Published on: 10 August 2020

In September we will be celebrating 1 year since we launched the pledges for the NHS Rainbow Badges.  Our badges are a sign of inclusion and show staff and visitors that our staff are there to listen, be non-judgemental and promote inclusion and compassion.  

Staff wanting to pledge can find the link on the intranet and sign a pledge.  

There are lots of uses of the rainbow symbol, particularly in the current context of a global pandemic, and it is easy to forget the original purpose of the rainbow flag so we have shared some interesting facts below:

Did you know…… 

How the rainbow symbol first come into existence?

Before he was assassinated later on in the year, gay politician Harvey Milk asked a talented gay designer to design an all-encompassing symbol to take on San Francisco’s Pride March in 1978.  The designer was a gay man named Gilbert Baker, an activist Baker and one of the original Pride marchers in the US as well as a print designer.

Why the rainbow on the pride flag?

The designer got the idea for the rainbow symbol when he was dancing in a gay bar and he and friends then hand-dyed and stitched together the eight colours for the pride flag.

Prior to the rainbow symbol, the most recognisable LGBT+ symbol was the pink triangle.  Adolph Hitler conceived the pink triangle during World War II as a stigma placed on homosexuals in the same way the Star of David was used against Jews. It functioned as a Nazi tool of oppression.  Baker and Milk believed it was time to distance the community from this painful symbol.

The original colours of the rainbow flag represented different elements of a gay person’s life: 

  • pink for sex
  • red for life
  • orange for healing
  • yellow for sun
  • green for nature
  • turquoise for magic
  • blue for peace 
  • purple for spirit.

The pink and the turquoise were eventually dropped from the design because they were too costly for printers to reproduce. To find out more about the history of the flag visit https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/06/26/what-does-the-rainbow-flag-mean-and-why-is-it-a-symbol-for-pride-today/ 

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