GILBERT BAKER, gay-rights campaigner and vexillographer talks to EOIN BUTLER
Where did you grow up?I was born and raised in a small town in rural Kansas. Growing up, I was always good with my hands. I wanted to be a doctor or a surgeon. In 1970 I was drafted into the US army. It was the height of the Vietnam war and I worked as a nurse tending to wounded troops. Seeing kids my own age shot up, it was horrible.
Presumably, you had to be very careful about hiding your sexuality in the army?Not really. We were conscripts. We were cannon fodder. I was basically a screaming queen, but they'd take just about anybody in those days. Luckily, I was stationed in San Francisco. After the Free Speech Movement in Berkeley, and the hippies preaching free love in Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco was a city in the throes of a full scale sexual revolution.
So you literally weren't in Kansas any more?Oh, once I hit San Francisco, I was never going back to Kansas. I was a big drag queen. In those days, even just to go out to the grocery store, you had to dress up like David Bowie. I couldn't afford the clothes I liked. So when I left the army, the first thing I did was to buy a sewing machine. It was an exciting time to be alive. I wouldn't quite say that we had no fear, but we were pretty wild in terms of pushing boundaries.
At what point did you become politically active?Right away. When Harvey Milk came to San Francisco, I met him and liked him immensely. I realised he was a natural leader. He was a very effective communicator and he had a great message. I found myself in his circle of friends. He loved art and he really pushed me to come up with a symbol for the gay rights movement.
The pink triangle had previously been used.That's right. But the pink triangle had come from the Nazis. It was a stigma placed on homosexuals, the same way the Star of David had been for the Jews. It was later appropriated by the gay-rights movement, but it came from a very negative place. After the Stonewall riots, we wanted something that expressed our joy.
Preparing for this interview, I encountered a word I hadn't before . . .Vexillography! It comes from the Latin vexillum, meaning flag or standard. America celebrated its bicentennial in 1976 and the whole country was awash with flags. I came to appreciate how they could be turned into just about anything – beautiful art or tacky souvenirs – and still carry the same message. Harvey had always said that gay people had to be visible. A flag really fit the bill.
So you designed the first rainbow flag?Well, a flag is not designed. It's purloined from the soul of the people it represents. We were celebrating the totality of human sexuality: straight, gay, bisexual, transgender. So the rainbow flag was an obvious fit. I still bristle when people refer to it as the gay flag. It's about sexual liberation. I made two enormous rainbow flags for the San Francisco Gay Freedom Parade in June 1978 and I knew immediately that the people owned it.
The 25th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots was celebrated in 1994. This was also a big milestone for the flag, wasn't it?Yes, literally. I made a mile-long rainbow flag for the New York Pride Parade. Ten thousand people carried it, a million people watched it go past – it was beautiful. Afterwards we had all these trucks to take it away, but it was too much work. So we just chopped it up and gave segments of it away. The following year pieces of that flag began to appear at Pride celebrations from London to Hong Kong. That was when it really became an international symbol.
Given that it is such a powerful international symbol, why are you allowing it to be used to sell vodka?The flag is in the public domain, so I couldn't stop it if I wanted to. If this helps send our message further out into the culture, why would I stop it? Absolut has a long history with our movement. They didn't show up yesterday. Besides, if you want to go negative on the corporate angle, it's worth noting that gay people have made far greater advances in the corporate world than they have ever got in government policy.
Finally, if the Stonewall Riots ignited the gay-rights movement, when do you feel the tide began to turn in your favour?Or has that moment arrived yet? No. Our enemies are a strictly enforced heterosexual supremacy that has the morality of a phony master-race. So while it's great to be gay in San Francisco or New York or Dublin, it ain't so great in Jakarta or Tehran or Riyadh. Even in the west, gay marriage won't mean the end of homophobia. Freedom isn't something that's handed to you. It's something you fight for all the time. So the struggle we are engaged in will last forever.
Gilbert Baker will be speaking in the National Gallery of Ireland next Wednesday, June 22nd in association with Absolut Vodka and Dublin Pride
