Over the Rainbow

Who owns the rainbow?

It might sound like an odd question, but over the last 18 months or so it's one that's been on my mind a lot. For many of us in the LGBTQ+ community, the rainbow is a symbol that represents us - seeing a rainbow flag in a shop window or a rainbow on a badge or lanyard worn by a professional was a sign that wherever we were, we would be accepted, understood and welcomed for who we are. But since March 2020, we've also seen the rainbow used across the UK as a symbol for supporting the work of the NHS during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Of course, the LGBTQ+ community do not own the rainbow - it's a natural phenomenon, and has been used throughout history as a symbol to represent everything from God's promise to Noah after the flood, the international co-operative movement and the peace movement. However, what you might not realise is that the rainbow flag has a distinctive, different design from the rainbow you might see after a downpour, and a particular history too.

In the 1970's, designer Gilbert Baker was challenged by Harvey Milk (the first openly gay man elected to public office in the US) to come up with a new symbol for the LGBTQ+ community. One of the most commonly used symbols at that time was that of the pink triangle - a symbol which had been worn by gay men in Nazi death camps and concentration camps. Milk wanted something more celebratory and so, inspired by the rainbow used by various peace movements and campaigns and perhaps by Judy Garland's Over the Rainbow, Baker created his original design for the rainbow flag, featuring 8 different coloured stripes which all held a particular meaning:

Harvey Milk was assassinated in November 1978, and in the aftermath demand for the flag massively increased. The hot pink fabric (not a standard colour in flag design) ended up proving to be too expensive and was later removed from the design. Then, in 1979 the flag was used to line the streets of San Francisco and Baker decided to drop the turquoise stripe to be able to split the flag into two even strips of three colours to line each side of the Pride parade route. This left us with the 6-colour rainbow flag familiar to many of us today, which we should note differs from the more traditional 7-colour ROYGBIV rainbow we all know from school!

Many of us within the LGBTQ+ community in the UK were confused and a little worried when many organisations started to use the 6-colour rainbow flag as a symbol of hope and of support for the NHS in 2020 during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many children had done drawings and paintings of rainbows and put them in their windows to cheer up neighbours and passers-by during the early days of the national lockdown and the symbol quickly took off. Some companies then very cynically started to recycle rainbow flag-decorated Pride merchandise they now knew they wouldn't be able to sell due to Pride events being cancelled and branded them differently. One bus company even decided to rebrand their Pride bus (emblazoned with the 6-colour LGBTQ+ rainbow flag colours) as an "NHS bus".

They later apologised for causing offence after a significant amount of criticism, but they were far from the only offenders.

So why is this a big deal? Previously, if we saw the 6-colour rainbow flag being displayed outside a business or on someone's lanyard or lapel, we could be relatively safe in the knowledge that LGBTQ+ people would be welcomed and safe. By diluting that message, many people who are perhaps even actively hostile to LGBTQ+ causes are now displaying Gilbert Baker's rainbow flag without understanding its significance or how it differs from a generic rainbow design.

For many people, including young queer people, finding safe spaces and allies is vital if they need support around issues relating to their sexuality or gender identity. 45% of LGBTQ+ young people experience homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying in secondary schools in the UK (this rises to 64% for young trans people). School staff openly signalling that they are safe people to discuss these issues with can be vital, as LGBTQ+ young people will often be worried about not being understood or taken seriously. Displaying symbols like the rainbow flag can be a really simple but highly impactful action to showcase this support.

There are a huge number of different flags also in use by members of the LGBTQ+ community, with separate flag designs for bisexual people, trans people, pansexual people, non-binary people, asexual people, and dozens, if not hundreds, more. There are also newer variations of the rainbow flag, which signal support for specific marginalised groups within the LGBTQ+ community.

Daniel Quasar designed the Progress Pride flag in 2018, adding an additional chevron of five new coloured stripes to the left-hand side of Gilbert Baker's 6-colour rainbow flag. The flag includes black and brown stripes to specifically represent LGBTQ+ people of colour, along with the colours pink, light blue and white, which are found on the trans flag. For me personally, this is the version of the flag that most speaks to me (and it's what I named my training business after!). It signals support for all LGBTQ+ people, with a particular focus on groups who face additional or specific challenges, and is also different enough from a common-or-garden rainbow that it retains the specific meaning of the rainbow flag.

There are other versions and variations that might speak to other people more, and the flag will likely change and evolve as conversations and understanding develop about challenges experienced by LGBTQ+ people. I encourage all of us to think about what actions we can take to signpost to people around us (whether they be young people, colleagues or friends and family) that we could be that safe person to come to about LGBTQ+ topics. Symbols like the rainbow flag still have a lot of power, and a lot of history too.