A brief, illustrated history of Pride flags

By
June 25, 2023 at 7:00 a.m. EDT
A Pride flag with magenta, turquoise, red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet flies against a blue sky while members of the San Francisco queer community die and sew strips of fabrics over top in vignettes.
(Illustrations by Arantza Peña Popo for The Washington Post)

Before the days of the rainbow flag, members of the queer community often used subtle ways to hint to their queerness. Other political symbols didn’t seek to encompass the entire community, reflected a grim past or were too niche to catch on.

Seeing a void for a unifying, celebratory symbol, politician Harvey Milk commissioned artist Gilbert Baker in 1978 to create a flag for the gay community. In the decades since the first Pride flags were sewn in San Francisco, the design has undergone many iterations, and dozens of others have emerged to reflect the fluid, diverse nature of the queer community.