this is original rainbow pride flag. as in the original-original, made in 1978 by gay artist Gilbert Baker. It had eight stripes, each symbolizing a quality that Baker attributed to the LGBT/gay experience. (in those times‘gay’ was far more of an umbrella term than it is today. ‘gay community’ could refer to gay men, lesbians, bi people, or trans people. q*eer identities were often less clearly defined and less separated from each other than they are now. lack of internet and lgbt-related literature and education also meant that many people simply did not know the “right” terms to describe themselves). An alternate version without the pink and purple, the one that most people know today, was created because pink and purple fabrics were expensive at the time. However today those colors are perfectly affordable, and in my opinion we should absolutely begin to bring back the original pink and purple stripes, out of respect to Gilbert Baker, who popularized an incredibly iconic lgbt symbol (the rainbow), and his eight color meanings: sex, life, healing, sunlight, nature, magic, and serenity.
this is the transgender pride flag. while technically transgender is included under the original rainbow flag (the rainbow flag is not the gay man flag. that is a misconception. it was created to be the LGBT community as a whole pride flag), some people wanted to create a smaller flag that specifically symbolized the T part of LGBT, to be used in more specifically trans-related situations. so in 1999, trans woman Monica Helms created this flag and it caught on quickly. the pink and blue symbolize a journey from female to male (and vice versa), and the white represents transitioning and also the people who fall in between the genders (nonbinary).
this is a goddamn atrocious disaster. aside from being a design nightmare (read: incredibly fucking ugly), it is very disrespectful to the creators of the two flags that have been cut up and butchered into whatever this is. the symbolism of Monica Helms’ iconic blue-pink-white-pink-blue pattern is totally lost when you chop it in half and awkwardly bend it over. the rainbow portion doesn’t even include the pink and purple colors.
the people trying to push this flag claim that they added the black and brown stripes “include” LGBT people of color, and added the trans flag to “include” trans people. I don’t deny they had good intentions. Inclusion is great. But why did they see poc and trans people as not already included in the LGBT communtiy? Are LGBT poc …not LGBT by themselves somehow? and they need a special mention to pull them back in? Should we have LGBTB: lesbian, gay, bi, trans, and black? Japaneseness or blackness or being of any other race does not disqualify you from being LGBT, nor is blackness/etc inherently LGBT in itself. Therefore it makes no sense to put it on a pride flag made for lgbt people.
In the same way, trans people are already included in the rainbow flag. Again, it was never the gay man flag. It is the LGBT community flag. The T is for transgender. It’s a massive butchery of both flags and their intended meanings.
Think about what those black and brown and trans-colored stripes add to Gilbert Baker’s symbolism. You have pink, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple… and also white, light pink, light blue, black, and brown? Your flag now symbolizes sex, life, healing, sunlight, nature, magic, serenity… and transgender and POC? I find this strange and very divisive. Are LGBT POC not as magical as LGBT white people, in and of themselves? Are trans people not as spirited or natural as cisgay/bi people? Why should there be a need to specify that they’re included, then? To say: “this flag is for magical, healed, natural, spirited, serene people… oh yeah, and also trans and PoC too.” It just heavily implies that you think they are not as good or as q*eer as cis white LGB people to me, whether you intended it that way or not.
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