June has long been recognized as LGBTQ Pride Month in honor of riots at Stonewall, which took place in New York in June 1969. During Pride Month, it is not uncommon to see the rainbow flag proudly displayed as a symbol LGBTQ. rights movement ... But how did this flag become a symbol of LGBTQ pride?

It dates back to 1978, when openly gay and transvestite artist Gilbert Baker designed the first rainbow flag. Baker later said that he tried to persuade him Harvey Milk., one of the first openly elected gay men in the United States to create a symbol of pride in the gay community. Baker chose to make this symbol a flag because he believed flags to be the most powerful symbol of pride. As he later said in an interview, “Our job as gay people was to open up, to be visible, to live in the truth, as I say, to get out of lies. The flag really suits this mission because it is a way to declare yourself or say, "This is who I am!" "Baker saw the rainbow as a natural flag from the sky, so he used eight colors for the stripes, each color with its own meaning (hot pink for sex, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sunlight, green for nature, turquoise for art, indigo for harmony and purple for spirit).

The first versions of the rainbow flag were hoisted on June 25, 1978 at the Gay Freedom Day parade in San Francisco. Baker and a team of volunteers made them by hand, and now he wanted to produce the flag for mass consumption. However, due to production issues, the pink and turquoise stripes were removed and the indigo was replaced with the basic blue, resulting in a modern flag with six stripes (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple). Today it is the most common variation of the rainbow flag with a red stripe on top, as in a natural rainbow. The different colors have come to reflect the immense diversity and unity of the LGBTQ community.

It wasn't until 1994 that the rainbow flag became a true symbol of LGBTQ pride. That same year, Baker made a mile-long version for the 25th anniversary of the Stonewall riots. The rainbow flag is now an international symbol of LGBT pride and can be seen flying proudly in both promising and difficult times around the world.