Did you know that over 10 million adults in the United States identify as LGBTQ? The numbers have only continued to increase as society becomes more accepting of people for who they are.

Despite all the progress, so much change still needs to occur. It can be scary to be proud of who you are when there are still so many people and laws that are working to discriminate against your livelihood.

Nonetheless, showing off your pride can be incredibly rewarding. There’s so much history behind the different kinds of pride flags that exist today.

Your Complete Guide to Pride Flags

Keep reading to learn about all of the pride flags that have been designed over the years. The variety that exists may surprise you!

The Pride Flag That Started It All

The history of the original pride flag should be in textbooks and taught in school, especially LGBTQ+ folks. This first pride flag was created by Gilbert Baker in 1977. 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.

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. Each color in the flag also had a specific meaning.

• Hot pink symbolizes sex
• Red equals life
• Orange symbolizes healing
• Yellow stands for sunlight
• Green represents nature
• Turquoise equals magic and art
• Indigo stands for serenity
• Violet represents the spirit of LGBTQ people

The 6-Color Pride Flag 

One of the most well known and used of the LGBT flags throughout history has been the 1979, six-color flag. This flagincludes the colors red, orange, yellow, green, indigo, and violet on it.

The hot pink wasn’t included in the fabrication of new flags because the fabric was hard to find and the demand for the flag started to rise. The turquoise color was also taken off the flag to keep an even number of colors.

The Philadelphia Pride Flag

The Philadelphia Pride Flag came about in response to the demand for more inclusivity within the LGBTQ+ community. The flag launched in 2017 as part of the More Color More Pride Campaign in Philadelphia.

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.

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. She has become a powerful voice of representation for black folks in entertainment and wearing this flag symbolized that best.

While there was some push back from other members of the LGBTQ+ community, most have seen it as a beautiful way to include people of color who are also part of the LGBTQ+ community. It has become a way to have conversations about race within the community.

The Transgender Flag

There are more than 1.4 million trans adults living in the U.S. Violence against the queer community affects trans people of color the most.

This is why the trans flag is so important. The trans community needs representation and resources to be visible without fear.

The flag was first created in 1999 by Monica Helms, a transgender woman. Pink and blue represent girls and boys respectively. The white stands for those in transition or those who don’t feel identified to any gender.

The Nonbinary Pride Flag

In 2014, Kye Rowan created the nonbinary pride flag. 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.

Yellow signifies something on its own or people who identify outside of the cisgender binary of male or female. White, a color that consists of all colors mixed together, stands for multi-gendered people. Purple, similar to the lavender color in the genderqueer flag, represents people who identify as a blending of male and female genders.

Finally, black (the absence of color) signifies those who are agender or who feel they do not have a gender.

The Intersex Flag 

This flag went through a variety of iterations before the current intersex flag emerged. Previous versions embraced the rainbow that is often associated with queer pride, while others used colors like blue and pink, which are found on the transgender flag.

In 2013, Morgan Carpenter chose the colors yellow and purple for the intersex flag. Morgan moved away from the rainbow symbolism and selected these colors because neither is associated with the social constructs of the gender binary.

The circle, perfect and unbroken, represents the wholeness of intersex people. It is a reminder that intersex people are perfect the way they are or choose to be.

The Flag for the Asexual Community

The asexual flag was created in 2010 by the Asexual Visibility and Education Network. This flag represents the asexual community. Because this is a less common identity and asexuality can mean different things to different people, it is best to ask each individual what it means to them.

For some people, it may mean that they rely on other types of attraction instead of or in place of sexual attraction.

Once again, each color in this flag also represents something unique.

• Black stands for asexuality
• Gray represents demisexuality, sexual attraction after an emotional bond
• White stands for the allies of the community
• Purple represents the entire community of asexual folks

The Bisexual Pride Flag

The bi pride flag was created in 1998 by Michael Page. His idea for the flag represents pink and blue blending to make purple. The way that bisexual people can blend into the straight community and the gay community.

The colors of the flag also represent attraction to different genders. The pink symbolizes attraction to the same gender, while the blue represents attraction to a different gender. The purple represents attraction to two or more genders, the definition of bisexuality.

The Pansexual Flag

The flag that symbolizes the pansexual community was created in 2010. Pansexuality represents those people who feel attracted to a person without thinking about gender. This means that they can feel attraction to those who identify as women, men, both or neither.

The pink on the flag represents attraction to women, blue represents attraction to men, and yellow stands for attraction to those who don’t identify with either gender.

The Flag for the Lesbian Community

The lesbian flag is one of the flags fewer people know about. This flag features different shades of pink and sometimes comes with a red kiss on it to represent lipstick lesbians.

This flag was created by Natalie McCray in 2010. Some lesbians oppose this flag because of its exclusion of butch lesbians but no other flag has as much popularity as this one.

The Modern Pride Flag

Given the evolving nature of the LGBTQ+ community and society at large, the modern pride flag integrates many of these flags into one. Thankfully, it has been redesigned to be more substantially more inclusive.

The modern pride flag now includes stripes to represent the experiences of people of color, as well as stripes to represent people who identify as transgender, gender nonconforming (GNC) and/or undefined.

Everything You Need to Know About Pride Flags

There are so many pride flags that represent the diversity of the LGBTQ+ community. Given this, it’s important to know the meaning behind the flags that represent different members within our community.

Which flag do you identify with and prefer to fly? Let me know in the comments below.

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