White, a color that consists of all colors mixed together, stands for multi-gendered people. Yellow signifies something on its own or people who identify outside of the cisgender binary of male or female. The colors of the nonbinary flag are yellow, white, purple, and black. The colors each symbolize a different subgroup of people who identify as nonbinary. In 2014, Kye Rowan created the nonbinary pride flag. The white stands for those in transition or those who don’t feel identified with any gender. Pink and blue represent girls and boys respectively. The flag was first created in 1999 by Monica Helms, a transgender woman. The trans community needs representation and resources to be visible without fear. This is why the trans flag is so important. Violence against the queer community affects trans people of color the most. There are more than 1.4 million trans adults living in the U.S. She is a powerful advocate for black people within the entertainment industry and this flag spiked in popularity after she elevated its visibility.
Lena Waithe’s choice to wear the Philadelphia Pride Flag as a cape at the 2018 Met Gala is the perfect example of this type of inclusion. The addition of black and brown stripes to the traditional pride flag symbolized people of color who are often not represented in the queer community. The flag launched in 2017 as part of the “More Color More Pride” Campaign in Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Pride Flag came about in response to the demand for more inclusivity across the LGBTQ+ community. The turquoise color was also taken off the flag to keep an even number of colors. Hot pink wasn’t included in the fabrication of these flags, because the fabric was hard to find as the demand for the flag started to rise. This flag includes the colors red, orange, yellow, green, indigo, and violet on it. One of the most well known and used of the LGBT flags throughout history has been the 1979, six-color flag.
Each color in the flag also had a specific meaning. Inspired by the classic song “Over the Rainbow” from the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, Baker created a rainbow flag to represent LGBTQ folks. Tasked by Harvey Milk, a historic figure in the fight for LGBTQ rights, to create a flag for the queer community, Baker created a rainbow flag with eight different colors. And because many people belong to both communities, they’re not two distinct causes but instead overlap.The history of the original pride flag should be in textbooks and taught in school. Sometimes called the Resistance Flag, according to Them writer Matt Baume: "The modern LGBTQ+ liberation movement was touched off by queer and trans people of color and their struggle continues to this day, with both communities seeking justice, equality, and freedom from oppression. The raised fist is a sign of unity and support as well as defiance and resistance, and the various colors on the fist represent diversity.
No surprise, the flag has become more popular in 2020 and beyond. Johnson, the Black drag queen who may have thrown the first brick at the Stonewall Inn riots) to the movements. Read on to learn more about the flags, their origins, and their meanings.Īs a representation of Queer People of Color, it's not known who the original creator of the flag was but represents solidarity with the BLM movement as well as the intersection of the queer and Black communities (including the importance of figures like Marsha P. In a world in which students are expelled for handing out Pride flags to protest Florida's "Don't Say Gay Bill," the need to show support for LGTBQ+ rights-publicly as well as privately-is as important as ever. Recent Pride events have even more significance in conjunction with BLM protests and activities You may have seen the hashtag #BlackTransLivesMatter, for instance, or the raised-fist resistance Pride flag (more on that below). But what's powerful is that the breadth of LGBTQ+ representation continues to evolve, a nod to the diversity of sex, sexuality, attraction, and gender. There's also some disagreement about what should be considered the "official" flags, and controversy about some of the flags' origins and meaning. This list of 30 Pride flags utilizes information from a range of sources, in particular The Advocate's comprehensive guide-but even outside of this article, there are many more iterations of Pride flags that exist, including flags from different countries and states flags that include relevant symbols and two or more flags combined into one.