His time with the Sisters was a period of peak creativity for Baker. Through both activism and protest drag, Baker "sought to change how society was organized in general." The Sister yearsįollowing the creation of the gay pride flag, Baker's creativity was unleashed in a new way when he met the newly formed the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.
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"For Gilbert, it was an attitude of, why would I protest using those terms of power?" says Katz, who now directs the department of global gender and sexuality studies at the University at Buffalo's visual studies doctoral program in New York. Instead of gender-illusion, "pretty" drag, Baker's humorous and irreverent approach was subversive in both execution and ideology. “But for Gilbert, and many others, that kind of assimilation just wasn’t an option.”īaker's drag, like his politics, wasn't traditional. “Drag, too, which had been in the center of gay culture in many ways, was also suddenly pushed to the margins,” says Katz. Activist and LGBT historian Jonathan Katz, a friend of Baker's since the 1990s, describes San Francisco in the early 1970s as a time of "soft, pansexual" presentation in the community - "an aesthetic that was more about confusing gender than validating traditional views of masculinity."Īs the ’70s advanced, the styles for men in San Francisco’s gay community became more tied to traditional notions of masculinity, like the blue-collar work wear-influenced “Castro Clone” look that made garments like tight denim, boots and flannel shirts a kind of sexual uniform. The new freedom gay men and women were experiencing then was mixed with a residual hippie ethos from the Summer of Love and the radical protest spirit of the anti-war era. After that, Baker began to live an openly gay life. Army at age 19 and served for two years as a medic stationed in San Francisco, a city then at the beginning of a gay cultural awakening.
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In the early 1970s, he was drafted into the U.S. “He loved fashion.”īaker’s sister, Ardonna Baker Cook, remembers Gilbert as an artistic child who loved to paint and spent “nights reading under his covers with a flashlight.” “It started at 5, when he was caught dressing in his aunt’s ball gowns,” says Beal. “Sometimes the reaction would make people speechless, or they’d ask, ‘What the f- does that mean?’”Īccording to Beal, a film and television art director who art directed the film “Milk” (in which Baker had a cameo), extravagant and gender-creative dressing was long a part of Baker’s life, going back to his childhood in Parsons, Kan. “When Gilbert was in drag, like all queens, he sparkled, he was mischievous, defiant and yet motherly in some strange way,” says Jones. The two remained friends and collaborators for the rest of Baker’s life. These are just a sample of the Gilbert Baker Collection, gifted to the organization after Baker's death from heart failure in 2017 at age 65.Ĭleve Jones, the activist and author of “When We Rise,” first met Baker in the 1970s. A green sequin gown's inspiration suddenly becomes clear when its matching tiara and bedazzled torch are unboxed: a gender-bending Statue of Liberty. A fishtail flag gown with matching picture hat gives the impression of a patriotic Mae West. It is fitting that among the garments presented on the rack at the GLBT Historical Society archives are variations of American flag drag created and worn by Baker: A rhinestone-embellished frock sparkles as it catches the light. He used that power to make statements, quite often political statements.” Flag drag & the Statue of Liberty He melded politics with these theatrical garments for a form of performative activism, at events ranging from Gay Pride celebrations and the Oscars to the aftermath of the election of Donald Trump.Ĭharley Beal, a friend of Baker’s and his estate’s creative projects manager, says that “Gilbert knew the power of fashion in a ‘Devil Wears Prada’ kind of way. But there’s a lesser-known legacy: Baker also used his sewing skills to execute dozens of drag ensembles that he wore to protests and celebrations dating back to the 1970s.