It has a pink block at the top, a thinner purple stripe, and then a blue block at the bottom. The Bisexual Pride flag has also seen common use for many years. Lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and even leather groups created symbols for their communities, and over time came into more widespread use.
But over the years, groups within the queer community felt the need to assert their presence as well. Over the years, the rainbow-striped Pride flag came to be thought of as the sole icon of Pride.
“Gay” as a catch-all term for anything gender-nonconforming is a fast-vanishing vestige of patriarchy. Today, Pride is much more inclusive of lesbians, bisexual people, and people who are trans or poly or asexual or queer. Though it was often called the “Gay Pride Flag” at first, it’s now come to represent a much broader community than just gay men. Baker and a friend named Lynn Segerblom, also known as Faerie Argyle Rainbow, developed a rainbow version that had eight colors, with a hot pink stripe later removed because it was difficult to dye.
There, he befriended Milk, who challenged him to create a symbol for what was then more commonly called the gay community. Baker had served in the Army, and moved to San Francisco following his honorable discharge. The history of the Pride flag can be traced back to Harvey Milk, the famous San Francisco city Supervisor, and his friend Gilbert Baker in the 1970s. And because many people belong to both communities, they’re not two distinct causes but instead overlap.None of those symbols was particularly widespread in modern times, however. Sometimes called the Resistance Flag (opens in new tab), 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 (opens in new tab), the Black drag queen who may have thrown the first brick (opens in new tab) 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 (opens in new tab) 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 (opens in new tab)'s comprehensive guide-but even outside of this article, there are many more iterations of Pride flags that exist, including flags from different countries (opens in new tab) and states flags that include relevant symbols and two or more flags combined into one.