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A LIMITED GUIDE TO PRIDE FLAGS

  • Chris Woods
  • Feb 24
  • 3 min read

Updated: Mar 4

Chris Woods

The Advocate


The origin of the original pride flag in 1978 was a request from Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man elected to public office in California as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Milk asked designer Gilbert Baker to create a flag, and Baker took inspiration from the 1913 World Peace Flag designed by Methodist minister James William van Kirk.


The original version of the pride flag had eight stripes: pink, red, orange, yellow, green, turquoise/teal, indigo and violet. Due to fabric sourcing and other considerations, the pink stripe was removed, and the turquoise and indigo stripes became a bolder blue, resulting in the familiar six colors used since 1979.


Another popular catch‑all pride flag is the Progress Pride Flag, designed by Daniel Quasar in 2018. With the six‑color rainbow as its background, it adds a chevron on the left with white, light blue and pink for transgender communities, and brown and black for people of color and HIV/AIDS. This version has become widely used for its inclusiveness and was inspired by the 2017 eight‑color Philadelphia Pride Flag, which added brown and black.


Creating a flag poster is a daunting act of curation, as there are many flags for many reasons, spanning history, identity, orientation, sub‑group nuance, and regional groups or clubs. One source for this was the video “150 Pride Flags” by Powered by Rainbows on YouTube. Based on searches, some results go well past 300 identity flags.


There are also variations on the same flag. Some examples include gay, lesbian or queer flags with more shades of colors, and the Progress/Inclusion flag that added intersex representation in 2021. There are more than a dozen variations of the polyamory flag, since the original 1995 version includes the pi symbol—seemingly for no other reason than starting with the letter “P.” Most subsequent polyamory flags feature a heart, and most of those also include an infinity symbol.


A mini‑poster with only 15 pride flags is a severe oversimplification, but as a primer on the concept, it helps bridge a gap in understanding some of the basics of identity flags. On a darker note, there is a “straight flag” with only black and white bars, but in this context it is considered by some a hate flag, comparable to white‑power symbolism. It has some similarities to images that deface the U.S. flag by removing most or all of its colors. The U.S. flag is often referred to in official military ceremonies as “the colors.”


While the earliest flags have associated spiritual meanings for each color, some common themes appear across many variations. Lesbian flags typically use pink/orange; gay male flags often use blue/green; asexual or aromantic flags use gray; queer or fluid flags use purple; and multi‑attraction flags commonly use yellow. Some specific communities rely heavily on symbols. The South African Pride Flag incorporates the South African national flag, and the “bear” flag includes a paw print representing attraction to certain gay men—not literal bears, as Powered by Rainbows notes humorously.


Reader’s Digest and National Geographic have published detailed guides to pride flags, but one of the clearest explanations comes from the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus website. Most of the poster’s image selections came from simpler or more universally recognizable versions.


Related MHCC Resources + Groups


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1 Comment

c.woods15
Apr 12

LGBTQ+ Club Meetings: Mondays, noon, in a Library meeting room.

Advisor: Jess Wittman, PhD (they/them) — jessica.wittman@mhcc.edu

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