Agender is a term which can be literally translated as without gender. A person who is agender sees themselves as neither man nor woman, has no gender identity, or no gender to express. They feel no connection to the concept of gender.
The agender pride flag, created by Salem X in 2014, has seven horizontal stripes. The black and white stripes represent an absence of gender, the grey represents partial genderless-ness, and the central green stripe represents non-binary genders.
An ally simply refers to a person who does not identify as LGBTQ but stands with and advocates for LGBTQ people and their rights.
The Straight Ally flag does not represent a queer identity. It is for the cisgender and heterosexual allies who stand behind queer and trans rights.
The flag uses the black-white “colors” of the heterosexual flag as a field, it adds a large rainbow colored “A” (for “Ally”) to indicate straight support for the Gay Pride/Equal Marriage movement.
A straight ally or heterosexual ally is a heterosexual and/or cisgender person who supports equal civil rights, gender equality, LGBTQIA+ social movements, and challenges homophobia, biphobia and transphobia. A straight ally believes that queer and trans people face discrimination and thus are socially and economically disadvantaged.
The adjective, Androgynous, dates from the early 17th century and is derived from the older French and English term androgyne. Androgyny is the possession of both masculine and feminine characteristics in humans. People of any gender and sexual orientation can be androgynous. Although many non-binary and gender fluid people take on androgynous gender presentations, so do cisgender and transgender binary individuals. There is no inherent association between gender identity and androgyny. Androgyny can be about identity, but it can also be about fashion and style.
Aromantic is a romantic orientation. It refers to people experience little or no romantic attraction to others. They may or may not feel sexual attraction. Aromantic is a spectrum, and contains other identities like demiromantic, greyromantic, aroflux etc.
An aromantic person can fall into one of two groups: aromantic allosexual (those who experience sexual attraction) people or aromantic asexual (those who don’t) people.
An asexual person feels little to no sexual attraction towards others. However, asexual people may feel romantic, emotional or aesthetic attraction towards others.
The colours of the asexual flag try to represent the spectrum of asexual experiences. Black stripe represents asexuality. Grey stripe represents grey-asexuality and demi-sexuality. The white stripe stands for sexuality, signifying the broader LGBTQI+ community and allies. And the purple stripe represents community and solidarity.
The sex that is assigned to an infant at birth based on the child’s visible sex organs, including genitalia and other physical characteristics. The concept of assigned sex often corresponds with a child’s assigned gender and assumed gender.
Before its use in the LGBQT community, bigender was an early 20th-century biological term for plants that possess both male and female reproductive parts. The term evolved to refer to something suitable for both male and female genders, e.g., bigender college dorms, implying men and women were allotted accomodation on the same floor.
Bigender was applied to gender identity as early as the 1970s. That said, the concept of bigender long predates the term, as exemplified by the Native American concept of Two Spirits– a person embodying both male and female identities. Individuals who identify as bigender tend not to be considered gender-fluid, which is a nonbinary identity where a person can experience a non-fixed range of gender identities.
Some individuals may experience three gender identities and identify as trigender. Bigender does not always mean a mix of male and female, it can be male and gender fluid or agender and genderqueer etc.
Bisexual refers to a person who is sexually attracted to two or more genders. It is not necessary that a person with bisexual identity has equal attraction towards the genders, the attraction felt towards different genders may vary person to person.
Interestingly, the word “bisexual” was first used by the German psychologist Richard Von Krafft-Ebing while referring to the gender of persons whom he believed have both masculine and feminine behaviour. However, the meaning of the term has evolved to mean a sexual orientation.
The bisexual flag is a pride flag representing the bisexual community. The first bisexual pride flag was unveiled at BiCafe’s first anniversary party in 1998. It was designed by artist Liz Nani.
The design began with the pink triangle, a Nazi concentration camp badge that later became a symbol of gay liberation. The blue contrasts the pink and depicts the gender binary. The two colours overlap and form lavender, which symbolizes, “the queerness of bisexuality”.
In lesbian culture, the word ‘butch’ indicates a woman whose gender expression and traits present as typically ‘masculine’. Being butch is about playing with and questioning traditional binary male and female gender roles and expressions.
People have speculated that the Butch Lesbian Pride Flag has shades of Blues and Purples to denote masculinity and women and women-identified folks respectively with white indicating people across the gender and sexuality spectrums.
Someone whose gender identity matches the sex they were assigned at birth. For instance, a child assigned male at birth, who then grows up to identify as a man is called a cisgender man. In our society, the belief that all persons fall under the cisgender binary of man and woman is still largely believed and enforced.
The term demisexual was coined in 2006 on the forums of The Asexual Visibility and Education Network (AVEN) by user “sonofzeal”, and started to gain widespread popularity in 2008.
Demi Sexual is used to describe someone who feels sexual attraction only to people with whom they have an emotional bond often considered to be on the asexual spectrum. A person who is demisexual will feel sexual attraction and desire to engage in sexual activities far more rarely than the general population.
It is unknown how or when the demisexual flag came to be, but it is very similar to the asexual flag in its use of colors, which itself was based off the AVEN logo. The flag continues to gain popularity as the asexual community continues to become more visible.
Gender dysphoria is experienced as significant psychological distress that arises when a person’s internal sense of self, their gender identity, does not match the sex they were assigned at birth. This mismatch can lead to considerable discomfort and anguish for the individual.
Genderqueer is a broad umbrella term for expansive and non-conforming gender identities. It refers to people whose gender identity does not fit within the male/female binary.
The flag was created in June 2011 by Marilyn Roxie in order to create visibility for the genderqueer community and related identities. The flag was originally intended to represent all non-binary and genderqueer people, but as the genderqueer community grew the flag became synonymous with “genderqueer” specifically, leaving many non-binary people to not feel represented by the flag. A non-binary flag was created in February 2014 by Kye Rowan to represent non-binary people specifically.
Flag Meaning:
Lavender: Mixture of “blue” and “pink”. Represents androgyny, and people who identify as a mixture of female and male,
White: Represents agender people,
Dark Chartreuse Green: The inverse of lavender. Represents people who identify outside of and without reference to the gender binary.
The original Pride Flag, often referred to as the Gilbert Baker Pride Flag, was designed by artist Gilbert Baker in 1978. Baker, an openly gay man and drag queen, created the flag at the request of Harvey Milk, a San Francisco city supervisor, for San Francisco’s Gay Freedom Day Parade. The original flag featured eight stripes, each with a specific symbolic meaning: hot pink for sex, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sunlight, green for nature, turquoise for magic/art, indigo for serenity, and violet for spirit.
While the original eight-stripe design was later reduced to six stripes (removing hot pink and turquoise due to production issues and then indigo for better visibility), the Gilbert Baker Pride Flag remains a powerful and enduring symbol of LGBTQ+ pride and rights. It represents the diversity of the LGBTQ+ community and serves as a global emblem for visibility, solidarity, and the ongoing fight for equality.
“What I liked about the rainbow
is that it fits all of us.
It’s all the colors.
It represents all the genders.
It represents all the races.
It’s the rainbow of humanity.”
Someone who occasionally experiences sexual attraction but usually does not; it covers a kind of gray space between asexuality and Allosexuality (refers to the experience of feeling sexual attraction towards others). Their level of sexual attraction could fall anywhere from “not normally, but sometimes,” to “enjoys sex only under very specific circumstances”.
Intersex is not a gender orientation. It is a sex variation. Intersex persons are those who are born with sexual characteristics that do not align under male or female aspects.
The intersex flag is a way for the community to unite and unify under a symbol devoid of gender stereotypes. Yellow has long been seen as an intersex color or to represent those who do not conform to the binary. The circle is said to be “unbroken and unornamented, symbolizing wholeness and completeness, and our (intersex) potentialities”. In 2013 Morgan Carpenter of Intersex Human Rights Australia created the flag and gave it it’s meaning.
Non-binary is an umbrella term. It refers to people whose gender identity falls beyond the gender binary of male or female.
Kye Rowan created the nonbinary pride flag, which has yellow, white, purple, and black horizontal stripes, in 2014. The yellow stripe represents people whose gender exists outside of the binary, the white stripe, people with many or all genders, the purple, people with genders considered a mix of male and female, and the black for people who identify as not having a gender.
It refers to someone who can feel romantic or sexual attraction to any or all genders.
The pansexual flag consists of three equally sized horizontal bars, magenta, yellow, and cyan respectively. It is designed as a symbol for the #pansexual community to expand its visibility and recognition and differentiate itself from bisexuality.
The Progress Pride Flag, created by Daniel Quasar in 2018, builds upon the traditional rainbow flag by incorporating additional elements to represent greater inclusivity. It adds black and brown stripes (representing LGBTQ+ people of color) and the trans pride flag colors (pale blue, pale pink, and white), which acknowledge and honor transgender, non-binary, and those living with HIV/AIDS. These distinct stripes are arranged into an arrow pointing to the right, symbolizing forward momentum and progress within the LGBTQ+ community.
Further evolving the design, Valentino Vecchietti introduced the intersex flag into the Progress Pride Flag in 2021. This addition features a yellow background with a purple ring within the arrow’s shape, specifically aiming to enhance the visibility and inclusion of intersex individuals within the broader LGBTQ+ movement. This latest iteration underscores a continued commitment to representing the diversity of experiences within the community.
Transgender refers to persons whose gender does not align with the sex they were assigned at birth. For instance, a child who was assigned female at birth grows up to identify as a man, is a trans man.
The Trans Pride flag has three colours light Blue, Pink and white, designed by American trans woman Monica Helms in 1999 to represent the transgender community, organizations, and individuals.
The light Blue and Pink represent the traditional normative roles for boys and girls, respectively; whereas the white represents fluidity, transitioning, intersex and gender-expansive identities.
