Aggie Dennett Harmon

In Uganda, Aggie Dennett Harmon reminds us, a rainbow is not always just a rainbow. Around the world, rainbow colors may evoke Pride, celebration, and belonging. 

In Uganda, however, those same colors can attract suspicion, anger, harassment, and even violence. During debates over anti-LGBTQ legislation, the rainbow became so politically charged that even ordinary displays of color could be treated as evidence of LGBTQ advocacy.

Aggie describes how this reached into unexpected places. Members of parliament questioned the use of rainbow decorations in kindergartens, demanding that the colors be changed because they had become associated with the LGBTQ community. A simple pattern of colors had become political.

For queer and trans Ugandans, this creates a complicated relationship with the Rainbow Flag. It remains a powerful symbol of belonging, but it can also identify someone as a target. A bracelet, sticker, or piece of rainbow-colored fabric can attract unwanted attention. Yet despite those risks, the colors continue to appear wherever people refuse to allow fear to erase their existence.

This is where Aggie’s idea of Hidden Rainbows becomes especially compelling.

When a large flag cannot safely fly in the streets, the rainbow survives in smaller forms: a bracelet, a sticker inside a notebook, or a piece of fabric carefully folded away. To someone who does not know what it means, these may appear insignificant. 

To someone who recognizes the signal, they can say something profound: You are not alone.

Within private homes, community gatherings, and other safe spaces, the rainbow becomes less about public visibility and more about connection. People gather to share stories, pray, and remind one another that their lives matter. The colors become a quiet language between people who understand both the risks and the resilience of living openly.

For Aggie, the meaning of the rainbow is also deeply connected to faith.

As a pastor, she naturally thinks of the story of Noah and the flood in Genesis. After the destruction of the flood, God places a rainbow in the sky as a covenant—a promise that life will continue and that destruction will not have the final word.

And Aggie notices something important: The rainbow appears after the storm.

That becomes the central metaphor of her contribution. Queer and trans people may feel as though their lives are being lived inside a storm of stigma, misunderstanding, rejection, and violence. But the rainbow carries the possibility that the storm will not last forever.

Aggie also challenges the idea that the rainbow has somehow become incompatible with faith simply because it is now associated with LGBTQ identity. 

She returns to the biblical meaning of the rainbow as something universal: hope after destruction, promise after suffering, and new life after despair.

Her discussion then turns toward community. For queer and trans people in Uganda, survival is rarely an individual achievement. It happens through networks of care—friends checking on one another, community leaders creating safe spaces, and activists providing support and harm-reduction services.

In those spaces, the rainbow represents those relationships as much as it represents identity. It becomes a symbol of chosen family, friendship, solidarity, and the networks that allow people to keep going when the world around them is hostile.

That is what makes Aggie’s conclusion so strong. The rainbow does not promise that the storm never existed. It doesn’t deny suffering. Instead, it represents the possibility of survival after and through the storm.

Her final reframing is beautiful: The rainbow is not simply a symbol of pride.
It is a covenant of survival.

And where the storm feels strongest, that promise becomes even more sacred.