I thought of the original American flag with its 13 stripes and 13 stars, the colonies breaking away from England to form the United States. “I looked at the flags flying on the various government buildings around the Civic Center. This message is best described by Baker himself: camera icon © David Edelman/Dreamstimeīut the rainbow flag doesn’t just symbolize representation of LGBTQ people - it is also a message of power and rebellion. And this was a conversation that people were having, not just me and my friends, but all around the country, and I think around the world that we lacked that unifying emblem …”Ī small mural of Harvey Milk looks down from the window of his former home on Castro Street directly above the site of his camera shop, a community gathering place for LGBTQ activists in the 1970s.
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Milk and Baker wanted a symbol that represented everyone.Ĭleve Jones, a personal friend of Milk and Baker who played a prominent role in the gay rights movements of the ’70s and ’80s, said, “There were other symbols - there were the intertwined gender symbols that had their roots in the feminist movement, but we really didn’t have a symbol that united all of us. In his campaigns for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Milk advocated that to make progress for gay rights, it was also necessary to advocate for Black rights, Mexican rights, Asian American rights and those of other marginalized groups. The most popular queer symbol at the time was the pink triangle - previously used to mark gay people during the Holocaust - and was used most frequently by gay cisgender men. Milk asked Baker to create a symbol for LGBTQ people that had a positive meaning behind it. camera icon Gareth Watkins, CC BY 3.0īaker created the flag in 1978, at a time when there were few symbols available to represent LGBTQ communities. This term describes someone who is questioning their sexual orientation or gender identity.įind more LGBTQ information and resources by visiting our resource center or by giving us a call at Baker in 2012. Sometimes, when the Q is seen at the end of LGBT, it can also mean questioning. Once considered a pejorative term, queer has been reclaimed by some LGBTQ people to describe themselves however, it is not a universally accepted term even within the LGBTQ community. Some people may use queer, or genderqueer, to describe their gender identity and/or gender expression. Typically, for those who identify as queer, the terms lesbian, gay, and bisexual are perceived to be too limiting and/or fraught with cultural connotations they feel don’t apply to them. QUEERĪn adjective used by some people whose sexual orientation is not exclusively heterosexual. But not all transgender people can or will take those steps, and a transgender identity is not dependent upon physical appearance or medical procedures. Many transgender people are prescribed hormones by their doctors to bring their bodies into alignment with their gender identity.
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People under the transgender umbrella may describe themselves using one or more of a wide variety of terms- including transgender. TRANSGENDERĪn umbrella term for people whose gender identity and/or gender expression differs from what is typically associated with the sex they were assigned at birth. Bisexual people need not have had specific sexual experiences to be bisexual in fact, they need not have had any sexual experience at all to identify as bisexual. People may experience this attraction in differing ways and degrees over their lifetime. BISEXUALĪ person who has the capacity to form enduring physical, romantic, and/or emotional attractions to those of the same gender or to those of another gender. Sometimes lesbian is the preferred term for women. The adjective used to describe people whose enduring physical, romantic, and/or emotional attractions are to people of the same sex. Some lesbians may prefer to identify as gay or as gay women. A woman whose enduring physical, romantic, and/or emotional attraction is to other women.