Gay flag 8

History

Original eight-stripe rainbow flag for the 1978 Gay and Lesbian Freedom Day Parade in San Francisco. Gay flag 8 is a community-authored pride or identity flag. Modern pride vexillology exploded after the rainbow flag’s adoption in the 1970s: today hundreds of designs name sexual orientations, romantic orientations, gender modalities, kink communities, and overlapping marginalisations. Stripes are rarely accidental—activists publish meanings, adjust colours after feedback, and sometimes retire designs when community language moves on. No global registry mandates one definition; conferences, online forums, and local centres negotiate usage. This entry summarises the design when documentary text is thin; prefer the longer description above when Wikimedia Commons supplies it.