Pride Flag Guide

This guide offers an overview of the various pride flags, highlighting their meanings and the significance they hold for LGBTQ+ communities. There are many pride flags unlisted here, but there is a Pride Flag Guide in The Center lobby (C4C N320) that is accessible whenever we are open.

Original pride flag

Original Pride Flag

Date: 1978
Creator: Gilbert Baker

It was created for San Francisco’s annual pride parade. Harvey Milk asked Baker to create a symbol for gay pride. It has eightcolors: pink for sex, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sunlight, green for nature, turquoise for art, blue for harmony and peace, and violet for spirit.

Rainbow pride flag

Rainbow Pride Flag

Date: 1978
Creator: Gilbert Baker

After the assassination of Harvey Milk, the rainbow flag was in high demand. Due to manufacturing issues, the hot pink stripe was removed. The turquoise stripe was removed from the flag as a design choice from Baker. The six-color pride flag has represented the community for over 40 years and is still one of the most common LGBTQ+ flags.

Philadelphia pride flag

Philadelphia Pride Flag

Date: 2017
Creator: Philadelphia’s Office of LGBT Affairs & Tierney Design Agency

The Philadelphia City Council commissioned the creation of this flag as they wanted to incorporate queer communities of color that have often been overlooked in the mainstream LGBTQ+ movement. The addition of the black and brown stripes symbolizes communities of color and their contribution to the movement.

Queer people of color flag

Queer People of Color Flag

Date: 2019
Creator: Unknown

The Queer People of Color Flag appeared at San Francisco Pride in 2019, but rose to prominence in 2020 during the Black Lives Matter protests. The flag signifies how the struggle for racial equality and queer equality often intersect. It also honors the number of QPOC that have spent their lives fighting for both queer and racial equity.

Progress pride flag

Progress Pride Flag

Date: 2018
Creator: Daniel Quasar

The Progress Pride Flag evolved from the Philadelphia Pride Flag. It adds a white, pink and light blue stripe to represent the trans community. While the black and brown stripes still represented communities of color, the black stripe is also a nod the thousands of individuals that the community lost during the HIV/AIDS crisis in 1980s and 1990s.

Inclusive pride flag

Inclusive Pride Flag

Date: 2021
Creator: Valentino Vecchietti

The shape of the arrow containing the trans colors, the intersex flag and the black and brown colors represent progress being made and progress to be done—as opposed to the rest of the rainbow’s colors, which span the entire flag. The flag itself shares its colors’ meanings with its constituent flags.

Transgender pride flag

Transgender Pride Flag

Date: 1999
Creator: Monica Helms

The light blue represents the traditional Western color for boys, and the light pink represents the traditional Western color for girls. The white in the center represents all those who are in the process of transitioning, see themselves as having a neutral, undefined or non-binary gender, or are intersex.

Transgender is an umbrella category that refers to those whose gender identity and biological sex at birth do not align in the way that is culturally expected (i.e., male men, female women). This includes those born female who identify as men—transgender men, those born male who identify as women—transgender women, and also often those who identify as nonbinary and other marginalized genders.

Nonbinary pride flag

Nonbinary Pride Flag

Date: 2014
Creator: Kyle Rowan

The yellow represents those falling outside, or otherwise defining self without any reference to, the gender binary. The white represents a multiplicity of genders. The purple represents gender identities that lie between man and woman. The black represents an absence of gender.

Nonbinary is a gender identity that refers to those who do not experience gender within the culturally expected binary system of man and woman. Nonbinary is both a specific identity and a larger umbrella term.

Two-spirit pride flag

Two-Spirit Pride Flag

Date: 2016
Creator: @2Sanon on Tumblr

The two feathers at the center represent masculine and feminine identities, and the circle to which the feathers are attached represent the unification of masculinity and femininity into a separate, unique gender. Its placement in front of the rainbow flag signifies explicit inclusion of two-spirit experiences in the 2SLGBTQIA+ community.

The creation of the term “two-spirit” is attributed to Elder Myra Laramee, who proposed its use during the Third Annual Inter-tribal Native American, First Nations, Gay and Lesbian American Conference, held in Winnipeg in 1990. The term is a translation of the Anishinaabemowin term niizh manidoowag, meaning two spirits.

Two-Spirit refers to a number of precolonial indigenous understandings of gender and/or sexuality. These identities were often spiritually and culturally connected to tribal identities.

Genderfluid pride flag

Genderfluid Pride Flag

Date: 2012
Creator: JJ Poole

The pink represents femininity. The white represents a lack of gender. The purple represents androgyny. The black represents the non-binary spectrum of identities. The blue represents masculinity.

Genderfluid is a gender identity that refers to an experience of gender that changes over time. This may be over short or long spans, and manifest in language or presentation changes, or not.

Bisexual pride flag

Bisexual Pride Flag

Date: 1998
Creator: Michael Page

The flag was created in response to a lack of visibility for bisexual people in the community, and was first unveiled at BiCafe in December 1998. The colors do not refer to specific genders. The magenta represents same-gender attraction, while the blue represents opposite-gender attraction. The deep lavender represents the in-between—the attraction to more than one gender.

Bisexual is a sexuality that is characterized by attraction to two or more genders, or to people of both the same gender as yourself and to people that have a gender different than your own. It may also include attraction regardless of gender.

Pansexual pride flag

Pansexual Pride Flag

Date: 2010
Creator: Jasper V. on Tumblr

The pink represents attraction to women. The blue represents attraction to men. The yellow represents attraction to anyone not falling within the gender binary.

Pansexual is a sexuality that is characterized by attraction regardless of gender, or an attraction to all genders.

Asexual pride flag

Asexual Pride Flag

Date: 2010
Creator: AVEN hosted a contest, AVEN user @standup won

A black-to-white gradient was the historic color representing the asexual spectrum, with black denoting asexuality, grey denoting demisexuality and gray-sexuality, and white denoting sexuality. Purple used to border older symbols to represent “community”—it is now the last color in the flag and still represents the asexual community.

Asexual is a sexuality that is characterized by little or no sexual attraction, often described as a spectrum of experiences and levels of desire.

Aromantic pride flag

Aromantic Pride Flag

Date: 2014
Creator: @cameronwhimsy on Tumblr

The dark green represents a lack of romance. The light green represents aromanticism as a spectrum. The white represents platonic, aesthetic and queerplatonic relationships. The gray represents demiromantic people. The black represents the sexuality spectrum.

Aromantic is characterized by little or no romantic attraction, often described as a spectrum of experiences and levels of desire.

Lesbian pride flag

Lesbian Pride Flag

Date: 2016
Creator: Emily Gwen

This flag is commonly referred to as the “Sunset” Lesbian flag to distinguish itself from an older design that is no longer used. The colors are based on the sunset: dark orange represents gender non-conformity, orange represents independence, light orange represents community, white represents unique relationships to womanhood, pink represents serenity and peace, dusty pink represents love and sex, dark rose represents femininity.

Lesbian is a sexuality used to refer to those who identify as women or femininely identified who are attracted to people who identify as women or femininely identified. Some nonbinary and transgender people may also use this term.

Gay men's pride flag

Gay Men’s Pride Flag

Date: 2018
Creator: @gayflagblog on Tumblr

This modern gay men’s pride flag is a reimagining of a previous gay men’s pride flag which featured a variety of blue tones. Deemed problematic because it employed colors that aligned with the stereotypical gender binary, the flag was redesigned. This new version of the flag is intended to include a broader spectrum of LGBTQ+ men, including transgender, intersex and gender-nonconforming men, among others.

This flag represents the men-loving-men community, who did not have a “representative” flag for most of the community’s lifetime. The deep green represents community. The teal represents healing. The light green represents joy. The white represents trans men, non-binary men and gender non-conformity. The light blue represents love. The blue represents courage and activism. The dark blue represents diversity and inclusivity.

Gay is often known as an umbrella term for the LGB+ community. Here, it is used more specifically to refer to gay men. This definition is a sexuality used to refer to those who identify as men or masculinely identified who are attracted to people who identify as men or masculinely identified. Some nonbinary and transgender people may also use this term.

Intersex pride flag

Intersex Pride Flag

Date: 2013
Creator: Morgan Carpenter

The colors of the intersex flag were carefully chosen to prevent any allusion to gender—the yellow and purple colors are genderless. The main idea behind the flag lies in the circle, which represents wholeness and completeness, as a symbol of celebration and a voice to protest the way contemporary medical systems have treated intersex individuals.

Intersex is a term that describes people whose biological sex does not hormonally, physiologically and/or chromosomally align with what we define as male or female. This does not refer to a gender identity or sexuality. Those born biologically male or female are referred to as perisex.

Polyamory pride flag

Polyamory Pride Flag

Date: 1995
Creator: Jim Evans

The blue represents openness and honesty of people involved in the relationship. The red represents love and passion. The black represents solidarity for having to hide a polyamorous relationship. The gold on the Pi symbol represents a valuable emotional attachment to a person’s loved ones. Pi was chosen due to its nature as an infinite numeral. The Pi signifies the infinite options of partners available to polyamorous people.

Polyamory, otherwise known as consensual nonmonogamy, is the practice of having multiple intimate relationships or desiring to have multiple intimate relationships.

Ally flag

Ally Flag

Date: Late 2000s
Creator: Unknown

The letter ‘A’ in the flag represents ally or advocate. The black and white stripes represent the straight flag. Rainbow represents all people under the umbrella of the LGBTQ+ community.

Ally is defined as someone that actively advocates and supports marginalized communities—in this case LGBTQ+ people, while being themselves part of the dominant social category—in this case straight/heterosexual and cisgender.