride Month happens in June and how the Stonewall riots set the date covers the full story behind the calendar.
For the human story behind Stonewall, see our deep dive on Marsha P. Johnson, the activist who helped spark Pride.
For the historical symbol that came before the rainbow flag, read about the pink triangle and how it was reclaimed from a Nazi prison badge into a Pride symbol.
The 1970 marchers did not have this flag. Eight years later they would. Read about the first Pride parade, what the marchers carried instead, and why the timing of the rainbow flag mattered.
The same flag flew at the protests that defined a decade after Gilbert Baker first sewed it. ACT UP demonstrators carried rainbow flags alongside Silence = Death posters at every major action through the late 1980s and 1990s.
For the full life story, read the full Harvey Milk biography from his Long Island childhood through his murder at City Hall.
Gilbert Baker raised the first rainbow flag in 1978, twenty-four years after a war hero died alone in England with a bitten apple beside his bed. The Alan Turing story is part of the long pre-history of the flag that this post traces. The rainbow grew out of a longer tradition of trans and queer visibility that began with figures like Christine Jorgensen.
If you want the next chapter, read about Anita Bryant and the Save Our Children fight is the chapter that bridges this story.
Related reading: Gilbert Baker is the man who hand stitched the first rainbow pride flag in 1978.
The rainbow is the most famous LGBTQ+ symbol, but it has plenty of company. Get the full set in our guide to LGBTQ+ symbols and what they mean.
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Fly Your Pride From the classic rainbow to the Progress flag, find the one that speaks to you. |
For more on Harvey Milk, see our guide on Harvey Milk Day 2026 and how to honor his legacy on May 22.
