22 LGBTQ+ Pride Flags and Their Meanings

In 1978, artist Gilbert Baker created the first version of the rainbow Pride flag we know today. "A Rainbow Flag was a conscious choice, natural and necessary," he wrote on his website. "The rainbow came from earliest recorded history as a symbol of hope."

Each color on the flag represents something different:

• Pink = Sex
• Red = Life
• Orange = Healing
• Yellow = Sunlight
• Green = Nature
• Turquoise = Magic
• Blue = Serenity
• Purple = Spirit
  

According to The Gilbert Baker Foundation website, demand for the Pride flag rose following the assassination of Harvey Milk in November 1978. It was difficult to source the hot pink fabric needed for the flag's top stripe, so Paramount Flag Company and Baker worked together to create a flag using stock rainbow fabric with seven stripes.

The rainbow flag was modified again in 1979. When it was hung vertically from the lampposts in San Francisco, the center stripe (turquoise) was obscured. The easiest remedy was to create a flag with an even number of stripes, which is how we ended up with this version of the Pride flag that's still widely used today.

In 2017, Philadelphia debuted a new version of the Pride flag, which includes black and brown stripes to represent Black and Latino communities. It was created after activists brought attention to racism in Philadelphia's LGBTQ+ community and demanded more inclusion and intersectionality.

In 2018, artist Daniel Quasar debuted this flag, which added pink and blue stripes to represent the trans community and included the black and brown stripes to represent marginalized communities from Philadelphia's flag.

They explained the meaning of this flag on their website, writing: "The main section of the flag (background) includes the traditional Pride flag as seen in its most widely used form…The trans flag stripes and marginalized community stripes were shifted to the Hoist of the flag and given a new chevron shape. The arrow points to the right to show forward movement, while being along the hoist edge shows that progress still needs to be made."

According to the Human Rights Campaign, this flag represents Indigenous Americans that identify as two-spirit individuals, meaning they don't fall in the male/female binary. "The circle signifies the unification of both identities into a separate gender while the rainbow represents modern queer identities."

The transgender pride flag was designed in 1999 by Monica Helms, a trans activist from Arizona. She used pink and blue stripes because they're often associated with girls and boys, and included a white stripe to represent people who are intersex, transitioning, or don't have a defined gender.

This flag is used to symbolize non-binary pride for people who don't identify with a binary gender like male or female. It was created in 2014 by Kye Rowan. The yellow stripe symbolizes existing outside the binary, the white represents all genders, black is no gender, and purple is a mix of genders.

According to the Human Rights Campaign, this flag was developed by Morgan Carpenter, the co-chair of Intersex Human Rights Australia in 2013. It was designed to be yellow and purple since these are seen as gender neutral colors.

The most recent known iteration of the pride flag is this one from 2021, which includes the intersex pride symbolism along with the existing design of the progress pride flag. According to the Human Rights Campaign, it was created by Valentino Vecchietti of Intersex Equality Rights UK.

This pride flag was created in 2012 by JJ Poole to represent people whose gender expression and identity is not fixed. Each color represents something different:

• Pink = femininity
• White = all genders
• Purple = both masculinity and femininity
• Black = a lack of gender
• Blue = masculinity
  

The bisexual pride flag was designed by activist Michael Page in 1998. The bright pink stripe represents women, the blue stripe represents men, and the purple stripe across the middle represents attraction to both men and women.

There have been multiple iterations of the lesbian pride flag, including the 2018 one by Emily Gwen. The varying shades celebrate gender non-conformity, independence, community, unique relationships to womanhood, peace, serenity, love, sex and femininity.

According to the Human Rights Campaign, this is the second version of a pride flag specifically for gay men. This version has varying shades of green and blue to include non-cisgender gay men.

This flag represents people who identify as pansexual, meaning they're attracted to people of any gender. According to the Human Rights Campaign, it was created around 2010 and "the pink stripe represents attraction to women while the blue stripe represents attraction to boys. The yellow stripe is for everyone else in-between and beyond the gender binary."

According to Grand Rapids Pride Center, the asexual pride flag was created in 2010. Each stripe has a specific meaning on the flag. The black stripe represents asexuality, the gray stripe represents the gray area between sexual and asexual, the white stripe represents sexuality and the purple stripe represents community. Asexual people are people who do not have a sexual attraction towards any gender.

This flag features the same colors as the asexual pride flag above, but they're in a slightly different configuration to represent demisexual pride. According to the Human Rights Campaign, it represents people who only form sexual attraction towards someone once they've established a deep emotional connection.

Polysexual people are attracted to multiple, but not necessarily all genders. According to SexualDiversity.org, the polysexual pride flag was created in 2012. The pink stripe represents attraction to female-identified people, while the green stripe represents attraction to people who identify outside the traditional gender binary. Lastly, the blue stripe represents attraction to male-identified people.

According to the Grand Rapids Pride Center, the genderqueer pride flag was designed in 2011 by Marilyn Roxie, a genderqueer writer and advocate. The lavender stripe is a mix of blue and pink and represents androgyny and queer identities. The white stripe is meant to symbolize agender or gender neutral identities and the green stripe represents third gender identities and identities outside the gender binary.

In 2014, the agender pride flag was created by Salem X to represent people who have an unidentifiable gender, are gender neutral, or have no gender. The black and white stripes represent an absence of gender, the gray represents semi-genderlessness and the central green stripe represents nonbinary genders.