There’s something quite stirring about a banner flowing in the breeze. Humans have been designing and using flags for so long that no one’s really sure when it started. Flag-like symbols go back at least as far as the 11th century BCE in China, home of lightweight, gleaming silk. During the Age of Sail, flags became an important way to communicate your identity at a distance, and people have been doing that ever since. There are well over two dozen Pride flags out there, here are some you may encounter at marches and celebrations.
The eight-color Gilbert Baker flag was first flown in 1978 at the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade. Its colors, top to bottom, represent sex, life, healing, sunlight, nature, magic, serenity, and spirit. Demand spiked after the assassination of City Supervisor Harvey Milk that November, and hot pink fabric grew harder to find, leading Baker’s company to use standard seven-color rainbow fabric. In 1979, again for purely practical reasons, it became the familiar six-stripe banner.
The Trans Pride flag, with pastel pinks and blues separated by a white center stripe, was created by transgender activist, author, and US military veteran Monica Helms in 1999. Her symmetrical design retains its meaning whether upside down or sideways—there’s no wrong way to fly it. The white space in the center symbolizes the space for change.
The Community Lesbian Pride flag was chosen in a 2018 poll among a variety of options, conducted so that a lesbian pride flag could be mass-produced, and is based on a design by Catherine Becker. It’s intentionally called “community” and not “official” out of respect for those who prefer other choices, of which there are many.
The Bi Pride flag made its debut at the BiCafe’s first anniversary party in 1998. Designed by Michael Page, its stripes symbolize opposite sex attraction (blue), same sex attraction (pink), and the lavender blending of both. The colors and the overlap concept were inspired by the biangles symbol designed by artist Liz Nania for the Second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights in 1987.
The Bear Brotherhood Pride flag, developed by a psychology student in 1995, celebrates those who gleefully subvert the tropes of conventional machismo with stripes of dark and light brown followed by gold, pink, beige, white, gray, and black, with a bear pawprint in the upper left corner.
The Pansexual Pride flag made its debut in the 2010s when it was posted on an anonymous Tumblr by Jared V. and gained rapid acceptance. Its three stripes are meant to invoke women, non-binary folks, and men.
The Philadelphia Pride flag, adopted by that city in 2017, adds black and brown stripes to promote visibility for people of color in the queer and trans community
The Progress Pride flag, designed by Daniel Quasar in 2018, added a chevron in colors that represent transgender people, marginalized communities of color, and those lost to AIDS. The forward-pointing design of the chevron symbolizes the need for continued progress for all.
This article appears in June 2024.
