What were all those different flags at Pride?

If you went to Utah Pride, you likely noticed a whole “rainbow” of flag designs but probably couldn’t name what each of them means. Here is our guide to LGBTQ flags.

RAINBOW FLAG — LGBT MOVEMENT

Designed by Gilbert Baker for the 1978 San Francisco Gay Freedom Celebration to represent the diversity of gays and lesbians around the world. In the original eight-color version, pink stood for sexuality, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for the sun, green for nature, turquoise for art, indigo for harmony, and violet for spirit. Original 8-stripe version:

A seven-stripe version with hot pink color removed due to a lack of fabric (1978–79) then the six-stripes version with turquoise color removed and indigo color changed to royal blue (1979-present):

ASEXUALITY

The flag was created by a user of the Asexual Visibility and Education Network in 2010. Black represents asexuality, gray represents gray-aces and demisexuals, white for allies, and purple represents community.

BEAR BROTHERHOOD FLAG

Bear is an affectionate gay slang term for those with hairy bodies and facial hair; some heavy-set, some working-class masculine.

The International Bear Brotherhood Flag was designed in 1995 by Craig Byrnes

BISEXUAL

First unveiled on 5 December 1998, the bisexual pride flag was designed by Michael Page with pink representing sexual attraction to the same sex only, blue for sexual attraction to the opposite sex only, and the resultant overlap color purple represents sexual attraction to both sexes.

INTERSEX

Created by Intersex Human Rights Australia in July 2013 with yellow and purple as “hermaphrodite” colors, the circle as “unbroken and unornamented, symbolising wholeness and completeness, and our potentialities.

LESBIAN PRIDE FLAGS

There are several Lesbian pride flags developed over the years, but there is no concensus on which is the “right one.”

Labrys lesbian feminist pride was created in 1999 by graphic designer Sean Campbell, but is rarely seen anymore:

A lesbian pride flag design often seen at pride festivals and dyke marches is the rainbow flag with two interlocked astronomical Venus symbols representing the female sex in biology.

The lipstick lesbian flag was originally introduced in the weblog This Lesbian Life in 2010.

NON-BINARY

The non-binary flag was created in 2014 by activist Kye Rowan with yellow for people who identify outside of the gender binary, white for nonbinary people with multiple genders, purple for those with a mixture of both male and female genders, and black for agender individuals.

PANSEXUALITY

The pansexual pride flag has been found on various Internet sites since mid-2010. The pink band symbolizes women; the blue, men; and the yellow, those of a non-binary gender, such as agender, bigender or genderfluid.

PHILADELPHIA PRIDE

To show support for people of color, the city of Philadelphia added black and brown stripes to its pride flag in 2017.

PINK JACK

In the United Kingdom, since 2006, the Pink Jack, a pink version of the Union Jack, has been used to represent LGBT British.

TRANSGENDER

A transgender symbol is the Transgender Pride Flag designed by transgender woman Monica Helms in 1999, with light blue as the traditional color for baby boys, pink, the traditional color for baby girls and white for nonbinary. “The pattern is such that no matter which way you fly it, it is always correct, signifying us finding correctness in our lives,” wrote Helms.