FreetheLGBT Pride Month Fiesta

Day 7: Fly Your Flags

You may have seen the rainbow flag flown during Pride Month and generally as a symbolic banner for the LGBTQ+ community. We all know this flag, but did you know there are loads more pride flags for all sexualities, gender identities and types of romantic attraction?

Read on and become an LGBTQ+ pride flag know-it-all! There's also an interactive question at the end to get you all thinking.

If you didn't catch the first installment of Fly Your Flag during the Pride Month Fiesta, go check it out!

Let's see how many of these you already know.

The gender fluid pride flag. This flag was designed to represent the 'states' of gender one experiences when they identify as gender fluid. There's blue, pink, purple, white, black... but what could they all symbolise? Well, blue and pink are usually obvious -- this is for male and female. Purple is a blend of the pink and blue and therefore represents a blend of male and female identities. White, being a blend of all colors, represents all genders (pangender) and black, being the lack of color, represents the absence of gender, or gender neutrality. 

The bisexual pride flag. This flag may only be made up of three colors, but it has two distinct meanings. You could even say it's bi-symbolic. (...Not even a sarcastic clap for that one?) Nevertheless, the meaning behind this flag is far more clever than our puns. The first meaning is more obvious: blue represents an attraction to males, pink represents an attraction to females, and purple represents an attraction to other, non-binary genders. The second meaning is a little more subtle though: pink is said to represent homosexuality and blue is said to represent heterosexuality. The purple stripe between them is said to 'blend unnoticeably' (according to the original creator) between the two, the way bisexual people tend to 'blend' into both homosexual and heterosexual communities. Smart? We think so.

The pansexual pride flag. This flag is bright, beautiful and simplistic, but it encompasses so much. You may have got the gist by now that pink and blue represent an attraction to both males and females (that includes both cisgender and transgender), but the yellow stripe is a lot less obvious. Yellow doesn't have a gender attached to it, so in this case it represents every gender or gender identity not already encompassed by blue and pink. This includes, but is not limited to: non-binary, genderfluid, androgynous, agender (literally without gender), bi-gender (having two genders), pangender (having all genders), intergender (between genders), intersex individuals and individuals who are transitioning. And so on and so forth. 

The asexual pride flag. Early asexual pride flags used half-filled hearts or triangles to symbolize asexuality; however, these designs fell out of flavor as they weren't fully inclusive of all individuals within the asexual spectrum. After a lot of consideration from members of the asexual community, this flag soon took its place in 2010 as the representation of asexual pride. Black, in this case, represents the absence of sexuality. Grey represents demi-sexuality and grey-sexuality (both on the scale between sexuality and asexuality). White represents the non-asexual partners and allies of asexual people, and purple represents the community as a whole. 

The non-binary pride flag. This is a pretty well-recognized version of the non-binary pride flag. It uses four distinct colors to encompass those whose gender identity doesn't fit the gender binary, or for whom the term 'genderqueer' doesn't quite fit. As black is the absence of color, it represents the absence of gender. White, being the presence of all colors (like sunlight), symbolizes the presence of all genders. Purple is used to denote the mix of binary genders (pink for feminine, blue for masculine), and yellow is used to symbolize all the other genders one may experience, as yellow is devoid of any particular gender reference. 

That's it for this Fly Your Flag installment! But we don't want you to go just yet.

Color is really important when it comes to designing a pride flag. Colors can mean all kinds of things, from the obvious to the more obscure. The hidden symbology in color is everywhere when it comes to flags, so here's a question for you...

What colors would you put on a pride flag that represented you? What would be the meaning behind your chosen colors?

Tell us in the in-line comments what your pride flag colors would be and what they mean to you. (And you can't just have red and yellow -- we already told you, pizza doesn't count!)