You can also f ollow a related LGBTQ trail through some of the galleries and explore more in an online exhibit.
#Rainbow gay pride meaning free#
The free display Desire, love, identity: exploring LGBTQ histories is open in Room 69a until 15 October 2017, supported by Stephen and Julie Fitzgerald.
#Rainbow gay pride meaning full#
You see, if I could tell my young gay self – who was bullied at school for being gay, who told his friends he fancied Posh Spice when he actually fancied David Beckham, who wanted nothing more than to fit in, who didn’t come out to friends and family for years out of fear – that one heartwarming day the big ol’ building full of stuff, at the heart of the establishment, would raise a Rainbow Flag atop its highest point, for all to see in the spirit of togetherness, tolerance, community and acceptance… well, I think my younger self would feel nothing but Pride, and a little less lonely too. George Benson and the Museum’s own Rainbow Flag. Just by seeing the flag and the Museum together, even for just a weekend, can have an enormously supportive effect on anyone, LGBTQ or straight, because it’s about society accepting who you are and accepting who you love. Just as numismatists, archaeologists, Egyptologists and the generally curious can find like-minded people at the British Museum, a gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered or queer person can find solidarity with a fellow flag flyer. The Museum can connect you to someone you never knew existed, and the Rainbow Flag can do just the same. What I said earlier about needing the Rainbow Flag a little earlier in my life basically meant I wish I had seen it somewhere to know I was not alone.
The Museum and the flag have great symbolic significance and it is entirely fitting that they should come together this year, and hopefully for many years to come.
Over Pride in London weekend this year (7–9 July 2017) the British Museum will proudly fly the Rainbow Flag, for all its visitors to see, indeed for the whole world to see. So now it is the turn of one of the most famous buildings in London – perhaps the world.
Image used through Flickr Creative Commons. The Rainbow Flag projected onto the White House when the Supreme Court ruled marriage equality to be guaranteed by the Constitution. It has been at every single Gay Pride march ever since, and has recently been projected onto some of the most famous buildings in the world. With this mix of colours in a harmonious and natural form, it also signifies the togetherness of the LGBT community. Green represents nature, turquoise art, blue harmony, and violet means spirit. Red means life, orange means healing, yellow means sunlight. Originally it was eight colours strong – pink and turquoise were dropped to make mass production easier – and each colour means something. Baker went beyond Milk’s challenge, describing his method with the words, ‘A true flag cannot be designed – it has to be torn from the souls of the people.’ When Milk said ‘It’s not about personal gain, it’s not about ego, it’s not about power, it’s about giving those young people out there hope,’ he led the way for every LGBT movement since. The Rainbow Flag has been part of the LGBT movement since 1978, when, at the request of Harvey Milk (the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in the United States), activist and artist Gilbert Baker (1951–2017) designed it in his studio in San Francisco.
The Rainbow Flag waving in the wind at San Francisco’s Castro District.