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Queer Pride flag

image by Tomislav Todorović, 4 June 2023

About the flag

See also:

About the flag

The word "queer" is an umbrella term for people who are not heterosexual or are not cisgender (i.e. their gender identity does not match their sex assigned at birth). [1] Used pejoratively since the late 19th Century, as its original meaning was "strange" or "peculiar," it was being reclaimed by the LGBT people since the late 1980s as a neutral or positive word to describe themselves. [1]

Queer Pride Flag appeared online in 2015. [2,3] Its creator is a member of DeviantArt online community who goes under the username Pastelmemer. [3] The flag has nine horizontal stripes, with black at the top, followed by very light blue, light blue (inclining somewhat towards medium blue), light green, white, orange (close to the FOTW color Y+, actually), deep pink (close to the FOTW color R--), light pink and lastly black again. The adjacent shades of pink and blue represent same-gender attraction, orange and green stand for non-binary and gender non-confirming individuals, while black and white symbolize asexual, aromantic, and agender people. [2,3]

The flag is still not widely used. Its earliest currently known photo dates from July 2019 and was taken in Kalamazoo, Michigan. [4] In July 2021, it made part of the art installation "Symbols" by Guillaume Vandame which was exhibited at Leadenhall Market, London, UK. [5] This installation was exhibited again in July 2022, [6] and while the flag itself is not currently known to have been used at the London Pride the same month, balloons colored as the flag pattern were used at the event. [7] The same month, another pride event in the UK took place in Bristol; the flag, while being hardly visible at the left edge of the photo, [8] was detectable nevertheless. Lastly, in August same year, several copies of the Queer Pride Flag were seen at the Amsterdam Pride. [9]
Tomislav Todorović, 4 June 2023
Sources:
[1] "Queer" at Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queer
[2] Human Rights Campaign website - LGBTQ+ Pride Flags: https://www.hrc.org/resources/lgbtq-pride-flags
[3] Genderqueer Positivity blog: https://genderqueerpositivity.tumblr.com/post/613899992471683072/after-previous-discourse-on-this-blog-about-this
[4] Unsplash photo archive - Flag photo from Kalamazoo, Michigan, on 5 July 2019: https://unsplash.com/photos/ySKJOVO0R9o
[5] Wikimedia Commons - Flag photo from London, UK, on 8 July 2021: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pride_flags_(51302958040).jpg
[6] Wikimedia Commons - Flag photo from London, UK: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%27Symbols%27_by_Guillaume_Vandame,_Leadenhall_Market,_Sculpture_in_the_City_2022_(52611811192).jpg
[7] Wikimedia Commons - Photo from London Pride, on 2 July 2022: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:London_Pride_2022_-_52204438025.jpg
[8] Wikimedia Commons - Photo from Bristol Pride, on 9 July 2022: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bristol_Pride_2022_123738630.jpg
[9] Flickr - Photo from Amsterdam Pride, on 1 August 2022: https://flickr.com/photos/uitzandvoortnl/52256989151/