There seem to be two main stories about the history of the use of lavender and LBGT Communities:

• One story is that "the color purple became the color of the gay movement because that is the main color of Sayville ('Gayville') NY. Almost all the veterans of Stonewall spent time there."
http://www.geocities.com/sayswamp

• Another common notion is that "the color lavender is often used to denote homosexuality, although the origins of its use are not clear. It may be the result of combining the colors red and blue (representing female and male influences respectively) thereby creating a fusion of genders. Lavender became popular in American lesbian circles in the 1930s as a colloquial term for other lesbians. "
http://jasewells.com/gayicons

• The Wikipedia discussion of lavender (the color pages on Wikipedia will blow your mind if you've never seen them) echoes the idea that lavender was chosen as a mix of blue and red, though if you read the discussions of color, you'll see this is a rather simplistic notion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavender_(color)

Many discussions of pink (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink) and blue point out that the history of gender identification of these colors is rather murky, also.

• Other history pages:
o http://www.lambda.org/symbols.htm
o http://www.indiana.edu/~arenal/Flag.html

Created by the Office of Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay and Transgender Concerns
Michigan State University

ljl 1/10/2007