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candidate at the University of Toronto who is researching queer activism, told me. “Flags as symbols facilitate sociality between strangers, inviting community between people who may never actually meet,” Elliott Tilleczek, a Ph.D. They represent what the historian Benedict Anderson called “imagined communities”-self-constituted entities, united less by shared experiences than by shared beliefs in shared experiences. And this year brought another version from Intersex Equality Rights UK, featuring a yellow triangle and purple circle to represent the intersex community, or people born with a reproductive anatomy that doesn’t fit typical male or female definitions.įlags are political symbols, borrowed from the vocabulary of nationalism, with similar overtones of citizenship, belonging, borders. One year later, the Oregon-based graphic designer Daniel Quasar added the trans flag’s stripes as a horizontal chevron to make the Progress Pride Flag. In 2017, Philadelphia’s Office of LGBT Affairs introduced black and brown stripes to the Pride flag to recognize queer and trans people of color. When I was young and newly out of the closet, around 2013, I saw LGBTQ flags for every community imaginable online, including esoteric variants, such as the green, black, white, and grey aromantic flag, and a pale pink and yellow flag for slim, hairless 20-something twinks.
![what is the gay pride colors what is the gay pride colors](https://cms.qz.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/new-pride-flag-01.jpg)
The now-familiar six-stripe flag is actually a redesign.
![what is the gay pride colors what is the gay pride colors](https://ih0.redbubble.net/image.117069737.3808/flat,1000x1000,075,f.u1.jpg)
Later that year, though, the flag lost its pink stripe because of fabric unavailability at the local manufacturer, and turquoise fell off the year after for the same reason. That earliest iteration included pink and turquoise stripes, symbolizing sex and art, respectively-parts of queer life that the designers thought were worth fighting for. We are a community that has, and is, making exceptional progress.Since its first flight at 1978’s Gay Freedom Day Parade in San Francisco, the rainbow flag has evolved multiple times. The significance behind the Pride Progresses flag’s design is an excellent encapsulation of where the LGBT community stands. And the progress that is still to come for the fabulous expanse of gender identities, romantic and sexual orientations we don’t talk about enough yet. Hopefully, in doing so, we can start or continue a conversation not only about trans and POC representation within our community–but about bisexual, pansexual, and asexual people. The intention behind this change is not to replace or erase what the Pride flag was, but rather to recognize the value of all parts of our modern queer community, which the Progress flag does a better job of.Īnd considering the current Black Lives Matter movement and specifically the focus on issues faced by queer trans people of color (QTPOC) with our community – this shift towards the use of the more inclusive Pride Progress symbol is one should all fully support and encourage. And it’s all part of a journey to be more inclusive of the expansive breadth of identities within our community. The arrow leads to the right to confer forward movement while purposely being along the left edge, pointing to the fact that much progress still needs to be made.įrom the London Mayor’s office to Fort Lauderdale Pride and various cultural institutions worldwide–the symbol being used to serve LGBT people is evolving. For the last 40+ years, the iconic LGBT Pride flag produced by Gilbert Baker’ with its six distinguished colors (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet) has been the globally recognized symbol of the LGBT community.īut in the past few years, Pride festivals, companies, and activists worldwide have concurrently and without any coordination been embracing ‘The Progress Flag’ as their emblem for the queer community instead.Ĭreated by Daniel Quasar in 2018, the Pride Progress Flag features black and brown stripes to portray marginalized LGBTQ+ communities of color and baby blue, pink and white to incorporate the trans flag in its design.ĭaniel displaced the trans flag stripes and marginalized community stripes to the flag’s hoist, where they form a new arrow shape.