The rainbow Pride flag was designed in 1978 by artist and gay rights activist Gilbert Baker. He came up with the design after prominent gay rights leader Harvey Milk urged him to create a new, positive symbol that the entire LGBTQIA+ community could rally behind. Baker thought a rainbow flag would better represent the beautiful diversity of the LGBTQIA+ community. He also considered the powerful symbolic significance of rainbows throughout history.
Philadelphia redesigned the Pride flag in 2017 to include the colors brown and black in an effort to promote diversity and inclusion and to "honor the lives of our Black and brown LGBTQ siblings," the city said in a statement. Philadelphia's Office of LGBT Affairs partnered with Tierney, a Philadelphia PR agency, to redesign the flag as part of its new inclusivity campaign, #MoreColorMorePride. (Source: USA Today)
Designed by Daniel Quasar in 2018, it adds five new colors to emphasize progress around inclusion. The flag includes black and brown stripes to represent people of color, and baby blue, pink and white, which are used in the Transgender Pride Flag. (Source: USA Today)
In the asexual Pride flag, the black stripe is for asexuality; the gray for the gray area in between sexual and asexual and demisexuality; the white for non-asexual partners and allies; and the purple for community. Asexuals or "aces" are people who usually do not feel sexually attracted to anyone. (Source: USA Today)
The Aromantic Flag represents people who either do not experience romantic attraction or do so in a nontraditional way. There were two earlier versions of this flag: It’s not known when the first one was created, but both the second and the final/current version were designed in 2014. The color green represents aromanticism, and it appears in two shades in the flag, along with white (platonic and aesthetic attraction), gray (gray-aromantic and demiromantic people), and black (the sexuality spectrum). (Source: Reader's Digest)
The Bisexual Pride Flag, which activist Michael Page introduced in 1998, features a broad magenta stripe at the top (representing same-gender attraction,) a broad stripe in blue at the bottoms (representing opposite gender attractions), and a narrower deep lavender band occupying the central fifth (which represents attraction toward both genders) (Source: Amherst.edu)
The Demisexual Pride Flag represents a section of the asexual community that develops sexual attraction to someone only after forming a deep emotional bond with them. It’s unknown when, exactly, the flag was created, but it includes four colors: black (representing asexuality), gray (asexuality and demisexuality), white (sexuality), and purple (community). (Source: Reader's Digest)
The flag, designed by JJ Poole in 2012, includes five stripes, representing femininity (pink), masculinity (blue), purple (both), black (all genders) and white (no gender). (Source: USA Today)
Made in 2011 by genderqueer writer Marilyn Roxie. The colors are lavender (a blue and pink combination, to stand for androgyny), white (agender) and chartreuse (not in the gender binary). (Source: USA Today)
The intersex flag features gender-neutral colors yellow and purple. The circle "represents wholeness, completeness and the intersex people’s potentiality," according to the University of Northern Colorado. Intersex is an umbrella term for people with variations in sex characteristics that don’t fit neatly in the binary of male or female. Some intersex people are born with varying reproductive anatomy or sex traits — some develop them later in life. About 1.7 percent of people are born intersex. (Source: USA Today)
Created by Emily Gwen in 2018, the colors represent 'gender non-conformity' (dark orange), 'independence' (orange), 'community' (light orange), 'unique relationships to womanhood' (white), 'serenity and peace' (pink), 'love and sex' (dusty pink), and 'femininity' (dark rose). (Source: Old Dominion University)
Kyle Rowan is behind the nonbinary pride flag, released in 2014. The yellow is for those whose gender is outside the traditional binary; the white for those with all genders or multiple ones; the purple for those who identify as a male and female mix; and the black for those who don't have a gender. (Source: USA Today)
The pink stripes in the pansexual flag reference those who are attracted to women, while the blue references those who are attracted to men. Yellow stands for nonbinary attraction. (Source: USA Today)
In 1995, Jim Evans created this flag to represent the polyamorous community, an identity described as the ability to be in multiple relationships. It acted to serve as a way to discreetly identify other poly individuals when it was first created, but gained popularity across the internet. The four colors present in the flag represent different elements of polyamory, and they are blue (the openness and honesty of all parties involved), red (love and passion), black (solidarity with those who must hide their polyamorous relationships from the outside world), and gold (the value of platonic and romantic emotional attachment). The pi symbol in the center of the flag represents the first letter in the word "polyamory." (Source: Jim Evans' Blog)
The Polysexual Pride Flag was created in 2012 by Tumblr user Samlin who based the colors off of the pansexual and bisexual flags given how all three sexualities are based around attraction to multiple genders. The colors borrowed are blue and pink, representing attraction to male and female identities respectively, with the green representing attraction to identities outside of the gender binary. (Source: University of Northern Colorado)
Monica Helms created the Transgender Pride Flag in 1999 and debuted it in the Phoenix Pride Parade in 2000. It consists of five stripes with blue representing the traditional color for boys, pink being the traditional color for girls, and the white stripe in the center standing for individuals who are transitioning, intersex, or having an undefined gender identity. (Source: University of Northern Colorado)
Two-Spirit is an umbrella-term given to specific Native American individuals. The meaning of Two-Spirit may differ between communities as it relates to their specific cultural and traditional understandings of gender, but ultimately they share similar characteristics and are viewed as outside of the gender binary. Traditionally, Two-Spirit individuals have designated roles in their community and are thought to possess a feminine and masculine spirit within them, giving this identity a sacred or spiritual role. The two feathers on the flag symbolize masculine and feminine identities, the circle showing the unification of those identities as a separate entity, and the rainbow colors show the relation to the LGBTQIA+ community. (Source: University of Northern Colorado)
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