LGBTQ news and entertainment
Some news stories I thought worth your time: • ABC: You can bet I’ll be watching the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards tonight (8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT) with Schitt’s Creek dad/son stars Eugene and Dan Levy handling hosting duties. Continue reading “76th Primetime Emmy Awards Tonight + More News”
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| Newly proposed pride flag |
In 1978, Gilbert Baker created the now-iconic rainbow flag to represent the burgeoning gay rights movement.
At the time, Baker explained the stripes each stood for an aspect of the “gay community,” which is what we called it before the alphabetical LGBTQ+ designation today.
Now, an artist named Daniel Quasar has launched a crowd-funding campaign to help him manufacture a new flag, one that includes the colors of the transgender flag as well as stripes for race.
According to Quasar, the body of the flag would remain the rainbow flag “so as not to take away from its original meaning.”
The light blue, pink, and white stripes on the left come from the transgender flag. The brown and black stripes represent people of color, “as well as those living with AIDS, those no longer living, and the stigma surrounding them,” Quasar adds.
The new colors form an arrow pointing right “to show forward movement.”
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| The iconic rainbow flag |
I’m going to offer an opinion on this, as I have in the past, and say we have a flag that we’ve embraced.
The iconic pride flag is made up of the colors of the rainbow which Baker assigned meaning to human values: Life, Healing, Sunlight, Nature, Serenity, Spirit.
In other words, the rainbow flag is already fundamentally inclusive of everyone already.
By the way – June 25 will be the 40th “birthday” of the rainbow flag. Thank you, Gilbert Baker.
Chime in below if you agree or disagree.
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| Transgender flag first shown at a pride parade in Phoenix, AZ, in 2000. |
Google Doodle celebrates the 66th birthday of Gilbert Baker, the creator of the rainbow flag, a symbol of pride and freedom for the LGBTQA+ community.
Baker, who passed away in March of this year, designed the flag in 1978 in San Francisco.
You can see the animated doodle here.
Teaching himself to sew, Baker put his skills to work for the San Francisco gay community, making banners for marches and protests. In 1978 Baker used those skills to create a new symbol for the LGBT Community to replace the pink triangle, a symbol of oppression and devastation from the Nazi’s classification of LGBT people in World War II. Baker’s Rainbow was a more positive and celebratory symbol.
“We needed something beautiful, something from us,” Baker explained. “The rainbow is so perfect because it really fits our diversity in terms of race, gender, ages, all of those things. Plus, it’s a natural flag—it’s from the sky!”
Making the flag was no small task. Baker gathered thirty people in the attic of the Gay Community Center in San Francisco to hand-dye and sew together over 1000 yards of cotton. The modern day rainbow flag features six colors, but the original used eight, each representing a different aspect of the community. The iconic symbol stuck and soon Baker was flooded with requests for more flags.
Baker’s sister, Ardonna Cook, also reflects on his life and legacy by sharing, “Our family is so proud of the legacy of activism and artistry that Gilbert has left to the world. He touched millions across the globe and empowered them to become stronger and more visible LGBT people. Gilbert led a bold and inspiring life by bringing The Rainbow Flag to life and it is that legacy which should guide us in respecting and celebrating diversity.”
When Gilbert Baker, the creator of the iconic rainbow flag, passed away on March 31, 2017, NewFest and NYC Pride partnered with Ogilvy & Mather’s design team to create a rainbow flag inspired font to honor the LGBT activist.
They named the font “Gilbert.”
Via press release:
“We wanted to create something special that would not just honor Gilbert and his iconic Rainbow Flag but also give the LGBTQ community a fantastic tool to help them create their own banners, posters and signs. People can now raise the Rainbow Flag with every letter they type. By literally embedding the Rainbow Flag into the font we made it possible for everyone around the world to type with pride.”
Ogilvy & Mather partnered with Fontself to leverage cutting-edge color font technologies and produce both a traditional font as well a colorful typeface. “We are all driven by the same passion for self-expression and creativity. Today, we are releasing a preview version of the font and we will iterate based on the feedback of the community. We will also share behind-the-scenes updates so anyone interested in using the font or creating their own version can learn more about color fonts“.
You can download the font here.
Watch the announcement video below.
In this week’s LGBT news on The Randy Report podcast:
• One of the stars of the hit TV series The Walking Dead came out as gay in a heartfelt video
• The world observed International Transgender Day of Visibility, check out Mila Jam’s LGBTQ anthem “Faces”
• The Trump administration proposes cutting hundreds of millions of dollars from the federal budget for HIV/AIDS research and prevention
• The upcoming Census may not count any LGBTs, effectively erasing us from the data
• And the LGBT community lost an important pioneer and activist this week, rainbow flag creator Gilbert Baker
All that, and more, on this episode of The Randy Report