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<\/p>\nIt\u2019s day 2 in our Queeroes series, a collection of blogs putting the spotlight on 28 figures who have made the world a better place for the LGBTQ+ community.\u00a0 Should you have missed yesterday\u2019s post about Karl Heinrich Ulrichs then go check him out now!<\/p>\n
Today we\u2019re raising awareness of a very important name within the community.\u00a0 A flagship activist who took the world by windstorm and put his skills and influence to good use.\u00a0 Today we\u2019re honouring Gilbert Baker.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Baker was born in Kansas, US, in the summer of 1951 and was a natural creative with interests in art and fashion.\u00a0 Sadly, Baker faced alienation from his peers and sought escape by enlisting with the US Army which did not prove any better.\u00a0 He was later stationed in San Francisco as a medic where life became much easier for this openly gay man.<\/p>\n
Following 2-years\u2019 service and an honourable discharge, Baker remained in San Francisco and began working with activist groups on a number of political causes including the progression of LGBTQ+ rights.\u00a0 It was during this time that he learned to sew and before long was using his skills to create flags and banners for campaigns.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t long before his friends and colleagues were asking him to work his magic and create a new symbol to better represent the gay and lesbian political movement; the symbol at the time was the pink triangle used by Nazis during WWII.\u00a0 And thus, in 1978, the Rainbow Flag was born.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
The Rainbow Flag is a representation of the LGBT community.\u00a0 It is a symbol that is known across the world and the original 8 stripe flag used symbolic colours:<\/p>\n
The most commonly used flag today has the pink removed and the turquoise merged with indigo.<\/p>\n
Over the years the flag itself went through many variations with individual flags taking inspiration for different members of the LGBTQ+ community.\u00a0 Below are just a small number of these flags:<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/kaleidoscope\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/155\/2021\/02\/3-1024x550.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
A flag which is gaining more acceptance in the community is the Progress Pride flag.\u00a0 The redesign was created by nonbinary artist Daniel Quasar who wanted a flag which truly represented the community toady.\u00a0 The revision now includes brown and black stripes which represent people of colour and those who have died from AIDS.\u00a0 The revised flag also incorporates the trans community with white, pink, and blue.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/kaleidoscope\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/155\/2021\/02\/4-300x158.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Baker passed away in 2017 but his legacy did not.\u00a0 The Rainbow Flag is still as strong a symbol today as it ever was and continues to be used across many equality, diversity, and inclusivity campaigns.\u00a0 There\u2019s even an emoji! \ud83c\udff3\u200d\ud83c\udf08<\/p>\n
How can I show pride in my LGBTQ+ peers?<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s day 2 in our Queeroes series, a collection of blogs putting the spotlight on 28 figures who have made the world a better place for the LGBTQ+ community.\u00a0 Should you have missed yesterday\u2019s post about Karl Heinrich Ulrichs then...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1549,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[29,19],"tags":[40,51,46,45,39,65,47,38,67,35,34,36,37,50,42,48,66,43,30,55,44,68,69,52,11,41,49],"class_list":["post-271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-28-days-of-queeros-queer-heros","category-lgbt-history","tag-bisexual","tag-body","tag-diversity","tag-equality","tag-gay","tag-gilbert-baker","tag-inclusion","tag-lesbian","tag-lgbt-flag","tag-lgbtplushistorymonth","tag-lgbtpoc","tag-lgbtq","tag-lgbtqia","tag-mind","tag-nonbinary","tag-pride","tag-pride-flag","tag-queer","tag-queeroes","tag-querroes","tag-questioning","tag-rainbow","tag-rainbow-flag","tag-spirit","tag-trans","tag-transgender","tag-wellbeing"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd4Pwk-4n","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/kaleidoscope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/kaleidoscope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/kaleidoscope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/kaleidoscope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1549"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/kaleidoscope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/kaleidoscope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/kaleidoscope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/kaleidoscope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/kaleidoscope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n