Why the rainbow flag is now one of many during Pride month

LOOK UP AT a flagpole in most big American cities in June, and you will probably see three banners: the stars and stripes, the state or city emblem and a rainbow flag, which is flown to mark LGBTQ Pride month. But if you attend a Pride parade in one of those cities, you may see several flags with different colours and symbols riffing on the familiar rainbow stripes. The Human Rights Campaign, an American LGBTQ-rights lobby group, lists 25 Pride flags on its website. Why so many?

The first Pride marches were held in 1970 in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York City on the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, which began after police officers raided a gay bar in Greenwich Village in New York. Pride month got no official recognition for more than two decades, until Bill Clinton declared June to be “Gay and Lesbian Pride Month” in 1999. As Americans embraced gay rights, Democratic presidents recognised more groups as deserving of celebration. In 2009 Barack Obama declared June to be “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month”. Joe Biden has added queer and intersex to the list, proclaiming June to be a celebration of LGBTQI+ people. Pride events have spread around the world: Outright International, an LGBTQ advocacy organisation, estimates that festivities were held in 107 countries in 2021.