People have started making fun of the flag by saying that it looks ‘’like toothpaste’’. this isnt an actual reason to discourage use of this flag. I disagree, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I’m going to go through some reasons that some people have for not only not using this flag, but discouraging its use by other people. why? because enough people wanted something more specific. Lesbians and gay men started using the internet to figure out specific identity flags. So, for a while, gay men and lesbians didn’t have popular, widely used flags for our specific identities as gay men and lesbians, though more flags started to be popularised for specific identities, such as bisexual, transgender and asexual while previous lesbian and gay male flags hadn’t achieved widespread use. Because of the centring of (cis, white, rich) gay men in general, due to our world’s generally patriarchal modern structure, society’s image of the LGBT+ community, the rainbow flag from 1978 and its new 6 stripe form has often been mistakenly attributed to gay men in particular, despite the rainbow flag being a deliberately inclusive flag that includes all LGBT+ people. The rainbow flag has always been the most popular flag for gay men to signify gay-ness and still is, even though this flag is gaining some popularity. The Reason a Flag is Needed In The First Place This updated flag is inclusive of a much wide range of gay men, including but not limited to transgender, intersex, and gender nonconforming men. That version was problematic because it used colors that were stereotypical of the gender binary.
This modern gay men’s pride flag is a revamp of an earlier gay men’s pride flag that featured a range of blue tones. This updated flag is inclusive of a much wide ranger of gay men, including but not limited to transgender, intersex, and gender nonconforming men. It features different shades of green, blue and purple. While the gay men’s pride flag is another lesser known pride flag. Blue to purple colours represent pure love, fortitude, and diversity.White represents gender nonconforming, non-binary, and transgender folks.Turquoise to green colours represent community, healing, and joy.However, those claims have since been debunked, and the flag became increasingly accepted within the community. This 5-coloured (and sometimes 7-coloured) gay men pride flag was designed in 2019 by Tumblr user but it wasn’t without controversy.Īccusations that the creator of the flag is transphobic, and that the design was stolen from the sunset lesbian flag, were rampant. Over time, demand grew for a flag that specifically represents gay men. The (cis, white) gay man has always been at the centre of pride movements, but as people opened their minds to include all LGBTQ+ identities in the movement, the rainbow flag increasingly solidified its position as one that represents the entire LGBTQ+ community.