“The only thing we would ask is that other people would not take it and put Gilbert’s name on it, because they didn’t do it in consultation with him, and he didn’t do it.” (Baker died earlier this year, on March 31.)
“The stripes were not chosen for skin color - they were chosen to reflect the spectrum of color in nature,” a longtime friend of Baker’s, Charley Beal told NBC. The flag has historically represented LGBTQ people as a whole, and critics of Philly’s changes to it believe those changes are unnecessary, since the flag is already a symbol of unity. Philadelphia’s initiative to be more inclusionary toward nonwhite LGBTQ people comes from a good place, but its reception has been marked by controversy. To fuel this important conversation, we’ve expanded the colors of the flag to include black and brown.” Especially when it comes to recognizing people of color in the LGBTQ+ community. A lot of good, but there’s more we can do. “In 1978, artist Gilbert Baker designed the original rainbow flag,” the campaign states. The colors, according to the Philadelphia Office of LGBT Affairs’ More Color More Pride campaign, represent inclusion of people of color in the LGBTQ community.
The final black stripe represents those who feel they are without gender, as black is the photological absence of color and/or light.” The nonbinary flag and the genderqueer flag are both options for nonbinary people to use to symbolize themselves and take different approaches to how to symbolize nonbinary genders.The city of Philadelphia recently learned that the rainbow flag, a symbol of LGBTQ pride, isn’t quite as unifying as it may seem.įor Pride Month, Philly added two colors - black and brown - to the existing pride flag, and hoisted it outside City Hall. The purple could also be seen as representing the fluidity and uniqueness of nonbinary people. The purple stripe represents those who feel their gender is between or a mix of female and male, as purple is the mix of traditional boy and girl colors. White represents those who have many or all genders, as white is the photological presence of color and/or light. Yellow represents those whose gender exists outside of and without reference to the binary, as yellow is often used to distinguish something as its own. This flag was intended to go alongside Marilyn Roxie’s genderqueer flag rather than replace it. Kye Rowan designed the nonbinary flag in 2014. TriPride has not discovered the original creator. The raised fist was added to the six-striped flag and includes various shades of brown and a white stripe to represent the various colors of the “human rainbow.” The flag’s use has mostly been in the digital sphere, but it was flown at the 2019 San Francisco Pride. Historically, the raised fist has served as an emblem of solidarity and support as well as an expression of unity, strength, defiance, and resistance. Johnson, the black drag queen thought to have thrown the first brick at the Stonewall Inn Riots). The flag represents queer people of color (QPOC) and how the black community and the queer community are often woven together, both currently and in the earliest days of the Queer Liberation Movement (see Marsha P. Though it may have been used before, 2020 saw the display of the QPOC Pride Flag rise in popularity in the broader queer community as a sign of solidarity with Black Lives Matter demonstrations seen across the country and world.