What do the colors of the Progress Pride and Philadelphia Pride flags represent?
Clare MulroyCan you imagine a Pride Month without rainbows?
It wasn't until 1978 that Gilbert Baker created the original Pride flag. Gilbert’s striped flag was inspired by past rebellions, including the American and French Revolution. "I thought a gay nation should have a flag too, to proclaim its own idea of power," he said, according to the Gilbert Baker Foundation.
Today, the rainbow flag is a symbol of joy, pride and the persistence of the LGBTQ community in the face of discrimination and anti-LGBTQ legislation. Over the years, updates are an homage to the past and a gesture toward the future.
Here are two redesigned flags that add nuance and honor marginalized groups in the LGBTQ+ community.
What do the colors of the Progress Pride flag mean?
The Progress Pride flag is a reimagined take on the traditional pride flag, which has six colored stripes in the order of the rainbow. The progress pride flag includes black, brown, blue, pink and white in a chevron design on top of the rainbow colors.
The six rainbow colors altogether symbolize hope, but have individual meanings:
- Red: Life
- Orange: Healing
- Yellow: Sunlight
- Green: Nature
- Blue: Serenity
- Purple: Spirit
The black and brown colors represent marginalized communities. The blue, pink and white stripes represent Trans pride, with light blue and pink for the traditional baby colors for girls and boys and white for transitioning, intersex or gender-neutral identities.
The black stripe also represents those lost during the AIDS crisis as seen in the Victory Over AIDS flag. The red also has a double meaning in showing the search for a cure, according to the Progress Initiative.
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History of the Progress Pride flag
The Progress Pride flag was designed by queer, nonbinary artist Daniel Quasar in 2018. Quasar was inspired by the addition of the black and brown stripes to the Philadelphia pride flag in 2017 to emphasize “the current needs within our community.”
The LGBTQ rights movement has historically centered white gay men. While trans people and people of color played a pivotal role in the 1969 Stonewall Riots, they were largely excluded from early Pride celebrations. Even today, trans people – especially trans people of color – are among the most vulnerable in the LGBTQ+ community, facing income disparities, anti-trans legislation and discrimination. Eighty-four percent of the transgender and gender-expansive people killed in 2023 were people of color.
According to Quasar, the chevron shape of the stripes representing the trans and marginalized communities symbolizes an arrow moving forward, but it's positioned at the end of the flag to show more progress is needed.
“This new design forces the viewer to confront their own feelings towards the original pride flag and its meanings as well as the differing opinions on who that flag really represents,” Quasar wrote on their site.
What is the Philadelphia Pride flag?
The Philadelphia pride flag, introduced by Amber Hikes and the Philadelphia Office of LGBT Affairs in 2017, is an updated version of the traditional rainbow pride flag.
The Philly pride flag includes black and brown stripes at the top of the flag above the first red stripe and represents Black and Latino communities of Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.
Discrimination and racism within the LGBTQ community prompted the flag redesign, which was introduced as part of a citywide “More Color More Pride” campaign.
More pride flags explained
Pride flag | Lesbian flag | Transgender flag | Bisexual flag | Pansexual flag | Asexual flag | Intersex flag | Gender identity flags
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