Pride Flags Explained

The flag was originally created for San Francisco's annual pride parade, and had eight colors, each with their own meanings. As the years went on, the colors pink and turquoise were removed, citing difficulties in producing flags with these colors. This simplification paved the way to the six-stripe Rainbow flag we know and love today. The red represents life. The orange represents healing. The yellow represents sunlight. The green represents nature. The blue represents harmony and peace. The violet represents spirit.

This flag is commonly referred to as the "Sunset" Lesbian flag to distinguish itself from an older design that is no longer used. The colors are based on the sunset — dark orange represents gender non-conformity; orange represents independence; light orange represents community; white represents unique relationships to womanhood; pink represents serenity and peace; dusty pink represents love and sex; dark rose represents femininity.

The flag was created in response to a lack of visibility for bisexual people in the community, first unveiled at BiCafe in December 1998. The colors do not refer to specific genders. The magenta represents same-gender attraction, the blue represents opposite-gender attraction, and the deep lavender represents the in-between — the attraction to more than one gender.

The pink represents attraction to women. The blue represents attraction to men. The yellow represents attraction to anyone not falling within the gender binary.

A black-to-white gradient was the historic color representing the asexual spectrum, with black denoting asexuality, grey denoting demisexuality and gray-sexuality, and white denoting sexuality. Purple used to border older symbols to represent "community" — it is now the last color in the flag and still represents the asexual community.

The light blue represents the traditional Western color for boys, and the light pink represents the traditional Western color for girls. The white in the center represents all those who are in the process of transitioning, see themselves as having a neutral, undefined, or non-binary gender, or are intersex.

The yellow represents those falling outside of, or otherwise defining themselves without any reference to, the gender binary. The white represents a multiplicity of genders. The purple represents gender identities that lie between man and woman. The black represents an absence of gender.

The pink represents femininity. The white represents a lack of gender. The purple represents androgyny. The black represents the non-binary spectrum of identities. The blue represents masculinity.

The black and white stripes represent a lack of gender. The grey stripes represent being semi-genderless. The green stripe represents non-binary genders.

This flag — green to white to black — is the second redesign of the aromantic flag. The dark green represents a lack of romance. The light green represents aromanticism as a spectrum. The white represents platonic, aesthetic, and queerplatonic relationships. The gray represents demiromantic people. The black represents the sexuality spectrum.

The colors of the intersex flag were carefully chosen to prevent any allusion to gender — the yellow and purple colors are genderless. The circle represents wholeness and completeness, as a symbol of celebration and a voice to protest the way contemporary medical systems have treated intersex individuals.

This flag features black and white horizontal stripes representing the straight/cisgender community, with a large rainbow-colored "A" in the center standing for "Ally" — symbolizing people who actively support the LGBTQ+ community.