LGBTQIA+ Resources: Flags

Artist and gay rights activist Gilbert Baker designed this flag in 1978. He came up with the design after prominent gay rights leader Harvey Milk urged him to create a new, positive symbol that the entire LGBTQIA+ community could rally behind. Baker thought a rainbow flag would better represent the beautiful diversity of the LGBTQIA+ community. He also considered the powerful symbolic significance of rainbows throughout history. (Read more: Toronto Star)

Philadelphia redesigned the Pride flag in 2017 to include the colors brown and black in an effort to promote diversity and inclusion and to "honor the lives of our Black and brown LGBTQ siblings," the city said in a statement. Philadelphia's Office of LGBT Affairs partnered with Tierney, a Philadelphia PR agency, to redesign the flag as part of its new inclusivity campaign, #MoreColorMorePride. (Read more: Curve Magazine)

Designed by Daniel Quasar in 2018, it adds five new colors to emphasize progress around inclusion. The flag includes black and brown stripes to represent people of color, and baby blue, pink and white, which are used in the Transgender Pride Flag. The newest rendition includes the intersex pride symbol. (Read more: Erie Gay News)

In the asexual Pride flag, the black stripe is for asexuality; the gray for the gray area in between sexual and asexual and demisexuality; the white for non-asexual partners and allies; and the purple for community. Asexuals or "aces" are people who usually do not feel sexually attracted to anyone. (Read more: "Asexuality" in Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Gender and Sexuality Studies)

Activist Michael Page introduced the Bisexual Pride flag in 1998. It features pink (same-sex attraction), purple (attraction to all or multiple genders) and royal blue (attraction only to opposite sex). (Read more: "Bisexuality" in Encyclopedia of Sex and Sexuality: Understanding Biology, Psychology, and Culture, pp. 79-81)

Pink stripes in the pansexual flag reference those who are attracted to women, while blue references those who are attracted to men. Yellow stands for nonbinary attraction. (Read more: "Pansexuality" in The SAGE Encyclopedia of Psychology and Gender)

Created by Emily Gwen in 2018, the colors represent 'gender non-conformity' (dark orange), 'independence' (orange), 'community' (light orange), 'unique relationships to womanhood' (white), 'serenity and peace' (pink), 'love and sex' (dusty pink), and 'femininity' (dark rose). (Read more: "Lesbians" in SAGE Encyclopedia of Psychology and Gender, pp. 1054-1057)

This flag features gender-neutral colors yellow and purple. The circle "represents wholeness, completeness and the intersex people’s potentiality," according to the University of Northern Colorado. Intersex is an umbrella term for people with variations in sex characteristics that don’t fit neatly in the binary of male or female. Some intersex people are born with varying reproductive anatomy or sex traits — some develop them later in life. About 1.7 percent of people are born intersex. (Read more: Global Encyclopedia of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) History. pp. 2017k - 2017t)

Transgender activist Monica Helms made this flag in 1999. The light blue and light pink represent the colors baby girls and boys have traditionally been designated at birth in some cultures, and the white stands for intersex, transitioning or a neutral/undefined gender. (Read more: SAGE Encyclopedia of Trans Studies)

Kyle Rowan is behind the nonbinary pride flag , released in 2014. The yellow is for those whose gender is outside the traditional binary; the white for those with all genders or multiple ones; the purple for those who identify as a male and female mix; and the black for those who don't have a gender. (Read more: "Gender Nonconforming People" in The SAGE Encyclopedia of Psychology and Gender)

This flag, designed by JJ Poole in 2012, includes five stripes, representing femininity (pink), masculinity (blue), purple (both), black (all genders) and white (no gender). (Read more: "Fluidity" in Bi: Bisexual, Pansexual, Fluid, and Nonbinary Youth, pp. 131-151)

Made in 2011 by genderqueer writer Marilyn Roxie. The colors are lavender (a blue and pink combination, to stand for androgyny), white (agender) and chartreuse (not in the gender binary). (Read more: "Genderqueer" in SAGE Encyclopedia of LGBTQ Studies, pp. 460-463)

This Demisexual Pride Flag represents a section of the asexual community that develops sexual attraction to someone only after forming a deep emotional bond with them. It’s unknown when, exactly, the flag was created, but it includes four colors: black (representing asexuality), gray (asexuality and demisexuality), white (sexuality), and purple (community). (Read more: "Demisexuality" in Encyclopedia of Sex and Sexuality: Understanding Biology, Psychology, and Culture, pp. 156-157)

This flag represents people who either do not experience romantic attraction or do so in a nontraditional way. There were two earlier versions of this flag: It’s not known when the first one was created, but both the second and the final/current version were designed in 2014. The color green represents aromanticism, and it appears in two shades in the flag, along with white (platonic and aesthetic attraction), gray (gray-aromantic and demiromantic people), and black (the sexuality spectrum). (Read more: "Asexuality" in the Encyclopedia of Sex and Sexuality)