It irritated me that this massive tech company would be making money off a symbol that not only represents joy and celebration, but also the LGBTQ+ community’s long history of struggle and oppression. Justice Namaste, Social Media Coordinator: Well Angela, I really started thinking about the idea of rainbow-washing after seeing Apple’s ‘Pride Edition’ Apple Watch wristband that they announced during the WWDC keynote a couple of weeks ago. What about you guys? Justice, I think you were the one who first mentioned rainbow-washing the other day. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera take on the cops at Stonewall to sell T-shirts?” And honestly, I don’t know if I’ll ever have an answer to that question. Sometimes I walk past a window display and think “Did Marsha P. Over time, my feelings have gone back and forth. They might’ve been shallow attempts, but they always seemed better than the days when companies didn’t want their names associated with LGBTQ+ people at all. For a long time, I would get excited when I saw companies doing Pride-related ads etc. While most of us are now familiar with the famous LGBT rainbow flag representing queer pride, many of us are not aware that it is different from the original rainbow Gay Pride Flag designed by Gilbert Baker.Angela Watercutter, Senior Associate Editor: I’ll start, but I’ll keep it quick. Nor that there are now more inclusive versions that specifically recognize the trans, intersex, and POCs in our diverse community.Īnd when we are talking about the different LGBTQ Flags and their meanings, there is far more than just this one flag. In fact, there are now over 50 flags recognized among the LGBTQ+ community, each used to symbolize different gender identities and sexual orientations within. While most queer individuals would also identify with the all-encompassing rainbow flag, many want to have their own individual flag. Imagine the rainbow flag is the US flag, and many of these other flags are like individual states underneath. You put a rainbow flag on your windshield, and you’re saying something.” In a community as large and beautifully diverse as ours, it is natural that smaller tribes will want to carve out some recognition for themselves thus, the different LGBTQ Flags we have today.Īs Gilbert Baker, the original creator of the first rainbow Gay Pride Flag, said, “Flags say something. So, what do these different LGBTQ Flags say? Well, we have rounded them up and tried our best to explain the meaning behind them all.
So, let us introduce the different LGBTQ Flags and their meanings… There is some contention of meaning, or it has been lost to time – but our explanations should still help give some context.
The abrosexual flag was created by Mod Chad of pride flags-for-us after an anonymous Tumblr user requested it. It is also thought that the flag and the term originated on DeviantArt in 2013 and later gained recognition on Tumblr. The abrosexual flag is made up of five colors. There’s dark green, light green, white, baby pink, and rich pink from top to bottom.
It isn’t known why these colors were specifically chosen for the abrosexual flag. One Tumblr user on the page abrosexual learning shared their interpretation of what the flag’s colors mean. They said, “Green represents a queer attraction, the fade to white is for the in-between stage of attraction shifting, and pink is for the actual shift itself. Also, the colors match that of watermelon, which could be a fun pun on the /fluidity/ of our orientation.”Īromantics have no interest in or desire for romantic relationships and have been represented by three flags in the past few years. The first one had four stripes with orange, green, black, and yellow. On this flag, green is the opposite of romance, yellow is for friendship, orange is for aromantics, and black is for alloromantics who don’t subscribe to the traditional boundaries of romance.
It isn’t known who created this flag or when.
The next aromantic pride flag had five stripes. The colors were black, grey, yellow, light green, and dark green. Like many LGBTQ flags, this one was first created on Tumblr (in 2014 by user Cameron). The third design is the most recent one and is currently the most widely used and accepted version of the aromantic pride flag. Light green represents the aromantic spectrum.Ĭameron also designed this flag on November 16th, 2014.