Every year in June, rainbow flags emerge on the facades of homes and businesses to celebrate Pride. The market for rainbow party favors and rainbow novelty clothing booms. In the other months of the year, rainbow bunting and rainbow crosswalks still demarcate LGBTQ+ businesses and historic gayborhoods, creating a visual map of the queer world. In other words, all across the globe, rainbow colors are a reliable signal that something homosexual is afoot.
But when the first gay rainbow flags flew over San Francisco in 1978, they weren’t intended to be an international symbol for a growing social movement. The story of the rainbow flag is a lot more complicated than most tellings would suggest: It starts with anti-gay ballot initiative and ends with accusations of a decades-long lie.
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