LGBTQ+ Pride Flags
Flags are how a community says "we are here" without saying a word. Each one below was designed by someone who wanted to be seen, and most were given freely to the rest of us. Here is what they look like and what they mean.
Community Flags
Flags that represent the LGBTQ+ community as a whole, and how that representation has changed over time.
The Original Pride Flag
Made for San Francisco's Gay Freedom Day Parade, the first rainbow flag had eight stripes, each with a meaning: hot pink for sex, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sunlight, green for nature, turquoise for magic and art, indigo for serenity, violet for spirit. Baker never trademarked it. He considered the flag a gift to the community.
Rainbow Pride Flag
The version most people picture today. Hot pink was dropped because the fabric was hard to source in quantity, and turquoise and indigo were merged into one blue stripe so the flag would split evenly when hung on both sides of a parade route. A practical decision that became an icon.
Philadelphia Pride Flag
Launched by Philadelphia's Office of LGBT Affairs as part of its "More Color, More Pride" campaign, adding black and brown stripes to center Black and Brown LGBTQ+ people. It was debated at the time, and it permanently changed the conversation about who the rainbow was actually representing.
Progress Pride Flag
Quasar took the Philadelphia flag's black and brown stripes and the transgender flag's colours and moved them into a chevron pointing right, a deliberate signal that progress is still needed and still moving. The black stripe also honours those lost to HIV/AIDS.
Intersex-Inclusive Progress Pride Flag
Created by Vecchietti for Intersex Equality Rights UK, adding the yellow field and unbroken purple circle of the intersex flag to Quasar's chevron. It spread quickly and is now the most widely flown version of the Pride flag.
Identity Flags
Flags for specific identities within the community. These follow the same order as the identities on our terminology page.
Lesbian
The orange-to-pink flag, shown here in its common five-stripe form; Gwen's original has seven. The shades run from dark orange for gender nonconformity, through white for the uniqueness of lesbian relationships, to dark rose for femininity. It replaced earlier designs the community had largely moved on from.
Gay Men
Its greens and blues deliberately mirror the lesbian flag's oranges and pinks. The stripes stand for community, healing, joy, chosen family and the diversity of gay and same-gender-loving men.
Bisexual
Page designed it so bisexual people would have a symbol of their own. Magenta is attraction to the same gender, blue to a different gender, and the purple where they overlap represents bisexuality itself, which as Page put it tends to blend into the world unnoticed.
Transgender
Helms, a trans woman and Navy veteran, made the design symmetrical on purpose: however you fly it, it is always right side up, so you can never get it wrong. Light blue and pink are the traditional colours for boys and girls, and white is for people who are transitioning, intersex, or of no gender. She donated the original to the Smithsonian in 2014.
Intersex
The unbroken circle stands for wholeness and bodily autonomy, and the right to make decisions about one's own body. Carpenter chose yellow and purple specifically because neither colour is conventionally gendered.
Pansexual
Created to distinguish pansexuality from bisexuality. Magenta represents attraction to women, cyan to men, and the yellow stripe between them to nonbinary people and everyone else.
Asexual
Chosen by a vote on the Asexual Visibility and Education Network. Black is for asexuality, grey for grey-asexuality and demisexuality, white for allies and partners, and purple for the community itself.
Non-binary
Rowan was seventeen and wanted a flag for people who didn't feel represented by the genderqueer flag. Yellow is for genders outside the binary, white for people with many or all genders, purple for a mix of masculine and feminine, and black for people with no gender.
Gender Fluid
Five colours for femininity, all genders, a combination of masculine and feminine, the absence of gender, and masculinity. The point is the movement between them rather than any fixed position.
Genderqueer
Lavender, a mix of blue and pink, stands for androgyny. White is for agender identity. Green is lavender's inverse on the colour wheel, chosen for identities outside the binary altogether.
Aromantic
Greens for the aromantic spectrum, grey and black for grey-aromantic and aromantic people, and white for platonic and aesthetic attraction and the relationships built on them.
Agender
Black and white for the absence of gender, grey for being partly genderless, and a green centre stripe, the inverse of the purple most associated with gender, for nonbinary identity.
Demisexual
Demisexual people experience sexual attraction only after forming a strong emotional bond. The flag borrows the asexual colours: a black triangle for asexuality, white for sexuality, purple for community, and grey for the space between.
Ally
Black and white stripes for the cisgender and heterosexual majority, with a rainbow "A" standing for both ally and the active work of allyship. No single designer is credited for it.
Two Spirit flag
Two Spirit
Two Spirit describes Indigenous people who hold traditional third-gender or ceremonial roles in their communities. It is a distinct Indigenous identity rather than a pan-LGBTQ+ one, and it does not currently have a flag the community has adopted as its own. We have left this space open rather than choose one on anyone's behalf, and we welcome guidance from Two Spirit people and Indigenous-led organizations here in Minnesota.
A few notes on this page
Not every identity has a flag. Queer and Questioning, both on our terminology page, have no single design the community has settled on, so they are not shown here.
Flags change. Several of these replaced earlier versions, and some have competing designs still in use. If you know of one we should add or correct, please get in touch — we would rather be told than be wrong.
Looking for the words rather than the flags? Visit our LGBTQ+ terminology page.
Flags are reproduced here for education. Designers are credited above where known.
The Progress Pride flag is © Daniel Quasar; the Intersex-Inclusive Progress Pride flag is by Valentino Vecchietti for Intersex Equality Rights UK.