What Is The Lesbian Pride Flag, And What Does It Stand For?

Cecilia Miller( LGBTQ+ Rights Advocate And Activist )

Cecilia Miller is a lesbian love warrior and educator fighting for queer justice and ensuring every shade of the rainbow shines bright & bold!

While most of us are aware of the iconic rainbow flag, there are many more LGBTQ pride flags that symbolize the diverse sex, sexuality, attraction, and gender identities within our beautiful queer community.

Even while most LGBT people continue to identify with the LGBT rainbow flag, many also want to fly their own flag alongside it.

You can imagine like the rainbow flag is like the national flag: everybody’s underneath that. But each group, like each state, has their own individual flag. Because, you know, representation is fundamental!

The Lesbian Pride Flag is one such flag, which you may have seen flying at any number of pride celebrations throughout the world, from Fort Lauderdale to Sitges to Singapore…or anywhere in between!

A lesbian is someone who experiences sexual or romantic attraction to other women or between women. The term normally applies to women; however, some nonbinary people also identify with this term.

The original Labrys lesbian flag was created in 1999, but it bears no resemblance to the current flag iterations. The first ‘modern’ lesbian flag was designed in 2010 – the lipstick lesbian flag, which had six shades of pink and red stripes, one white one in the middle, and a red kiss printed on them.

This flag was then changed by removing the kiss and attracted more use as a general lesbian pride flag. However, even this pink lesbian flag has been accused of not representing lesbians who do not align with femininity and is even viewed as offensive by some.

As a result, in 2018, a different ‘orange-pink’ lesbian pride flag was proposed as the new “lesbian flag for everyone” by Tumblr blogger Emily Gwen. The new flag has different colors which are said to stand for (in order of top to bottom):

• Gender non-conformity.
• Independence.
• Community.
• Relationships unique to womanhood.
• Peace and serenity.
• Love and sex.
• Femininity.

Today there is no specific lesbian pride flag in use, and much like gay men, many lesbians prefer simply to use the rainbow flag, which is representative of the queer community at large.