It also plays a significant role in many religions, including the Hindu and Christian religions. Over the course of history the symbol can be found in Grecco-Roman, Chinese, Armenian, Norse, Irish, and Australian Aboriginal mythology.
Many communication theories are relevant in how, where, why and when the symbol of the rainbow is presented. If you have watched the national news recently, you will see the symbol everywhere at rallies and protests in the state of Arizona, encouraging the veto of a bill that would allow businesses to deny service to the LGBT community. It is what Harold Lasswell would refer to as a master symbol, which are “symbols that are associated with strong emotions and possess the power to stimulate large-scale mass action” (Baran & Davis, 2012). The rainbow has played a significant role in the human experience since the beginning of time, and is referenced in the mythologies of almost every early culture. According to National Geographic’s online encyclopedia, a rainbow is “a multicolored arc made by light striking water droplets… produced when sunlight strikes raindrops in front of a viewer at a precise angle (42 degrees)”. Vecchietti said, “My intention in creating this iteration of the flag with visible intersex inclusion is to create some much-needed intersex joy.Why is the symbol of the rainbow meaningful to the human experience? And which communication theories are potentially in play? Theory is defined as “any organized set of concepts, explanations, and principles of some aspect of human experience” (Baran & Davis, 2012). In 2021, Valentino Vecchietti of Intersex Equality Rights UK developed the Intersex Pride Progress flag design to incorporate the intersex flag. Taking inspiration from Daniel Quasar’s trans-inclusive 2018 redesign and the Philadelphia Office of LGBT affairs’ flag iteration which included Black and Brown stripes to represent queer people of color, the newly designed Pride flag is one that acknowledges the important history of Pride flags. There is a varied set of reasons why individuals identify in this way, but there is a real linguistic need to describe this space. Similarly, some agender individuals feel a lack of gender is sufficient to make them not cisgender, but does not make them transgender either. For example, some are nonbinary or genderfluid and feel that neither cisgender nor transgender accurately conveys their experience. Metagender has been defined as “A not insignificant quantity of people consider themselves neither cis nor trans.
The combination of the black and white stripes and the rainbow represent the allies’ support of the LGBTQ+ community. And I made a couple flags actually, but this one I submitted to a blog on Tumblr about genderfluidity and gender fluid people. “I wouldn’t call myself an artist, but I’ve dabbled with drawing and bits of Photoshop, so I decided to create it myself. I found genderfluid to be fitting but was disappointed with the lack of symbolic representation,” Poole said. At the time I knew genderqueer fit me, but it still felt too broad.
“I had been trying to find an identity that fit me.
In an interview with Majestic Mess Designs, Poole said they created the flag because genderfluidity lacked a symbol and the term “genderqueer” didn’t exactly fit. Purple: Represents both masculinity and feminity The flag was created by JJ Poole in 2012 according to OutRight Action International. How often someone’s identity shifts depends on the individual. People who are genderfluid don’t identify with one gender, but rather their gender identity shifts between male, female, or somewhere else on the spectrum.