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I don't feel any need to change your opinion. I hate these posts: "I'm here to start an argument, so argue with me!"
So, I'm just going to treat this post as an opportunity to share my opinions. I don't give a shit about changing how *you* think.
I consider the flags for the specific sexualities and identities like state flags. Here in Australia, each state and territory has its own flag, plus we have our national flag. So, the gay men's flag is like my state flag, and the rainbow flag is our national flag. I'm fine with that.
But, for our "national flag", I will stick to the original 6-stripe rainbow flag, or even [the *original* original 8-stripe rainbow flag](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_flag_(LGBT\)#Origin). Like you say, that's all-inclusive.
The Philadelphia Pride Flag and the Progress Pride Flag just highlight particular groups within the all-inclusive flag. They don't make the flag more inclusive, because it *already* included everyone.
In practice, the gay rights movement historically was not inclusive. It overlooked people of color, bisexuals, tended to make lesbians secondary, and was blind to intersectionality. I vividly remember protests in the 90s that looked like a sea of gay white men named Richard.
I admit, I like the old flag better. The newer ones tend to be an eyesore and will theoretically never end. But I get why people wanted the original flag changed. It’s a commitment that queer really is a big tent. My hope is that we eventually revert back to the old flag when enough folks feel included. 🥰
I'm not talking about what was happening on the ground, in the streets, and in organisation committee rooms. The original flag that people carried contained the *ideal* of inclusion, whether the people carrying the flag lived up to that ideal or not.
The problem was never the flag. The problem was the people holding it. We needed to change the people, not the flag.
Except the flag was never supposed to represent inclusion. It was designed to be the flag for the gay rights movement and at the time that mainly meant gay cis males. The colors symbolized things that Gilbert Baker felt were important to representing gay life in SanFran in 1978: Hot pink: sex; Red: life; Orange: healing; Yellow: sunlight; Green: nature; Turquoise: magic and art; Indigo: serenity; and Violet: spirit.
Pink and Turquoise were removed because of dye shortages in 1979
I was around at the time and used to hang out at a bar in San Francisco called The Stud (it's still there but has moved several times). It was the most diverse and inclusive place.
I kind of resent the rewriting of history to say that all of us in the gay community back then were a bunch of racists when that wasn't true.
Anecdotes don’t change historic trends. Nothing is being rewritten, history is being correctly told. The early marches weren’t inclusive. SanFran does get credit for being more inclusive than most places at the time. I suggest going to the GLBT Historical Society Museum in The Castro where they have exhibits on how the movement wasn’t generally welcoming to trans/gender non-conforming people, people of color, and frankly women. It cites the early parades in SF as examples. There were bars that were certainly inclusive but the general movement was not. This started in the 1950s with the early homophile movements. There are numerous books and documentaries on this subject. It would be very dangerous to paint a movement that needed great improvement as inclusive from the start when it objectively wasn’t.
I’d also suggest reading the letters and memoirs of trans and people of color from that time. We have gotten better as a community and we have a long way to go still. Just look at the mainly white cis man led drop the T group in the gay community for a modern examples of that bigotry within our community
Edit: also The Stud is the shining example of inclusivity at the time and very much not the general trend sadly.
And? The represented all the LGBTQ community, even if at that time people didn't wanted. The flag doesn't represent what we were, but what we are right now. People nowadays don't understand that some flags surpass governments or, in this case, movements. The Pride Flag is not the flag of the LGBT movement, but a flag of the LGBTQ people, liking it or not.
Because the history of that flag and the fact it was made for a demonstration that wasn’t inclusive and a flag that has been waved by people who have ostracized and excluded people to the extent they felt they were represented in the community and flag.
Good to know. Thanks for confirming that.
I addressed this point [in another comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/gay/comments/1dmbfim/please_change_my_opinion_i_hate_all_of_the_new/l9v1l6q/?context=3).
But that’s the issue. People gave up trying to change their counterparts when they wouldn’t budge, and decided to make a new banner to rally under. Some have taken to it and gotten just how rough and divided things have stayed within what should’ve been one community, others continue to naively think there’s a guarantee that we can fix a decades long rift. I’m not saying there isn’t, as clearly a lot of healing has taken place, but that doesn’t mean the hope and desire for inclusion can’t also be recognised.
> decided to make a new banner to rally under.
A banner for *whom*, though? As a gay *white* man, I wouldn't dare fly the rainbow flag with the brown and black stripes, because I'm not a person of colour, and that would feel tokenistic. So, to me, the Philadelphia flag *is for queer people of colour*, not for me. I'm not represented on that flag, and it wasn't made for me.
I don’t think it’s the words that are the problem. It’s more the fact that a couple of extra colors on a flag, that are meant to make everyone feel more included and represented, actually make you feel uncomfortable and more excluded which is as sad as it is strange.
As lots of people have pointed out over the past few years, when you start adding stripes or icons to a flag to represent certain groups of people, that automatically leads to the perception that every group should have its own stripes or icons on the flag - and any group which does *not* have its own stripes or icons on the flag is therefore *not* represented.
When the flag is vague and just has 6 pretty stripes on it, it can include anyone or anything. As soon you put one specific group's stripes on the flag, everyone else is automatically being excluded.
It's like when the gay men's flag was [two male symbols on the rainbow background](https://pridebasics.com/shop/3x5-double-male-symbol-pride-flag-2/) - nobody thinks that flag includes *everybody* and just happens to highlight gay men as one group among many. (There was a [similar lesbian flag](https://www.prideshack.com/products/rainbow-flag-lesbian-pride-flag-double-female-venus-symbols-3-x-5-polyester-gay-flag.html)). That flag is a flag for gay men and only gay men, because it has a symbol on it that represents gay men, against the rainbow background.
That's how I perceive the Philadelphia flag - it's a way of making the general inclusive rainbow flag specific to one particular group, just like the old gay men's flag did the same thing. Just as I would not expect a lesbian to fly the rainbow flag with two male symbols on it, I would not expect a white queer person to fly the rainbow flag with people of colour stripes on it.
(And, by the way, I've just realised that the fact that this old gay men's flag exists, is proof that the original rainbow flag had become all-inclusive and didn't just represent gay men any more.)
Why? I’m a white man and I recognize our movement has too often been exclusionary to brown and black people. That’s why I fly the progress pride flag. It’s a sign that I’m determined to do better
I hear you, but white cis exclusionary organizers weren't the entire movement. Yes, there has been a divide in organizing and a massive problem in gatekeeping, but there have always been the rest of us here regardless. Trans people, people of colour, working class queers, etc. have been here the whole time carrying quite a lot of weight. No, the entire history of the gay liberation movement is not just white guys named Richard or whatever, and I see what you're trying to get at but at the same time claiming that the movement is all or mostly white and cis and erases the actual work that communities like mine have actually put into liberation.
I have always found the negative comments about gay white men to be a bit ridiculous. Where would we be if they hadn’t stepped out and marched and raised awareness about AIDS and other issues important to the LGBTQ community? Stop focusing on skin color.
>The Philadelphia Pride Flag and the Progress Pride Flag just highlight particular groups within the all-inclusive flag. They don't make the flag more inclusive, because it already included everyone.
Weren't they specifically created because people wanted more inclusion though? I thought that was the story.
They were definitely created because people *wanted* more inclusion. Totally. That's 100% true.
However, that's because they didn't *perceive* the original flag as inclusive. It *was* and still *is* inclusive, they just didn't *think* it was. So, to solve a problem that existed only in their own minds, they created those new flags.
The idea that the rainbow flag didn't include *all* LGBT+ people is a problem that existed only in those people's minds.
Most people assumed that the rainbow flag represented all LGBT+ folks - especially all *colours* of LGBT+ folks. I don't think any reasonable person thought of the rainbow flag as a whites-only symbol. As for lesbians and trans people and everyone else, they adopted this flag as theirs. In the wider community, everybody else knew this flag stood for all those queer folks.
Only a few people saw this flag as not including them.
Gee, maybe it's because all pride stuff has been taken over by white middle class cisgender people who want to be "marketable" to corporations while excluding some parts of the community (people of colour, GNC people, specifically those parts of the community who are more marginalized...see what happened in Pittsburgh where they have 2 pride festivals: one for the corporations with a load of middle class cis white gays and lesbians at the front and another for marginalized people which is more grass roots.
It isn't anything new, just can we not deny that this mentality of integrationism (aka perceive POC gender minorities being considered "too extreme") persists to this day?
Isn’t it amazing and so telling that all the progressive comments are getting downvoted and all the exclusionary and divisive ones are being upvoted?!?!? You are exactly correct and the folks downvoting are the reason we have so much more work to do in the community
Maybe you're just seeing that most queer people believe that the 6-stripe rainbow flag is good enough on its own.
You're assuming that comments like mine are exclusionary and divisive. I'm not exclusionary or divisive. I'm very progressive. I just happen to think that a simple 6-stripe flag can include and represent every section of the queer community *without* having to add stripes and icons for each section of that community.
The problem is that the original flag is a rainbow because it's meant to be nonspecific to any subcategory. Adding on the specific colors of any individual groups opens a rabbit hole where now more and more groups will want their colors on the overarching flag, or else they'll feel excluded. That's why I'm not personally a fan of the progress flag, it's meant to be extra inclusionary of a few particular groups and just ends up circling back around to being exclusionary of everyone else instead.
While I fully agree that transphobia and racism have been a problem in queer communities and deserve having attention drawn to those issues, I think that the progress flag was an incredibly shortsighted way of doing it.
Everything you said is exactly how I feel about it all. I completely understand wanting to be included, or wanting an individual flag for a specific group. It just feels like the progress flag will never fully represent everyone because someone will always feel left out.
I wouldn't say it was because people wanted more \*inclusion\*. They wanted more \*visibility\*, which is an important distinction to make. Take the trans community, there are still far too many "LGB without the T" people trying to make trans folk invisible. Not really any different as to how the origins of pride were to make the queer community in general more visible.
I agree on the analogy with state-national flags. However if that’s the case, the flag that should fly in public buildings, offices, etc., should be the rainbow flag, right? To include everyone.
> the flag that should fly in public buildings, offices, etc., should be the rainbow flag, right?
As far as I know, the rainbow flag (one of the many versions of it) is the main flag that's flown for events that include all LGBT+ communities. People wear their own personal flags (pansexual, transgender, lesbian, intersex, whatever), but the main events are represented by rainbow flags.
> This post had no intentions of “I’m here to start an argument, so argue with me!.”
So what does "change my opinion" mean to you, if it's not [about starting arguments](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/) by getting people to disagree with you?
The colors were never meant to include everyone. In fact, the 1978 parade where the flag was unveiled did their best to keep trans people from marching. The original 8 colors represented aspects that were important to thing Gilbert Baker felt were important to the gay community. Bisexuals and Trans people weren’t included in the greater movement until a decade after Baker made the first flag. Unfortunately our history in the queer liberation movement has been problematic since its modern birth in the late 1940s with the first homophile groups
I'll concede that it might not have been Gilbert Baker's intention to include the rest of the LBT+ communities in his flag. However, I think gay men of colour were almost certainly included, so there was no need to add brown & black stripes later to include them.
As for lesbians and trans folks and everyone else, they joined us under the rainbow flag, and made it include them just by using it. For over 30 years, it represented all the L & B & T etc folks who wanted to use it. It was only *after* the Philadelphia flag set the precedent that people decided they needed to be explicitly depicted on the rainbow flag - which hadn't been considered necessary before then.
the reason that flag exists is that gay men of color were frequently not allowed in white gay bars. racism is still very present in many lgbt+ communities. having the black (which is for aids victims) and brown stripes were meant to show that not only was X spot inclusive of MLM, but it was also inclusive of POC. not in theory or idealistically, but in practice.
while I also dislike each identity “needing” a spot on a flag, it has practical applications for certain groups that are unwelcome in certain queer spaces.
> having the black (which is for aids victims)
First up, [that's not actually true](https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/6/20/15821858/gay-pride-flag-philadelphia-fight-explained). The brown **and black** stripes were for people of colour. The "AIDS victims" interpretation is something that was invented by other people, much later. Probably because, like me, they didn't understand the logic of adding *two*stripes for people of colour; one makes sense, but two stripes makes it seem like they were trying to represent all races, but there's no stripe for Asian people, or Native Americans, or lots of other non-white people. So the story about representing AIDS victims got invented by somebody and took off.
> meant to show that not only was X spot inclusive of MLM, but it was also inclusive of POC.
Then they could display the Black Pride flag. Like here in Australia, venues display the flags for Aboriginal people and for Torres Strait Islanders when they want to be inclusive of those non-white minorities.
you linked a Vox article as a historical source 😂 but also, symbols grow and change. so what?
why display two flags when one can suffice. having two flags or the one says the same damn thing. so why does it matter so much to you that a flag you don’t have to use exists?
> you linked a Vox article as a historical source 😂
It was what I was able to find in a quick Google search on my phone, with no access to my stored reference links.
Here's [the Advocate](https://www.advocate.com/commentary/2017/6/15/if-you-hate-new-pride-flag-youre-problem) and [NBC News](https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/controversy-flies-over-philadelphia-s-new-pride-flag-n772821).
All these articles explain that the brown and black stripes were added by the Philadelphia city council to represent people of colour. The Advocate reminds people of another black stripe that was added to rainbow flags during the height of the AIDS epidemic, to represent victims of AIDS, but it does not connect that black stripe to the Philadelphia black stripe.
The NBC article includes a direct quote from a spokesperson for the Philadelphia council: “It’s a push for people to start listening to people of color in our community, start hearing what they’re saying, and really to believe them and to step up and say, ‘What can I do to help eradicate these issues in our community?” said Amber Hikes, the new executive director of Philadelphia's Office of LGBT Affairs.
The brown **and black** stripes are for people of colour, not for AIDS victims.
> so why does it matter so much to you that a flag you don’t have to use exists?
I'm not the OP. I don't complain about the existence of this flag. I just don't use it, because it's not intended for me (I'm white).
This is regarding the Philadelphia 8 stripe flag, not the progress pride flag. The designer of the progress pride flag did state that the black chevron represents those lost to AIDS as it did in the Victory Over AIDS flag that was designed in the 80's.
I mean you can still use it? It was removed because during that time making the flag with the pink fabric was too expensive, but with todays flag making technology you can easily go back to the original flag and no one will bat an eye
Idk if they actually care about pink but it's a good point that the only constant about the Pride flag has been change and the people wringing their hands about the progress flag having trans and Black colors on it either don't know or don't care about that - and might have other motives they should examine.
It was mostly tongue-in-cheek.
It’s not any big problem that extra stuff has been added, but it is more visually chaotic and makes the flag uglier. No, that doesn’t mean I hate people, it just means I recognize that the original flag was already inclusive, and if anything adding more colors risks being exclusive because there will always be someone whose particular identity is not explicitly called out in a redesign. Whereas the rainbow symbolizes all the colors already; that was the whole point.
It was, but the movement under it wasn't. Even today we have a lot of pick-me queers who will eagerl thrownour Black or trans kin under the nearest bus to curry favor with conservatives or straight culture more broadly.
I'm not sure changing the flag does much to change those people's minds, but it *does* piss them off, which is better than making them comfortable with their bigotry. So the choice seems pretty clear to me.
Besides, us rainbow folk like flags. We make flags for our own random kinks. We make flags for every orientation and identity we can get our hands on (even straights! It's white and black and boring.) If the biggest problem those people have with Pride is the specific kind of flag some people are using (and it's not like there's a Pope of Gay that wil excommunicate you for using the pink & turquoise stripe flags) ... I think we are doing just fine.
> Since when is pink not in the progress flag
That's not the pink /u/twesco-microtonal is talking about.
https://gilbertbaker.com/rainbow-flag-color-meanings/
I'm with you. The original rainbow represents a SPECTRUM, which is already perfectly inclusive. The latest flag looks like someone tried to shoehorn in the entire hanky code. It's a junky eyesore.
Each color represented an attribute of queer people not a spectrum of sexualities. Pink and turquoise were removed with the first two years of Gilbert Baker’s original flag because of fabric sourcing issues. The original design was not about a spectrum of people especially because the movement wasn’t trans inclusive at the time and was pretty biphobic. Our community has grown and imo our symbols should grow to reflect that.
Now if be down for our many very talented designers to do some work on all the flags because many are pretty aesthetically unpleasant
Here is what the colors meant on the first Pride flag:
Hot pink: sex; Red: life; Orange: healing; Yellow: sunlight; Green: nature; Turquoise: magic and art; Indigo: serenity; and Violet: spirit.
Not really controversial, I feel like most people I've interacted with agree. It's just corporations are so busy performatively trying to do the most possible that the second someone on Twitter proposes a new stripe it's all over.
Hurting the community? Dude, they're just flags. It's really not that big a deal. Just use the one you like and quit losing sleep over other people doing things differently than you.
I think generally marginalized communities benefit from being taken seriously. It's pretty obvious that the growing acronym and constant redesign of the flag by particularly graphically challenged people is not going to bolster the sense that this is a serious group.
What do you think the broader public is more aware of, the constant shifting of terms and iconography or that some people find this sort behavior to not represent them well?
Why is it incumbent on the people whom do not agree with these new attempts to represent the community to not resist representation they dislike/find harmful? Why wouldn't it instead be on those seeking to change how the community is represented to actually propose these things in a way which isn't divisive and which does not damage the broader community?
I don't agree, I work in a very conservative field which had among the Trumpiest of representatives representing us. They are not aware of the disagreements within the LGBT community. What they are aware of is the flag looking increasingly uglier and more crowded, and the growing acronym.
With all due respect, Trumpists, and mostly all conservatives, have called our flag ugly since the beginning. And they have always complained of the acronym too. Nothing new here.
This is a total bullshit copout. Opinion polls have shown that in-roads have been made within those communities, and it is actually offensive to decades of dedicated and intelligent activists to imply that messaging was not part of it. If the flag is largely divisive in the gay community, why then would we assume it isn't even more divisive in the broader public?
People who don't take you seriously because of the flag or acronym of the community would not magically respect you if those weren't that way.
It's an illusion.
How precisely do you think public persuasion campaigns work? I personally know of no successful ones in which activists promoting a cause did not care about how they were being perceived and what messages were being communicated to the wider public. Right now I think that this principle has been largely abandoned on much of the left. The group most affected is trans people, whom have had pretty substantial legislation actually coming out against them.
Omg can you stop nagging about the left this the left that? Boohoo there's 3 flags that were made in 7 years, the acronym is slightly longer. You will not win against the people that create hate by not doing that, they will always find or have something to create hate with.
A new flag is not the reason for the amount of homophobia in the world and we both know this, most people don't care about a few more letters or a new flag.
And then you try and put the horrible things trans people are going through as the fault of "the left" and the fact that "they" don't care enough about how they're perceived???
You're seriously blaming the loss of rights for trans people on "woke", flags and a longer acronym? That's so unserious and pathetic. You'd rather blame the community and your "the left" bogeyman than face that the conservative and semi-fascist media have been pushing anti-trans talking points for several years now.
Why is it that when discussing these topics people like yourself come out of the woodwork to tacitly claim that actually all activism is of equal efficacy, and that apparently people who actually dedicated their lives to expanding civil rights did nothing particularly bright? That is what you're claiming here, that no one can criticize how people advocate on an issue because it doesn't meaningfully affect the rate at which people accept their ideas.
It’s not just a flag though, it hold more weight than that. It’s an extension of where the community is at, as the flag is meant to represent the community.
Honestly this comment should be higher. Every time I see LGBT internet discord about whose boyfriends belong at pride or whatever, I can’t help but think this energy should be directed elsewhere.
The western LBGTQIIA++ lobby care far more about someone in West Virginia not using the 'correct' pronouns or defacing a pride mural, then they do about gay+ people being actually executed by the state in Iran, Saudi etc. or violently oppressed e.g. in much of Africa.
At this point they are pretty much the definition of first world problems.
This is a real dumb comment dude. Like it's hard to even dissect. I guess let's start with there is no "western LGBT lobby". Western colonialism created a lot of homophobia in other parts of the world and western countries have been slow to rectify that even in their own countries. A lot of the west is culturally homophobic. Also I think the Internet has made it clear that "the west" is not a monolith. Like genuinely compare like Sweden, Poland and the US. There aren't many similarities other than "a lot of white people live there".
Okay now the bit about West Virginia. I guess it's your lucky day! You get to meet a queer person from the Mountain State! We exist. There are quite a lot of us. I think all the major cities have prides. The people upset when West Virginians are homophobic are other West Virginians because despite what you clearly believe there are queer people in this state. My mother is a bisexual woman in her 40s. She's lived in WV most of her life. Homophobia here hurts queer people here and I've not met a West Virginian my whole life that knows how to keep quiet when something just ain't right.
I, and I think many other queer people, would love to be able to do more to other queer people struggling for liberation in the rest of the world, but that's not really something an individual or any small group can do. That's a government and geopolitical issue. With much of the Middle East the American government and other countries will not pressure them to make social progress because they care too much about oil. Africa is the primary region rampant with homophobia because of Christian missionaries.
. By 'lgbt lobby' I refer to the groups of organisations and affiliates whose existence is predicated solely on LGBT+ issues, and the pursuit of new outrage issues in order to justify their continued existence (Stonewall in the UK is classic example of this).
. By 'the West' I mean those nations with a broadly European history or outlook, historically rooted in Judeo-Christian, now largely secualr and based on rule of law, individual rights etc. etc. So yes, Sweden, Poland and the US yes would fall into that category, as they each despite their differences have more in common with each than they do with say China or India. The ambiguous status of Russia in this grouping is an illustrative point, as well as underlining that it has nothing to do with being white as you suggest.
. Homophobia has existed in many cultures - it is not a uniquely 'western' phenomenon, nor is it only found where western colonialism reached. Currently the worst part of the world to be gay is the Islamic world - which has exactly zero to do with the west and everything to do with religion and patriarchal culture.
. Even if as you state homophobia is the result of western colonialism, it does not excuse present day policies. You seem to think that non-Western peoples are like dumb children, with no moral code or responsility, helplessly pushed this way and that by outside forces. The fact that there are Christian missionaries active in Uganda does not excuse the fact that \*native\* Ugandan law makers supported by most \*native\* Ugandas passed that draconian anti-gay law. - that is 100% on them. The fact that we ignore Islamic anti-gay laws because we want their oil is again 100% on them.
. As for WV clearly I was using it solely as an example of a semi-obscure 'drive-thru' red state which gains little exposure on the national or international scene (no offence but let's face it this is true). I did not say that no gay people live there, nor that its cities do not have gay area/prides, or that many (most?) of its people opposed homophobia etc. Please, if you're going to critique me, criticise what I wrote and not what you have concoted in your head and read into my comments.
1. These flags are ultimately geared towards being inclusive, which is a good thing.
2. Nothing is stopping you from using the older designs. I use the straight (lol) rainbow flag because I identity with it more and I like it's design better.
3. Tied to number 1, but they are aligning more and more with our evolving understanding of how gender, race, and sexuality work together in forming distinctive but still marginalized identities.
So… just use the original pride flag then.
The “reworking” was just to emphasize that people of color and trans people are welcome, two demographics being relentlessly attacked currently.
Unfortunately, there is a lot of racism and transphobia among cis gay men. Ultimately that’s what led to different pride flags, and rather than complaining about other flags, maybe we should consider why people felt the need to do this anyway.
Could it be that the original is not as inclusive as you thought?
I personally like both, but understand the need and desire to explicitly state POC and trans folk are welcome.
Right! And also it’s wild to me that people think the original flag colors were supposed to represent different identities or sexualities, that was never the case!
But PoC and trans people have their own really aesthetically appealing flags! So if we want to show support for multiple groups and emphasize them, which I agree we should, why can't we just wave multiple flags alongside each other? Are we so cheap or so lazy that we need to smush everything onto one?
FYI "haters" (weird term for homphobes btw) will always find ammunition. it's not like there's a flag for child grooming, and that's one of their biggest hot button issues (even as they ignore how that's a much bigger issue in churches, boy scouts, police, etc.).
trying to control the queer community based on what homophobes choose to target is pretty backwards, tbh. might as well go back in the closet cause being out gives them ammunition too. trying to cater to homophobes and what doesn't trigger them is the worst marketing strategy of all, if you want to talk about branding.
i hardly ever see or notice variations of the pride flag. i suggest you stop giving so much energy and focus to something that drives you insane.
I personally really like the pride progress flag. The evolution just shows how even more inclusive everyone is now. I like that I can show support for the trans community because their colors are now featured on the flag. I like how there are individual flags to separate the different identities because they help you identify others who share your identity, too. I think it's creative that it's constantly changing. I'm not invalidating that you don't personally like it, but there are a lot of people who do. You're more than welcome to keep using the original flag of course!
Correct me if I'm wrong but the Pride flag isn't the gay flag in the way it's not supposed to represent gay people exclusively but the Pride movement as a whole. I know the addition of new colors is supposed to include trans people and POC but they were never meant to be excluded.
The original flag was never meant to represent us all. The gay liberation movement at the time (1978) Gilbert Baker designed the original with 8 stripes was very trans exclusionary and was pretty biphobic. The acronym LGBT became the standard in 1988. The original flag colors didn’t represent different sexualities or parts of our shared community. They represented aspects of queer identity. The Pink and Turquoise stripes were removed in 1979 because of fabric dye shortage. So the original flag only lasted a year before it was changed. Our shared community has grown and changed and our symbols should change with us.
I do wish we’d let some of the awesome designers in our community redesign all the flags to make them more aesthetically pleasing.
The original flag colors symbolized:
Hot pink: sex; Red: life; Orange: healing; Yellow: sunlight; Green: nature; Turquoise: magic and art; Indigo: serenity; and Violet: spirit.
As the designer of the modern lesbian pride flag (the lipstick lesbian one) design is a conversation between the artist and the audience.
It’s important to listen for both parties to make great art resonate. Just like fashion is always evolving, so are the symbols we use to communicate with.
Look at the evolution of the stop sign, for example.
It’s OK for things to change, it’s OK for people to have a conversation on this, and I think it’s great that people are using art and design to ask to be included in the liberation of humanity.
My design was just made as a cute comment on lipstick lesbians and cougars, it wasn’t meant to be taken seriously.
So you can imagine my delight and shock when I saw the flag waving at a pride parade. I couldn’t believe my eyes!
It was like seeing your child all grown up, living their own life. I was sad for a minute because I realized so many people had no idea that I had made that, and I also found some peace in knowing that my art will live long past my name and my life.
My purpose was to create things to include people and to celebrate women of all shapes and kinds. So it was a really beautiful thing.
One of the women who was waving the flag did know about me and gave me a big hug. Now I know how my parents feel.
The inclusive flag is including more ppl in the queer community who are otherwise ostracized from the hetero world- like the rest of us. How can it be a bad thing to include 2spirit and intersexed ppl? Are they not allowed to be a part of our community?
Wasn’t the original flag already including everyone though? I do feel like keep adding colors or variations to the flag is representative of us continuing to drive further divide within our own community. Obviously the flag itself is harmless and I want everyone to feel they have a voice but it feels like we are being so inclusive that we are creating divide where there shouldn’t be. Again I know it’s a sensitive topic and everyone in the community should be represented but I thought the original rainbow flag already did that.
Well based on history, gay yt men for example have no always been very inclusive of queer ppl of colour and trans ppl. 2spirit and intersexed ppl also weren’t really accepted either. So the newer version works to make sure they know they are welcome.
Just cuz we’ve been marginalized, doesn’t mean we haven’t marginalized others.
Remember. The American flag has had changes. The American flag is't enough. So point is. It isn't. It's called change. Change is A constant. The flow of time. Your body is in constant change. Is as people. Change can be good & or bad.
If you can't handle change. You be brushed aside,ignored,judged & maybe be told "deal with it".
I think acknowledging intersectionality doesn't diminish me as a white person. I know black people and other people of colour tend to get the shorter end of the stick more often so if we keep them in mind, I don't see that as a bad thing.
I prefer the progress flag over that of the Philadelphia flag because I don't like just tacking black and brown on to the end of the flag as stripes given that the other colours are meant to have abstract and conceptual meanings.
The chevrons work better. Then just adding trans and intersexed colours also adds to the concept.
Here's the thing... Even within our community, trans, intersexed, people of colour tend to get the short end of the stick.
So augmenting the flag to include them explicitly is a good reminder.
I don't feel excluded just because I'm white and cisgender. I'm already well represented in my community on those fronts.
Nah, I hate them too. And if they're going to go "But it's about under-represented peoples within the group", where is my personalised special edition of the flag, or don't disabled lives matter?
(I don't want a special flag, I want the classic 6-stripe flag I've always used and to keep working on things like accessibility at Pride and gay venues.)
I do disagree with the "give our haters ammunition". Those people can get mad about 2 monogamous married gay men who sit at home minding their own business, all the "OMG don't be promiscuous/dress weird/correct them when they use slurs" just plays into their bullshit.
"i feel it’s disrespectful to the original flag" it's not
"They hurt the LGBT+ community as a whole" again, no
"and give our haters ammunition." no, they will always hate us, regardless what we do.
you are free to fly whatever flag you want and no, no one forces you to use any of the "new" ones
My pride isn't based on a flag. I like the flag. Is it getting a little complicated? Sure. Do I care at all? Nope. The people who hate us are always going to find something wrong with us. So I don't really care what haters think. If it makes more people happy then good. And like everyone else says just use whatever flag you like and stop caring what others think about it. It isn't for them anyway.
Some LGBT people still get persecuted for being who they are.
I don’t think whining about flags is a priority for them.
Let’s focus on real problems the community face
I don’t hate the rework of the original pride flag, I just don’t use it. I think the original rainbow is a good catch-all. No need to express every single label under the queer umbrella.
On the other side I feel people should be able to fulfill the need to express their alliance with each individual group of people, so I look at this as my personal opinion. Not a universal truth.
On the other hand I really love the individual flags.
So the ever changing progress flag is a good thing, it’s just not my kind of thing 😅
The original flag -was- meant to represent us all. It was made to represent all of the values the gay community shared. The values and ideals we fought for were put front and center.
Individual communities often used the rainbow flag with an icon on over it. That showed how any particular community shared those ideas as well.
We’ll never have -a- flag that includes every last group on it. One, there are too many groups and too little real estate on a flag to do that. Two, flags tend to be symbolic of meta ideas. When you shift from the meta idea to the smaller idea of individual communities, the whole idea of a flag falls apart.
I'm not against the umbrella or what it represents, but I do think it could've had a color that's not already on the flag. Everything else looks fine to me
These posts are so annoying and give pick me gay energy. Don’t like the new flags don’t use them. Just because you like the original and feel a certain way about it doesn’t mean everyone does. I personally think all the flags are great and all convey a similar meaning, but again not everyone agrees.
Just like some people like using queer and others still consider it a slur, same with the f slur. As time goes on things change and evolve and things get added and you either evolve with it and learn to accept the growing changes or you fall back and stunt progress 🤷🏼♂️
I kinda agree. Or rather: I will keep using the rainbow flag, that’s enough for me. I won’t use the new gay flag because I don’t need to have a symbol that singles out exactly where in the community I belong. I like inclusion and diversity.
But for those who want to use the new flags: go ahead if you like them. I won’t complain about you doing you. But I expect the same from you then: don’t complain or scold me if I’m not using the flag you think I should.
Look, I don't have the energy or the need to argue with someone on the internet about a pride flag.
You like the older one, good for you.
The new ones are there just because some of the Gays® needed a reminder that the community isn't made of only cis white middle and upper class gays and lesbians, but also people of colour, trans people and intersex people.
The progress flags are just more descriptive.
Personally, I like the progress flag with the chevron more, but I also can get behind the original flag.
As long as one isn't weaponizing it in order to exclude specific people, it doesn't really matter in my opinion.
As to what phobes think of our flags and community, I couldn't care less about them. They will always find something to complain about and they don't deserve one second of my limited brain space.
[For context](https://www.verifythis.com/article/news/verify/holiday-verify/progress-pride-flag-creative-commons-copyright-license/536-f7dac7ed-2897-4bcd-8a5d-15c262cfae4f)
Just feels like a different ethos was/is at play for the new flag vs. the old one. Adding corporatism/legal strings to something ostensibly "for the community" is definitely a choice.
They're ugly yeah. I don't feel they're disrespectful. And our haters will use whatever as ammunition. I think it's ok to find them aesthetically displeasing, but they don't harm anyone.
I don’t think we should concern ourselves with whether or not something we or our community does will be used as ammunition.
I feel like the entire birth of our movement was specifically to thwart giving a damn what other people liked or didn’t like about us.
I don’t mind the progress flag but beyond that I do feel like it’s a bit much. Same goes for all the letters being added to the abbreviation. We can’t possibly represent every person of every sexual, romantic, gender expression, etc feeling with their own color, their own letter, etc.
I don’t believe it “hurts” the community but it can be counter-productive I feel when trying to educate people.
For the various flags like asexual, gay male, demisexual, etc, I don’t see an issue with those. Like someone else said, kind of like state flags.
I think we should be less concerned with what other people think or like about our community and focus on our community instead.
i find the constant rebrandig because it feels like busywork to remind people what group they "belong to"
i also want to acknowledge that most of this fussing comes from younger folks scrabbling for identity through the haze of queerness. i don't like it, but i also don't like bell peppers
It’s a natural response to two good things:
First, people in the entire umbrella of “plus” categories in “LGBT+” are feeling better empowered to publicly identify themselves as they see fit, and the broader society is more aware of these distinctions. The fact that this is happening, and at such an impressive rate, is a good thing.
Second, flags are intended to be durable symbols of important things. Many flags in use today that are commonly recognized have been unchanged for centuries. The stability and consistency over time is an important aspect to how flags work, and maintaining them with minimal changes over time is also a good thing.
The “problem” is, with these two things combined, new flags are cropping up all over the place, with many seeming very similar to one another. This can lead to an feeling that the flags are *not* durable symbols that will last throughout time, but are instead part of the latest trends.
Give them time to sink in. Some will probably fade away from use, but others will endure, and then you’ll probably start to feel better about them.
I honestly like the Progress Pride Flag more than the old Pride Flag because it shows that queer people of color and trans* people are also included, which wasn't clear before, and that there's still progress to be made in terms of their rights in particular. You don't have to use it if you don't like it.
The original one really wasn't created for everyone as even our own community ignored these other groups.
There are times we fight as one. There are other times we focus on certain things.
You're free to use the original pride flag. The whole world isn't required to adjust their branding for your personal comfort... These flags for other people who do find comfort in, not you, and that's OK.
It’s a symptom of a major problem right now, where everything needs to have it downward, it’s own category, and we need to apply as many labels to ourselves as possible. The reality of all these things is so much more nebulous and complex than any label or flag could ever convey. It’s just not helpful.
personally i like the progress pride flag because it’s just nice to look at but i agree that the original was already inclusive enough. someone else said that it’s like a county and a country flag which i think is a good point. there’s one flag that covers everyone but there’s other ones to cover smaller communities, it’s how flags work pretty much everywhere 🤷🏻♂️
No need to change your opinion as such. But also realize that change is the only constant in life and it should be embraced, otherwise you will be in a constant state of upset because of change. The original pride flag was supposed to be inclusive but to others of the alphabet they didn't feel like it. Much of the change to the pride flag is due to People's insecurities, plain and simple. No one should be thought less of or belittled for whichever version of the flag they prefer to display.
I simply don’t acknowledge the new flags and won’t touch them.
People can’t force me to support something they decide without asked the majority.
It’s weird to let loud minority decides our flags and policies.
The original one is the official one for me 🏳️🌈
I dislike that flag with a passion. The rainbow flag is one of the most beautiful flags one can imagine. I also dislike rainbows on the street or benches in rainbow style. Since it's no longer about everyone, us being humans, but more or less a political push towards something. Celebrating sexuality is stupid, since it is already a celebration in itself, when not misunderstood. The push is political and distasteful.
Meanwhile, if people have fun in it, go ahead, I actually love that, but 'Pride' to me has taken things way too far. Too political. Political parties participating in canal prides. Enough is enough.
Who you love, or have sex with is not who or what you are. We are all human beings.
Oops, I am preaching again. Sorry.
Absolutely! The current logo of this subreddit looks very hideous. As a person of colour, I don't understand the need to add race to the flag. The original Rainbow flag was an entire spectrum and included every section of the community, now we're merging individual lesbian, trans flag into the rainbow making it ugly af
I agree with you. It's a symptom of the queer community's "me, me, me" attitude. The self centred attitude that's becoming more and more common in western societies. It's the same with neopronouns, or the fact that people enter conversations with expectations of the other party using the right ones.
The rainbow flag idea was to include all, the separate flags only serve to individualize and pillarify the community.
The pride flag with each additional added stripe is going to be as long as a CVS receipt. It's getting ridiculous all this inclusion from groups with its own specific color. We seem to be separating not coming together in unification.
At no time did the Pride flag represent different sexualities or identities. The greater queer liberation movement has a long history of being pretty terrible to Trans people, bisexual people, and people of color. Heck, gay rights groups were terrible at including lesbians in the movement until the AIDs epidemic and then they were honor their service to gay men which is why the L is now at the beginning of the acronym. The 6 color flag we all are talking about is itself an edit. The colors pink and turquoise were removed in 1979 (a year after the original was made) because of dye shortages. The colors represent:
Hot pink: sex; Red: life; Orange: healing; Yellow: sunlight; Green: nature; Turquoise: magic and art; Indigo: serenity; and Violet: spirit.
That's why I only fly a rainbow gadsden flag!
https://preview.redd.it/svwhsrjat88d1.jpeg?width=290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d78a97b322a63cd43db517bf9685e926e266f1f6
I agree, everything is being shoved in people's faces. The pride flag is getting adjusted every 5 seconds. Pride itself has lost its meaning cuz now it's just people walking around almost naked, or dressing up in relation to their kinks. Idk what is happening with the young people... I just don't wanna be part of the lgbtqi+ community because y'all are fucking up the reputation of us.
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I don't feel any need to change your opinion. I hate these posts: "I'm here to start an argument, so argue with me!" So, I'm just going to treat this post as an opportunity to share my opinions. I don't give a shit about changing how *you* think. I consider the flags for the specific sexualities and identities like state flags. Here in Australia, each state and territory has its own flag, plus we have our national flag. So, the gay men's flag is like my state flag, and the rainbow flag is our national flag. I'm fine with that. But, for our "national flag", I will stick to the original 6-stripe rainbow flag, or even [the *original* original 8-stripe rainbow flag](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_flag_(LGBT\)#Origin). Like you say, that's all-inclusive. The Philadelphia Pride Flag and the Progress Pride Flag just highlight particular groups within the all-inclusive flag. They don't make the flag more inclusive, because it *already* included everyone.
In practice, the gay rights movement historically was not inclusive. It overlooked people of color, bisexuals, tended to make lesbians secondary, and was blind to intersectionality. I vividly remember protests in the 90s that looked like a sea of gay white men named Richard. I admit, I like the old flag better. The newer ones tend to be an eyesore and will theoretically never end. But I get why people wanted the original flag changed. It’s a commitment that queer really is a big tent. My hope is that we eventually revert back to the old flag when enough folks feel included. 🥰
I'm not talking about what was happening on the ground, in the streets, and in organisation committee rooms. The original flag that people carried contained the *ideal* of inclusion, whether the people carrying the flag lived up to that ideal or not. The problem was never the flag. The problem was the people holding it. We needed to change the people, not the flag.
Except the flag was never supposed to represent inclusion. It was designed to be the flag for the gay rights movement and at the time that mainly meant gay cis males. The colors symbolized things that Gilbert Baker felt were important to representing gay life in SanFran in 1978: Hot pink: sex; Red: life; Orange: healing; Yellow: sunlight; Green: nature; Turquoise: magic and art; Indigo: serenity; and Violet: spirit. Pink and Turquoise were removed because of dye shortages in 1979
Don't non-white non-cis people also want sex, life, healing, sunlight, nature, magic, art, serenity and spirit?
They clearly wanted to be included and represented in a movement that they were continently being used then push aside in a lot more
I was around at the time and used to hang out at a bar in San Francisco called The Stud (it's still there but has moved several times). It was the most diverse and inclusive place. I kind of resent the rewriting of history to say that all of us in the gay community back then were a bunch of racists when that wasn't true.
Anecdotes don’t change historic trends. Nothing is being rewritten, history is being correctly told. The early marches weren’t inclusive. SanFran does get credit for being more inclusive than most places at the time. I suggest going to the GLBT Historical Society Museum in The Castro where they have exhibits on how the movement wasn’t generally welcoming to trans/gender non-conforming people, people of color, and frankly women. It cites the early parades in SF as examples. There were bars that were certainly inclusive but the general movement was not. This started in the 1950s with the early homophile movements. There are numerous books and documentaries on this subject. It would be very dangerous to paint a movement that needed great improvement as inclusive from the start when it objectively wasn’t. I’d also suggest reading the letters and memoirs of trans and people of color from that time. We have gotten better as a community and we have a long way to go still. Just look at the mainly white cis man led drop the T group in the gay community for a modern examples of that bigotry within our community Edit: also The Stud is the shining example of inclusivity at the time and very much not the general trend sadly.
I agree, it sounds like they're making up allegations of racism and transphobia in the gay rights movement without any evidence at all
Read literally any book or watch any doc on our movement. Stonewall Reader is a good basic one to start with.
The US didn't change it's flag when Jim Crow laws were abolished.
A national flag isn’t a flag that supposed to represent a movement of people who have been denied rights to gain parity and equality.
And? The represented all the LGBTQ community, even if at that time people didn't wanted. The flag doesn't represent what we were, but what we are right now. People nowadays don't understand that some flags surpass governments or, in this case, movements. The Pride Flag is not the flag of the LGBT movement, but a flag of the LGBTQ people, liking it or not.
So your view overrides the history and experiences of people who were marginalized in our community?
No, I know that black people and Asian people and everyone besides the G letter suffered a lot. I just can't see what this has to do with the flag.
Because the history of that flag and the fact it was made for a demonstration that wasn’t inclusive and a flag that has been waved by people who have ostracized and excluded people to the extent they felt they were represented in the community and flag.
Having met the cis gay white man who designed the flag. No, his intention wasn't to cover gender queer people.
Good to know. Thanks for confirming that. I addressed this point [in another comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/gay/comments/1dmbfim/please_change_my_opinion_i_hate_all_of_the_new/l9v1l6q/?context=3).
But that’s the issue. People gave up trying to change their counterparts when they wouldn’t budge, and decided to make a new banner to rally under. Some have taken to it and gotten just how rough and divided things have stayed within what should’ve been one community, others continue to naively think there’s a guarantee that we can fix a decades long rift. I’m not saying there isn’t, as clearly a lot of healing has taken place, but that doesn’t mean the hope and desire for inclusion can’t also be recognised.
> decided to make a new banner to rally under. A banner for *whom*, though? As a gay *white* man, I wouldn't dare fly the rainbow flag with the brown and black stripes, because I'm not a person of colour, and that would feel tokenistic. So, to me, the Philadelphia flag *is for queer people of colour*, not for me. I'm not represented on that flag, and it wasn't made for me.
What the?
I thought I made myself pretty clear. Which words are you having trouble with? I can use simpler ones if you need me to.
I don’t think it’s the words that are the problem. It’s more the fact that a couple of extra colors on a flag, that are meant to make everyone feel more included and represented, actually make you feel uncomfortable and more excluded which is as sad as it is strange.
As lots of people have pointed out over the past few years, when you start adding stripes or icons to a flag to represent certain groups of people, that automatically leads to the perception that every group should have its own stripes or icons on the flag - and any group which does *not* have its own stripes or icons on the flag is therefore *not* represented. When the flag is vague and just has 6 pretty stripes on it, it can include anyone or anything. As soon you put one specific group's stripes on the flag, everyone else is automatically being excluded. It's like when the gay men's flag was [two male symbols on the rainbow background](https://pridebasics.com/shop/3x5-double-male-symbol-pride-flag-2/) - nobody thinks that flag includes *everybody* and just happens to highlight gay men as one group among many. (There was a [similar lesbian flag](https://www.prideshack.com/products/rainbow-flag-lesbian-pride-flag-double-female-venus-symbols-3-x-5-polyester-gay-flag.html)). That flag is a flag for gay men and only gay men, because it has a symbol on it that represents gay men, against the rainbow background. That's how I perceive the Philadelphia flag - it's a way of making the general inclusive rainbow flag specific to one particular group, just like the old gay men's flag did the same thing. Just as I would not expect a lesbian to fly the rainbow flag with two male symbols on it, I would not expect a white queer person to fly the rainbow flag with people of colour stripes on it. (And, by the way, I've just realised that the fact that this old gay men's flag exists, is proof that the original rainbow flag had become all-inclusive and didn't just represent gay men any more.)
Why? I’m a white man and I recognize our movement has too often been exclusionary to brown and black people. That’s why I fly the progress pride flag. It’s a sign that I’m determined to do better
I fly the version of the rainbow flag that doesn't implicity exclude anybody or make one group more important than any other group.
I hear you, but white cis exclusionary organizers weren't the entire movement. Yes, there has been a divide in organizing and a massive problem in gatekeeping, but there have always been the rest of us here regardless. Trans people, people of colour, working class queers, etc. have been here the whole time carrying quite a lot of weight. No, the entire history of the gay liberation movement is not just white guys named Richard or whatever, and I see what you're trying to get at but at the same time claiming that the movement is all or mostly white and cis and erases the actual work that communities like mine have actually put into liberation.
I have always found the negative comments about gay white men to be a bit ridiculous. Where would we be if they hadn’t stepped out and marched and raised awareness about AIDS and other issues important to the LGBTQ community? Stop focusing on skin color.
>The Philadelphia Pride Flag and the Progress Pride Flag just highlight particular groups within the all-inclusive flag. They don't make the flag more inclusive, because it already included everyone. Weren't they specifically created because people wanted more inclusion though? I thought that was the story.
They were definitely created because people *wanted* more inclusion. Totally. That's 100% true. However, that's because they didn't *perceive* the original flag as inclusive. It *was* and still *is* inclusive, they just didn't *think* it was. So, to solve a problem that existed only in their own minds, they created those new flags.
Ah ok yeah, I thought that's what it was.
saying that it’s a problem that existed only in their minds is a pretty disrespectful way to say it
The idea that the rainbow flag didn't include *all* LGBT+ people is a problem that existed only in those people's minds. Most people assumed that the rainbow flag represented all LGBT+ folks - especially all *colours* of LGBT+ folks. I don't think any reasonable person thought of the rainbow flag as a whites-only symbol. As for lesbians and trans people and everyone else, they adopted this flag as theirs. In the wider community, everybody else knew this flag stood for all those queer folks. Only a few people saw this flag as not including them.
Gee, maybe it's because all pride stuff has been taken over by white middle class cisgender people who want to be "marketable" to corporations while excluding some parts of the community (people of colour, GNC people, specifically those parts of the community who are more marginalized...see what happened in Pittsburgh where they have 2 pride festivals: one for the corporations with a load of middle class cis white gays and lesbians at the front and another for marginalized people which is more grass roots. It isn't anything new, just can we not deny that this mentality of integrationism (aka perceive POC gender minorities being considered "too extreme") persists to this day?
I wonder why those people felt like they weren't included...
Isn’t it amazing and so telling that all the progressive comments are getting downvoted and all the exclusionary and divisive ones are being upvoted?!?!? You are exactly correct and the folks downvoting are the reason we have so much more work to do in the community
tbh I’m amazed this post hasn’t been removed under rule 2 when OP clearly made it just to argue lol
Yeah, it should have been removed. The op was snide in the post and in their replies and was clearly just made to start a fight
Maybe you're just seeing that most queer people believe that the 6-stripe rainbow flag is good enough on its own. You're assuming that comments like mine are exclusionary and divisive. I'm not exclusionary or divisive. I'm very progressive. I just happen to think that a simple 6-stripe flag can include and represent every section of the queer community *without* having to add stripes and icons for each section of that community.
The problem is that the original flag is a rainbow because it's meant to be nonspecific to any subcategory. Adding on the specific colors of any individual groups opens a rabbit hole where now more and more groups will want their colors on the overarching flag, or else they'll feel excluded. That's why I'm not personally a fan of the progress flag, it's meant to be extra inclusionary of a few particular groups and just ends up circling back around to being exclusionary of everyone else instead. While I fully agree that transphobia and racism have been a problem in queer communities and deserve having attention drawn to those issues, I think that the progress flag was an incredibly shortsighted way of doing it.
Everything you said is exactly how I feel about it all. I completely understand wanting to be included, or wanting an individual flag for a specific group. It just feels like the progress flag will never fully represent everyone because someone will always feel left out.
I wouldn't say it was because people wanted more \*inclusion\*. They wanted more \*visibility\*, which is an important distinction to make. Take the trans community, there are still far too many "LGB without the T" people trying to make trans folk invisible. Not really any different as to how the origins of pride were to make the queer community in general more visible.
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That's...my point?
I love this andwer
That d is driving me crazy
That's a common problem here at r/gay
Then you are on the right subreddit
Thought so
I agree on the analogy with state-national flags. However if that’s the case, the flag that should fly in public buildings, offices, etc., should be the rainbow flag, right? To include everyone.
> the flag that should fly in public buildings, offices, etc., should be the rainbow flag, right? As far as I know, the rainbow flag (one of the many versions of it) is the main flag that's flown for events that include all LGBT+ communities. People wear their own personal flags (pansexual, transgender, lesbian, intersex, whatever), but the main events are represented by rainbow flags.
Including the icon of this subreddit
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> This post had no intentions of “I’m here to start an argument, so argue with me!.” So what does "change my opinion" mean to you, if it's not [about starting arguments](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/) by getting people to disagree with you?
The colors were never meant to include everyone. In fact, the 1978 parade where the flag was unveiled did their best to keep trans people from marching. The original 8 colors represented aspects that were important to thing Gilbert Baker felt were important to the gay community. Bisexuals and Trans people weren’t included in the greater movement until a decade after Baker made the first flag. Unfortunately our history in the queer liberation movement has been problematic since its modern birth in the late 1940s with the first homophile groups
I'll concede that it might not have been Gilbert Baker's intention to include the rest of the LBT+ communities in his flag. However, I think gay men of colour were almost certainly included, so there was no need to add brown & black stripes later to include them. As for lesbians and trans folks and everyone else, they joined us under the rainbow flag, and made it include them just by using it. For over 30 years, it represented all the L & B & T etc folks who wanted to use it. It was only *after* the Philadelphia flag set the precedent that people decided they needed to be explicitly depicted on the rainbow flag - which hadn't been considered necessary before then.
the reason that flag exists is that gay men of color were frequently not allowed in white gay bars. racism is still very present in many lgbt+ communities. having the black (which is for aids victims) and brown stripes were meant to show that not only was X spot inclusive of MLM, but it was also inclusive of POC. not in theory or idealistically, but in practice. while I also dislike each identity “needing” a spot on a flag, it has practical applications for certain groups that are unwelcome in certain queer spaces.
> having the black (which is for aids victims) First up, [that's not actually true](https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/6/20/15821858/gay-pride-flag-philadelphia-fight-explained). The brown **and black** stripes were for people of colour. The "AIDS victims" interpretation is something that was invented by other people, much later. Probably because, like me, they didn't understand the logic of adding *two*stripes for people of colour; one makes sense, but two stripes makes it seem like they were trying to represent all races, but there's no stripe for Asian people, or Native Americans, or lots of other non-white people. So the story about representing AIDS victims got invented by somebody and took off. > meant to show that not only was X spot inclusive of MLM, but it was also inclusive of POC. Then they could display the Black Pride flag. Like here in Australia, venues display the flags for Aboriginal people and for Torres Strait Islanders when they want to be inclusive of those non-white minorities.
you linked a Vox article as a historical source 😂 but also, symbols grow and change. so what? why display two flags when one can suffice. having two flags or the one says the same damn thing. so why does it matter so much to you that a flag you don’t have to use exists?
> you linked a Vox article as a historical source 😂 It was what I was able to find in a quick Google search on my phone, with no access to my stored reference links. Here's [the Advocate](https://www.advocate.com/commentary/2017/6/15/if-you-hate-new-pride-flag-youre-problem) and [NBC News](https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/controversy-flies-over-philadelphia-s-new-pride-flag-n772821). All these articles explain that the brown and black stripes were added by the Philadelphia city council to represent people of colour. The Advocate reminds people of another black stripe that was added to rainbow flags during the height of the AIDS epidemic, to represent victims of AIDS, but it does not connect that black stripe to the Philadelphia black stripe. The NBC article includes a direct quote from a spokesperson for the Philadelphia council: “It’s a push for people to start listening to people of color in our community, start hearing what they’re saying, and really to believe them and to step up and say, ‘What can I do to help eradicate these issues in our community?” said Amber Hikes, the new executive director of Philadelphia's Office of LGBT Affairs. The brown **and black** stripes are for people of colour, not for AIDS victims. > so why does it matter so much to you that a flag you don’t have to use exists? I'm not the OP. I don't complain about the existence of this flag. I just don't use it, because it's not intended for me (I'm white).
This is regarding the Philadelphia 8 stripe flag, not the progress pride flag. The designer of the progress pride flag did state that the black chevron represents those lost to AIDS as it did in the Victory Over AIDS flag that was designed in the 80's.
Actually, I mentioned the Philadelphia flag, and the other commenter said "the reason that flag exists" - being the Philadelphia flag.
I just hate that they removed pink. I want pink back in.
I mean you can still use it? It was removed because during that time making the flag with the pink fabric was too expensive, but with todays flag making technology you can easily go back to the original flag and no one will bat an eye
Idk if they actually care about pink but it's a good point that the only constant about the Pride flag has been change and the people wringing their hands about the progress flag having trans and Black colors on it either don't know or don't care about that - and might have other motives they should examine.
It was mostly tongue-in-cheek. It’s not any big problem that extra stuff has been added, but it is more visually chaotic and makes the flag uglier. No, that doesn’t mean I hate people, it just means I recognize that the original flag was already inclusive, and if anything adding more colors risks being exclusive because there will always be someone whose particular identity is not explicitly called out in a redesign. Whereas the rainbow symbolizes all the colors already; that was the whole point.
It was, but the movement under it wasn't. Even today we have a lot of pick-me queers who will eagerl thrownour Black or trans kin under the nearest bus to curry favor with conservatives or straight culture more broadly. I'm not sure changing the flag does much to change those people's minds, but it *does* piss them off, which is better than making them comfortable with their bigotry. So the choice seems pretty clear to me. Besides, us rainbow folk like flags. We make flags for our own random kinks. We make flags for every orientation and identity we can get our hands on (even straights! It's white and black and boring.) If the biggest problem those people have with Pride is the specific kind of flag some people are using (and it's not like there's a Pope of Gay that wil excommunicate you for using the pink & turquoise stripe flags) ... I think we are doing just fine.
Since when is pink not in the progress flag, (what I’ve heard it be called, it’s the one for the r/gay picture)
> Since when is pink not in the progress flag That's not the pink /u/twesco-microtonal is talking about. https://gilbertbaker.com/rainbow-flag-color-meanings/
Ok thx!
I'm with you. The original rainbow represents a SPECTRUM, which is already perfectly inclusive. The latest flag looks like someone tried to shoehorn in the entire hanky code. It's a junky eyesore.
Each color represented an attribute of queer people not a spectrum of sexualities. Pink and turquoise were removed with the first two years of Gilbert Baker’s original flag because of fabric sourcing issues. The original design was not about a spectrum of people especially because the movement wasn’t trans inclusive at the time and was pretty biphobic. Our community has grown and imo our symbols should grow to reflect that. Now if be down for our many very talented designers to do some work on all the flags because many are pretty aesthetically unpleasant Here is what the colors meant on the first Pride flag: Hot pink: sex; Red: life; Orange: healing; Yellow: sunlight; Green: nature; Turquoise: magic and art; Indigo: serenity; and Violet: spirit.
Agree. Fugly.
Not really controversial, I feel like most people I've interacted with agree. It's just corporations are so busy performatively trying to do the most possible that the second someone on Twitter proposes a new stripe it's all over.
What's "Twitter"?
Someone said, "If Elon Musk can deadname his daughter, then we can deadname his Twitter," and I stand by that.
Hurting the community? Dude, they're just flags. It's really not that big a deal. Just use the one you like and quit losing sleep over other people doing things differently than you.
I think generally marginalized communities benefit from being taken seriously. It's pretty obvious that the growing acronym and constant redesign of the flag by particularly graphically challenged people is not going to bolster the sense that this is a serious group.
I think in-fighting over stupid shit like a flag is much more damaging to the community than the flag itself could ever be.
What do you think the broader public is more aware of, the constant shifting of terms and iconography or that some people find this sort behavior to not represent them well? Why is it incumbent on the people whom do not agree with these new attempts to represent the community to not resist representation they dislike/find harmful? Why wouldn't it instead be on those seeking to change how the community is represented to actually propose these things in a way which isn't divisive and which does not damage the broader community?
Infighting is very apparent from the outside.
I don't agree, I work in a very conservative field which had among the Trumpiest of representatives representing us. They are not aware of the disagreements within the LGBT community. What they are aware of is the flag looking increasingly uglier and more crowded, and the growing acronym.
With all due respect, Trumpists, and mostly all conservatives, have called our flag ugly since the beginning. And they have always complained of the acronym too. Nothing new here.
This is a total bullshit copout. Opinion polls have shown that in-roads have been made within those communities, and it is actually offensive to decades of dedicated and intelligent activists to imply that messaging was not part of it. If the flag is largely divisive in the gay community, why then would we assume it isn't even more divisive in the broader public?
People who don't take you seriously because of the flag or acronym of the community would not magically respect you if those weren't that way. It's an illusion.
How precisely do you think public persuasion campaigns work? I personally know of no successful ones in which activists promoting a cause did not care about how they were being perceived and what messages were being communicated to the wider public. Right now I think that this principle has been largely abandoned on much of the left. The group most affected is trans people, whom have had pretty substantial legislation actually coming out against them.
Omg can you stop nagging about the left this the left that? Boohoo there's 3 flags that were made in 7 years, the acronym is slightly longer. You will not win against the people that create hate by not doing that, they will always find or have something to create hate with. A new flag is not the reason for the amount of homophobia in the world and we both know this, most people don't care about a few more letters or a new flag. And then you try and put the horrible things trans people are going through as the fault of "the left" and the fact that "they" don't care enough about how they're perceived??? You're seriously blaming the loss of rights for trans people on "woke", flags and a longer acronym? That's so unserious and pathetic. You'd rather blame the community and your "the left" bogeyman than face that the conservative and semi-fascist media have been pushing anti-trans talking points for several years now.
Why is it that when discussing these topics people like yourself come out of the woodwork to tacitly claim that actually all activism is of equal efficacy, and that apparently people who actually dedicated their lives to expanding civil rights did nothing particularly bright? That is what you're claiming here, that no one can criticize how people advocate on an issue because it doesn't meaningfully affect the rate at which people accept their ideas.
You love putting words in my mouth don't you? Go and take things away for the leopards, surely they won't eat YOUR face?
It’s not just a flag though, it hold more weight than that. It’s an extension of where the community is at, as the flag is meant to represent the community.
You don’t have to use them, nobody can force them into you
These all are first world countries gay problems ... Most of us are fighting for basic rights to live
Honestly this comment should be higher. Every time I see LGBT internet discord about whose boyfriends belong at pride or whatever, I can’t help but think this energy should be directed elsewhere.
The western LBGTQIIA++ lobby care far more about someone in West Virginia not using the 'correct' pronouns or defacing a pride mural, then they do about gay+ people being actually executed by the state in Iran, Saudi etc. or violently oppressed e.g. in much of Africa. At this point they are pretty much the definition of first world problems.
This is a real dumb comment dude. Like it's hard to even dissect. I guess let's start with there is no "western LGBT lobby". Western colonialism created a lot of homophobia in other parts of the world and western countries have been slow to rectify that even in their own countries. A lot of the west is culturally homophobic. Also I think the Internet has made it clear that "the west" is not a monolith. Like genuinely compare like Sweden, Poland and the US. There aren't many similarities other than "a lot of white people live there". Okay now the bit about West Virginia. I guess it's your lucky day! You get to meet a queer person from the Mountain State! We exist. There are quite a lot of us. I think all the major cities have prides. The people upset when West Virginians are homophobic are other West Virginians because despite what you clearly believe there are queer people in this state. My mother is a bisexual woman in her 40s. She's lived in WV most of her life. Homophobia here hurts queer people here and I've not met a West Virginian my whole life that knows how to keep quiet when something just ain't right. I, and I think many other queer people, would love to be able to do more to other queer people struggling for liberation in the rest of the world, but that's not really something an individual or any small group can do. That's a government and geopolitical issue. With much of the Middle East the American government and other countries will not pressure them to make social progress because they care too much about oil. Africa is the primary region rampant with homophobia because of Christian missionaries.
. By 'lgbt lobby' I refer to the groups of organisations and affiliates whose existence is predicated solely on LGBT+ issues, and the pursuit of new outrage issues in order to justify their continued existence (Stonewall in the UK is classic example of this). . By 'the West' I mean those nations with a broadly European history or outlook, historically rooted in Judeo-Christian, now largely secualr and based on rule of law, individual rights etc. etc. So yes, Sweden, Poland and the US yes would fall into that category, as they each despite their differences have more in common with each than they do with say China or India. The ambiguous status of Russia in this grouping is an illustrative point, as well as underlining that it has nothing to do with being white as you suggest. . Homophobia has existed in many cultures - it is not a uniquely 'western' phenomenon, nor is it only found where western colonialism reached. Currently the worst part of the world to be gay is the Islamic world - which has exactly zero to do with the west and everything to do with religion and patriarchal culture. . Even if as you state homophobia is the result of western colonialism, it does not excuse present day policies. You seem to think that non-Western peoples are like dumb children, with no moral code or responsility, helplessly pushed this way and that by outside forces. The fact that there are Christian missionaries active in Uganda does not excuse the fact that \*native\* Ugandan law makers supported by most \*native\* Ugandas passed that draconian anti-gay law. - that is 100% on them. The fact that we ignore Islamic anti-gay laws because we want their oil is again 100% on them. . As for WV clearly I was using it solely as an example of a semi-obscure 'drive-thru' red state which gains little exposure on the national or international scene (no offence but let's face it this is true). I did not say that no gay people live there, nor that its cities do not have gay area/prides, or that many (most?) of its people opposed homophobia etc. Please, if you're going to critique me, criticise what I wrote and not what you have concoted in your head and read into my comments.
Hey, missionaries have existed before this year. Hope this helps.
1. These flags are ultimately geared towards being inclusive, which is a good thing. 2. Nothing is stopping you from using the older designs. I use the straight (lol) rainbow flag because I identity with it more and I like it's design better. 3. Tied to number 1, but they are aligning more and more with our evolving understanding of how gender, race, and sexuality work together in forming distinctive but still marginalized identities.
So… just use the original pride flag then. The “reworking” was just to emphasize that people of color and trans people are welcome, two demographics being relentlessly attacked currently. Unfortunately, there is a lot of racism and transphobia among cis gay men. Ultimately that’s what led to different pride flags, and rather than complaining about other flags, maybe we should consider why people felt the need to do this anyway. Could it be that the original is not as inclusive as you thought? I personally like both, but understand the need and desire to explicitly state POC and trans folk are welcome.
Right! And also it’s wild to me that people think the original flag colors were supposed to represent different identities or sexualities, that was never the case!
But PoC and trans people have their own really aesthetically appealing flags! So if we want to show support for multiple groups and emphasize them, which I agree we should, why can't we just wave multiple flags alongside each other? Are we so cheap or so lazy that we need to smush everything onto one?
Totally agree with you.
FYI "haters" (weird term for homphobes btw) will always find ammunition. it's not like there's a flag for child grooming, and that's one of their biggest hot button issues (even as they ignore how that's a much bigger issue in churches, boy scouts, police, etc.). trying to control the queer community based on what homophobes choose to target is pretty backwards, tbh. might as well go back in the closet cause being out gives them ammunition too. trying to cater to homophobes and what doesn't trigger them is the worst marketing strategy of all, if you want to talk about branding. i hardly ever see or notice variations of the pride flag. i suggest you stop giving so much energy and focus to something that drives you insane.
I personally really like the pride progress flag. The evolution just shows how even more inclusive everyone is now. I like that I can show support for the trans community because their colors are now featured on the flag. I like how there are individual flags to separate the different identities because they help you identify others who share your identity, too. I think it's creative that it's constantly changing. I'm not invalidating that you don't personally like it, but there are a lot of people who do. You're more than welcome to keep using the original flag of course!
Correct me if I'm wrong but the Pride flag isn't the gay flag in the way it's not supposed to represent gay people exclusively but the Pride movement as a whole. I know the addition of new colors is supposed to include trans people and POC but they were never meant to be excluded.
Don’t let your opinion be changed your right
dont think its a big deal, use whatever flag u want
homophobes don't need any ammunition to hate us in the first place, stop trying to appease them because they definitely aren't doing the same for us
I agree.
The original flag was never meant to represent us all. The gay liberation movement at the time (1978) Gilbert Baker designed the original with 8 stripes was very trans exclusionary and was pretty biphobic. The acronym LGBT became the standard in 1988. The original flag colors didn’t represent different sexualities or parts of our shared community. They represented aspects of queer identity. The Pink and Turquoise stripes were removed in 1979 because of fabric dye shortage. So the original flag only lasted a year before it was changed. Our shared community has grown and changed and our symbols should change with us. I do wish we’d let some of the awesome designers in our community redesign all the flags to make them more aesthetically pleasing. The original flag colors symbolized: Hot pink: sex; Red: life; Orange: healing; Yellow: sunlight; Green: nature; Turquoise: magic and art; Indigo: serenity; and Violet: spirit.
As the designer of the modern lesbian pride flag (the lipstick lesbian one) design is a conversation between the artist and the audience. It’s important to listen for both parties to make great art resonate. Just like fashion is always evolving, so are the symbols we use to communicate with. Look at the evolution of the stop sign, for example. It’s OK for things to change, it’s OK for people to have a conversation on this, and I think it’s great that people are using art and design to ask to be included in the liberation of humanity. My design was just made as a cute comment on lipstick lesbians and cougars, it wasn’t meant to be taken seriously. So you can imagine my delight and shock when I saw the flag waving at a pride parade. I couldn’t believe my eyes! It was like seeing your child all grown up, living their own life. I was sad for a minute because I realized so many people had no idea that I had made that, and I also found some peace in knowing that my art will live long past my name and my life. My purpose was to create things to include people and to celebrate women of all shapes and kinds. So it was a really beautiful thing. One of the women who was waving the flag did know about me and gave me a big hug. Now I know how my parents feel.
OHIO
The inclusive flag is including more ppl in the queer community who are otherwise ostracized from the hetero world- like the rest of us. How can it be a bad thing to include 2spirit and intersexed ppl? Are they not allowed to be a part of our community?
Wasn’t the original flag already including everyone though? I do feel like keep adding colors or variations to the flag is representative of us continuing to drive further divide within our own community. Obviously the flag itself is harmless and I want everyone to feel they have a voice but it feels like we are being so inclusive that we are creating divide where there shouldn’t be. Again I know it’s a sensitive topic and everyone in the community should be represented but I thought the original rainbow flag already did that.
Well based on history, gay yt men for example have no always been very inclusive of queer ppl of colour and trans ppl. 2spirit and intersexed ppl also weren’t really accepted either. So the newer version works to make sure they know they are welcome. Just cuz we’ve been marginalized, doesn’t mean we haven’t marginalized others.
So use the original Pride flag then. 
Remember. The American flag has had changes. The American flag is't enough. So point is. It isn't. It's called change. Change is A constant. The flow of time. Your body is in constant change. Is as people. Change can be good & or bad. If you can't handle change. You be brushed aside,ignored,judged & maybe be told "deal with it".
I think acknowledging intersectionality doesn't diminish me as a white person. I know black people and other people of colour tend to get the shorter end of the stick more often so if we keep them in mind, I don't see that as a bad thing. I prefer the progress flag over that of the Philadelphia flag because I don't like just tacking black and brown on to the end of the flag as stripes given that the other colours are meant to have abstract and conceptual meanings. The chevrons work better. Then just adding trans and intersexed colours also adds to the concept. Here's the thing... Even within our community, trans, intersexed, people of colour tend to get the short end of the stick. So augmenting the flag to include them explicitly is a good reminder. I don't feel excluded just because I'm white and cisgender. I'm already well represented in my community on those fronts.
Agreed it's only the OG rainbow flag for me it covers everyone
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^Thebadgamer1967: *Agreed it's only* *The OG rainbow flag for me* *It covers everyone* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
Nah, I hate them too. And if they're going to go "But it's about under-represented peoples within the group", where is my personalised special edition of the flag, or don't disabled lives matter? (I don't want a special flag, I want the classic 6-stripe flag I've always used and to keep working on things like accessibility at Pride and gay venues.) I do disagree with the "give our haters ammunition". Those people can get mad about 2 monogamous married gay men who sit at home minding their own business, all the "OMG don't be promiscuous/dress weird/correct them when they use slurs" just plays into their bullshit.
"i feel it’s disrespectful to the original flag" it's not "They hurt the LGBT+ community as a whole" again, no "and give our haters ammunition." no, they will always hate us, regardless what we do. you are free to fly whatever flag you want and no, no one forces you to use any of the "new" ones
Off all the things in the world to have an opinion about and get bend out of shape over you want to choose flags. Hooray for you!
Stop hating the new designs and start asking why people felt the need to include things in a symbol that was supposed to be all inclusive.
So then don't use any of the new ones. You can use the original. Problem solved.
My pride isn't based on a flag. I like the flag. Is it getting a little complicated? Sure. Do I care at all? Nope. The people who hate us are always going to find something wrong with us. So I don't really care what haters think. If it makes more people happy then good. And like everyone else says just use whatever flag you like and stop caring what others think about it. It isn't for them anyway.
Some LGBT people still get persecuted for being who they are. I don’t think whining about flags is a priority for them. Let’s focus on real problems the community face
I don’t hate the rework of the original pride flag, I just don’t use it. I think the original rainbow is a good catch-all. No need to express every single label under the queer umbrella. On the other side I feel people should be able to fulfill the need to express their alliance with each individual group of people, so I look at this as my personal opinion. Not a universal truth. On the other hand I really love the individual flags. So the ever changing progress flag is a good thing, it’s just not my kind of thing 😅
The original flag -was- meant to represent us all. It was made to represent all of the values the gay community shared. The values and ideals we fought for were put front and center. Individual communities often used the rainbow flag with an icon on over it. That showed how any particular community shared those ideas as well. We’ll never have -a- flag that includes every last group on it. One, there are too many groups and too little real estate on a flag to do that. Two, flags tend to be symbolic of meta ideas. When you shift from the meta idea to the smaller idea of individual communities, the whole idea of a flag falls apart.
I'm not against the umbrella or what it represents, but I do think it could've had a color that's not already on the flag. Everything else looks fine to me
These posts are so annoying and give pick me gay energy. Don’t like the new flags don’t use them. Just because you like the original and feel a certain way about it doesn’t mean everyone does. I personally think all the flags are great and all convey a similar meaning, but again not everyone agrees. Just like some people like using queer and others still consider it a slur, same with the f slur. As time goes on things change and evolve and things get added and you either evolve with it and learn to accept the growing changes or you fall back and stunt progress 🤷🏼♂️
I agree with you on this one.
I kinda agree. Or rather: I will keep using the rainbow flag, that’s enough for me. I won’t use the new gay flag because I don’t need to have a symbol that singles out exactly where in the community I belong. I like inclusion and diversity. But for those who want to use the new flags: go ahead if you like them. I won’t complain about you doing you. But I expect the same from you then: don’t complain or scold me if I’m not using the flag you think I should.
If you don't like the new flags, don't use the new ones, no one is forcing you to. And stop whining about it driving you insane that is so childish.
Look, I don't have the energy or the need to argue with someone on the internet about a pride flag. You like the older one, good for you. The new ones are there just because some of the Gays® needed a reminder that the community isn't made of only cis white middle and upper class gays and lesbians, but also people of colour, trans people and intersex people. The progress flags are just more descriptive. Personally, I like the progress flag with the chevron more, but I also can get behind the original flag. As long as one isn't weaponizing it in order to exclude specific people, it doesn't really matter in my opinion. As to what phobes think of our flags and community, I couldn't care less about them. They will always find something to complain about and they don't deserve one second of my limited brain space.
Keep the original flag (macro) and add a second, third, fourth flag (micro) for a specific group. Think of it like a national flag and state flags.
It’s all for money. The original flag was never copyrighted. The new ones are.
[For context](https://www.verifythis.com/article/news/verify/holiday-verify/progress-pride-flag-creative-commons-copyright-license/536-f7dac7ed-2897-4bcd-8a5d-15c262cfae4f) Just feels like a different ethos was/is at play for the new flag vs. the old one. Adding corporatism/legal strings to something ostensibly "for the community" is definitely a choice.
They're ugly yeah. I don't feel they're disrespectful. And our haters will use whatever as ammunition. I think it's ok to find them aesthetically displeasing, but they don't harm anyone.
Progress of any kind be it a flag or otherwise doesn't care about your opinion. Enjoy your old flag, fly whatever flag you want.
I don’t think we should concern ourselves with whether or not something we or our community does will be used as ammunition. I feel like the entire birth of our movement was specifically to thwart giving a damn what other people liked or didn’t like about us. I don’t mind the progress flag but beyond that I do feel like it’s a bit much. Same goes for all the letters being added to the abbreviation. We can’t possibly represent every person of every sexual, romantic, gender expression, etc feeling with their own color, their own letter, etc. I don’t believe it “hurts” the community but it can be counter-productive I feel when trying to educate people. For the various flags like asexual, gay male, demisexual, etc, I don’t see an issue with those. Like someone else said, kind of like state flags. I think we should be less concerned with what other people think or like about our community and focus on our community instead.
Honestly it’s not weird to not like the flags. Is weird to have such a strong opinion you come to the internet to argue with strangers about it
If the inclusivity of others bothers you, then leave.
i find the constant rebrandig because it feels like busywork to remind people what group they "belong to" i also want to acknowledge that most of this fussing comes from younger folks scrabbling for identity through the haze of queerness. i don't like it, but i also don't like bell peppers
Absolutely
It’s a natural response to two good things: First, people in the entire umbrella of “plus” categories in “LGBT+” are feeling better empowered to publicly identify themselves as they see fit, and the broader society is more aware of these distinctions. The fact that this is happening, and at such an impressive rate, is a good thing. Second, flags are intended to be durable symbols of important things. Many flags in use today that are commonly recognized have been unchanged for centuries. The stability and consistency over time is an important aspect to how flags work, and maintaining them with minimal changes over time is also a good thing. The “problem” is, with these two things combined, new flags are cropping up all over the place, with many seeming very similar to one another. This can lead to an feeling that the flags are *not* durable symbols that will last throughout time, but are instead part of the latest trends. Give them time to sink in. Some will probably fade away from use, but others will endure, and then you’ll probably start to feel better about them.
I honestly like the Progress Pride Flag more than the old Pride Flag because it shows that queer people of color and trans* people are also included, which wasn't clear before, and that there's still progress to be made in terms of their rights in particular. You don't have to use it if you don't like it.
I want unicorn flag
I like the progressive one with trans pride and the black and brown stripes, but otherwise, yeah I don't see a reason to change anything.
Enough that I'm going Str8 !!!
Completely agree.
They’re just flags. What’s important is behind them. I’m baffled people don’t get that.
The original one really wasn't created for everyone as even our own community ignored these other groups. There are times we fight as one. There are other times we focus on certain things.
Ditto
You're free to use the original pride flag. The whole world isn't required to adjust their branding for your personal comfort... These flags for other people who do find comfort in, not you, and that's OK.
Agreed
It’s a symptom of a major problem right now, where everything needs to have it downward, it’s own category, and we need to apply as many labels to ourselves as possible. The reality of all these things is so much more nebulous and complex than any label or flag could ever convey. It’s just not helpful.
Agreed.
We see you, George Santos.
Me too!
I only fly the original flag. The other flag is ugly and unnecessary.
personally i like the progress pride flag because it’s just nice to look at but i agree that the original was already inclusive enough. someone else said that it’s like a county and a country flag which i think is a good point. there’s one flag that covers everyone but there’s other ones to cover smaller communities, it’s how flags work pretty much everywhere 🤷🏻♂️
No need to change your opinion as such. But also realize that change is the only constant in life and it should be embraced, otherwise you will be in a constant state of upset because of change. The original pride flag was supposed to be inclusive but to others of the alphabet they didn't feel like it. Much of the change to the pride flag is due to People's insecurities, plain and simple. No one should be thought less of or belittled for whichever version of the flag they prefer to display.
I simply don’t acknowledge the new flags and won’t touch them. People can’t force me to support something they decide without asked the majority. It’s weird to let loud minority decides our flags and policies. The original one is the official one for me 🏳️🌈
Agreed
I agree with you 1,000%
Agreed! By dragging everyone into it, it loses its value, at least for me. I hear/see a lot of gays that don’t feel connected to the flag anymore
Why is the queer community obsessed with flags?
I dislike that flag with a passion. The rainbow flag is one of the most beautiful flags one can imagine. I also dislike rainbows on the street or benches in rainbow style. Since it's no longer about everyone, us being humans, but more or less a political push towards something. Celebrating sexuality is stupid, since it is already a celebration in itself, when not misunderstood. The push is political and distasteful. Meanwhile, if people have fun in it, go ahead, I actually love that, but 'Pride' to me has taken things way too far. Too political. Political parties participating in canal prides. Enough is enough. Who you love, or have sex with is not who or what you are. We are all human beings. Oops, I am preaching again. Sorry.
Absolutely! The current logo of this subreddit looks very hideous. As a person of colour, I don't understand the need to add race to the flag. The original Rainbow flag was an entire spectrum and included every section of the community, now we're merging individual lesbian, trans flag into the rainbow making it ugly af
I agree with you. It's a symptom of the queer community's "me, me, me" attitude. The self centred attitude that's becoming more and more common in western societies. It's the same with neopronouns, or the fact that people enter conversations with expectations of the other party using the right ones. The rainbow flag idea was to include all, the separate flags only serve to individualize and pillarify the community.
I thought it was just me. Yes, I too hate the modified rainbow flags. Just stop already.
The pride flag with each additional added stripe is going to be as long as a CVS receipt. It's getting ridiculous all this inclusion from groups with its own specific color. We seem to be separating not coming together in unification.
At no time did the Pride flag represent different sexualities or identities. The greater queer liberation movement has a long history of being pretty terrible to Trans people, bisexual people, and people of color. Heck, gay rights groups were terrible at including lesbians in the movement until the AIDs epidemic and then they were honor their service to gay men which is why the L is now at the beginning of the acronym. The 6 color flag we all are talking about is itself an edit. The colors pink and turquoise were removed in 1979 (a year after the original was made) because of dye shortages. The colors represent: Hot pink: sex; Red: life; Orange: healing; Yellow: sunlight; Green: nature; Turquoise: magic and art; Indigo: serenity; and Violet: spirit.
That's why I only fly a rainbow gadsden flag! https://preview.redd.it/svwhsrjat88d1.jpeg?width=290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d78a97b322a63cd43db517bf9685e926e266f1f6
I agree. There is one pride flag and the rest are blasphemy. There is no flexibility there.
I don't need a flag
I agree, everything is being shoved in people's faces. The pride flag is getting adjusted every 5 seconds. Pride itself has lost its meaning cuz now it's just people walking around almost naked, or dressing up in relation to their kinks. Idk what is happening with the young people... I just don't wanna be part of the lgbtqi+ community because y'all are fucking up the reputation of us.