Why Not A HeteroSexual Straight Pride Month Parade Marching Oppressed Majority

Because never in the history of this planet have heterosexuals been treated as shameful third-class citizens, shunned and rejected by hateful society and family members, been discriminated against for being heterosexual, or faced assault, attack, violence, and even murder for being heterosexual. Because heterosexuality is the norm. Pride month is a celebration. We celebrate being able to love who we want without being brutally murdered. We celebrate being allowed to marry our soulmate. We celebrate how brave we are. Straight people don’t face these issues. They aren’t “brave”. They are the default.

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Do straight people have to hide that they are straight? Do straight people get kicked out of places for being straight? Do straight people get fired from their job for being straight? Do straight people get attacked/killed for being straight? Do straight people get told they are horrible for being straight? Do straight people get told they being straight is a phase? Do straight people get told being straight is a sin? Do straight people get told being straight is not normal? Do straight people have family that hate them for being straight? So ask that again, I dare you.

I’m heterosexual. I don’t need pride month. Now please stop embarrassing me with this clingy sh*t. All you ever see on tv, in magazines, every where basically- is straight couples. Straight couples don’t have their marriages questioned. Straight couples are allowed to adopt. Straight people who ask this question are just ignorant bigots who need to do better.

Because Democrats and other suck at making slogans. Totally suck.

“Defund the police”? Crap slogan. While I realize that “reduce the workload on the police so they can focus on policing” doesn’t fit on a bumper sticker, there were better options. Even “reform the police”, while still negative, is better. “Rethink Policing” is too vague, but better.

“White Privilege”? Another crap phrase. It makes it sound like White people are getting something they shouldn’t be getting, which isn’t the case. Again, “Whites don’t need to put up with crap that Black people do, and we want to stop the crap” doesn’t quite fit on the back of a Prius. “Oppression” is too strong, “microaggression” is to DEI-ish, and “structural inequality”, while perhaps most accurate, is too WTF. “Pride” is the same. It’s not saying “you should feel pride above other groups”. It’s saying “raise your pride to equal other groups”.

And there’s, finally, the answer to your question.

There’s no need for Heterosexual Pride because heterosexuals are not being treated as inferior, so we don’t need to raise our pride to equal other groups.

Heterosexuals haven’t been told to be ashamed of their sexuality. Eventually, I think, Pride will be about celebrating *all* genders and all sexualities (so long as they stick to consenting adults), including cishet, on a level footing, and then we’ll add a vanilla stripe to the flag; but that will only happen when all genders and all sexualities (so long as they stick to consenting adults) are equally accepted, and we’ve a fair way to go before that happens.

Straight people feel they need a straight pride simply because they don’t understand gay pride. They don’t understand what it’s like to “come out” - straight people never have to come out. They never have to tell themselves that they’re not straight. They never sleep with people they don’t want to sleep with just to prove to themselves they aren’t straight. They never deny themselves opportunities because they aren’t ready to come out. They never try and fail a million times to tell loved ones that they are straight. They don’t deal with discrimination and incrimination because they are straight. There are no religions telling them they are going to hell because they are straight.

To have pride in something is to indulge in something. Straight people have always been completely indulged in who they are. It’s no secret that in our society gay people are treated poorly and unfairly. To give them pride, is all we can hope for if we hope for progression. I want my kids to grow up in a world where, if they happen to be LGBTQ+, they grow up with the pride that straight people get the luxury of having their whole lives.

The distraction of Straight Pride, as explained by LGBTQ activists and historians
What is an event that promotes the “inclusion of straights”?

Boston’s Straight Pride was only a matter of time. Every year when Black History Month rolls around, a certain segment of the American public asks themselves, “Yes, but what about all the good things white people have done?” Last year, a report from Public Policy Polling found that 35 to 37 percent of Trump supporters feel the United States should have a dedicated month to celebrate the history and contributions of Caucasians.

The same is true for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month in May, National Hispanic-Latino Heritage Month in September, and National American Indian Heritage Month in November. There’s always someone in a non-marginalized community who wonders, “Where’s my trophy?”

So, with the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots happening this year, it was inevitable that straight people would decide they wanted in on the action. In June, a group calling itself Super Happy Fun America announced it was planning a Straight Pride Parade in Boston. The group says they requested the same route as the Boston Pride Parade, which marched from Copley Square to Government Square on June 8.

Straight Pride co-organizer John Hugo told Vox in an email, “Perhaps one day straights will be honored with inclusion and the acronym will be LGBTQS. Until that time, we have no other choice but to host our own events.”

Last week, the city of Boston approved the permit application for the parade, which will be held on August 31 and feature alt-right figure Milo Yiannopoulos as its grand marshal. Yiannopoulos, who is gay, claimed in a statement announcing his participation that he has “spent [his] entire career advocating for the rights of America’s most brutally repressed identity: straight people.”

While news of the event inspired the expected maelstrom of outrage — including condemnations from Avengers star Chris Evans and even the band Smash Mouth — its existence has largely been met with confusion. Many wondered: What the heck is a Straight Pride Parade, anyway? Who will participate? Will there be floats? Or is it just a Chick-fil-A drive-thru?

Vox spoke with LGBTQ organizers and historians across the US to get to the bottom of the Straight Pride Parade: What is it and why is it happening in 2019?

Straight Pride Parade organizers are connected to the alt-right
In an era that has given rise to the alt-right and where the president employs anti-LGBTQ lobbyists, perhaps the least surprising element of Boston’s Straight Pride is that its organizers have been linked to far-right white supremacist groups.

As ThinkProgress was the first to report, Mark Sahady — one of three men credited with organizing the event — has ties to the New Hampshire American Guard and the Massachusetts Patriot Front, both of which the American Defamation League defines as a white supremacist groups. He also has connections to the Proud Boys, the group that was responsible for violently beating a man who stole one of their MAGA hats on the streets of New York City in October 2018. The mob called him a “faggot,” threw him to the ground, and kicked him repeatedly.

Sahady’s co-organizer, Hugo, was backed by the “alt-lite” group Resist Marxism during his unsuccessful run for Massachusetts’ Fifth Congressional District last year.

According to activist Terry Roethlein, a lead organizer of New York City’s Queer Liberation March, the Straight Pride Parade is essentially a funhouse mirror version of an event planned at the Center, the city’s LGBTQ community space, in May. LGBTQ figures in the alt-right movement were scheduled to have a discussion on why LGBTQ people should #WalkAway from the Democratic Party, a hashtag created by the panel’s moderator, Brandon Straka.

If that event, which was eventually cancelled by the Center following backlash, intended to use LGBTQ issues as a cover for far-right ideology, the Straight Pride Parade does the opposite: exploiting anti-LGBTQ sentiment to drum up support for their agenda.

“They’re grasping at straws,” Roethlein says. “They’re using any available platform to create waves because either way they’re going to get some people that agree with them or will nod in agreement. It’s totally out of the Donald Trump playbook — someone who rules by the dark side of Twitter. It’s just anything that will generate some electricity, some sparks, and some negativity.”

More broadly, longtime LGBTQ activist Yasmin Nair tells Vox the Straight Pride Parade is just an excuse for hate groups to march after the backlash to the Unite the Right rally and the death of Heather Heyer at Charlottesville, Virginia, two years ago. “Straight Pride is a weird form of nationalist masculinity burying itself under rainbow-colored blankets,” Nair said.

The alt-right is attempting to capitalize on a culture of division under Trump
In June, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh said he “cannot deny a permit based on an organization’s values” but that the city’s “values won’t change” because of an event that he had no plans on attending. Following their announcement, organizers didn’t immediately confirm a date for the parade, and some speculated that Straight Pride would not take place. However, on Thursday, organizers announced the city had approved its event permit for August 31. Hugo affirmed that “people from all communities are welcome,” adding that Super Happy Fun America doesn’t “hate anyone.”

“We want people to be aware that there is not only one side of things,” he previously told Boston’s TBZ-TV. “There’s a lot of people that are uncomfortable with a lot of things that are going on in our country and they’re afraid to speak up.”

The both sides-ism Hugo espouses is destructive to queer and trans people at a time when bigotry and anti-LGBTQ hate have become normalized under the current presidency. Just in the past few weeks, the Trump administration has proposed policies that would allow homeless shelters to refuse to house transgender women and medical centers to deny potentially life-saving care to trans people, as long as they cite a religious reason for turning them away.

These near-daily attacks on the rights and protections of LGBTQ Americans has trickled down. A recent survey from the national media watchdog group GLAAD and the Harris Poll showed that straight millennials are less likely to be comfortable with having an LGBTQ family member or an LGBTQ doctor than they were in recent years.

Monica Helms, creator of the Trans Pride flag, says the continued challenges of being LGBTQ even in a time of relative acceptance are why queer and transgender people celebrate Pride to begin with. The act of self-love is a protection, she says, against the daily trauma of being authentically yourself in a society where you are more likely to be evicted from your home, fired from your job, denied access to health care, targeted in a hate crime, or killed in the street because of who you are.

“No matter where we go, where we are, what we do, we could be in danger simply because of who we are,” Helms tells Vox. “We have to fight for our survival. These straight people don’t have to do that.”

Although Super Happy Fun America has claimed that “all communities are welcome” at Straight Pride, the event is only likely to further a culture of exclusion that harms marginalized LGBTQ people already facing oppression. While LGBTQ Pride events foster an inclusive ethos of bringing everyone together under the queer umbrella, Straight Pride is about the celebration of some identities at the expense of others.

Straight Pride is about creating distraction. It’s outrage for outrage’s sake.
Hugo told Vox over email, “We are offended that some have chosen to frame our parade in contrast to LGBTQ pride parade [sic].” However, many see Straight Pride as just trolling the LGBTQ community.

While the event’s page says it hopes to “achieve inclusivity and spread awareness of issues impacting straights in Greater Boston and beyond,” it is flipping terms like “inclusion” and “diversity” on their heads to generate controversy and, thus, free publicity. Its stated mission to celebrate the “diverse history, culture, and contributions of the straight community” is intended to do nothing more than cause internet outrage.

Brian Pendleton, co-founder of the L.A. Resist March, argues getting into “a frothy frenzy about what they’re up to” only plays into their hands.

“LGBTQ Pride Parades and Pride Month are meant to celebrate us and elevate us,” he tells Vox, “whereas I feel like Straight Pride is meant to divide us. It’s just a dog whistle. The best way to respond to that movement — which it’s laughable that it might even be a movement — is to not give it any attention.”

The Facebook page for Super Happy Fun America backs up Pendleton’s argument that the event is merely a rage-click Trojan horse. After a scheduled livestream with Milo Yiannopoulos, the parade’s grand marshal, on June 10 turned out to be a disaster, its social media presence has primarily consisted of mocking liberal outrage about the event. A popular meme featuring a warped Spongebob Squarepants doubled over says, “Leftist when they hear about Straight Pride.”

Super Happy Fun America needs to fan the flames of liberal discontent with Straight Pride because the event is unlikely to be successful otherwise.

In July 2017, blogger Anthony Rebello invited more than 2,000 people to a “Heterosexual Parade” planned in Capitol Hill, Seattle’s historic LGBTQ district. On the day of the event, he was the only person who showed up. As the LGBTQ news site Seattle Gay Scene reported at the time, Rebello marched down the street with black and white balloons and a homemade cardboard sign reading: “Straight Pride.”

It’s a telling indication of the Straight Pride Parade’s likely fortunes that Yiannopoulos has been the only major figure willing to associate himself with the festivities, while Brad Pitt ordered organizers to stop using his likeness under threat of a lawsuit. Two years ago, the alt-right persona would have been a major get. He was popular enough in February 2017 that a cancelled speech at UC Berkeley led to a violent clash with police and $100,000 in property damage.

But Yiannopoulos has fallen on hard times. Shortly following the Berkeley riots, he resigned from Breitbart after old comments resurfaced in which he defended pedophilia. His book, Dangerous, sold around 18,000 copies and he’s reportedly $4 million in debt.

Straight Pride twists why LGBTQ people fight for equality
Although the thinking behind it perhaps isn’t very deep, Straight Pride serves to distort the meaning and history of LGBTQ Pride Month, as well as its relevance to the ongoing struggles of queer and trans people for equality.

A now-common refrain during Pride Month is that the very first LGBTQ Pride was not a party, it was a protest. The inaugural event was held in June 1970 to mark the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall riots, a clash between police and patrons of the Stonewall Inn after a series of raids on the West Village gay bar. Because it was illegal to be LGBTQ in most states across the US in the 1960s, being queer or trans was treated as a status crime; bars were frequently targeted by cops, who beat and arrested patrons.

One year after Stonewall, a group of activists in New York City honored the Stonewall riots by marching from the West Village to Central Park, where they gathered for what organizers termed a “gay-in.” It was a space where Roethlein says LGBTQ people could be themselves without police inference.

“People could hang out, lie on blankets, have picnics, and just get to know one another in an unpoliced environment, to just be queer or trans or whatever you are and enjoy the day,” Roethlein tells Vox.

That’s not exactly the image many Americans have of Pride parades today, which are complete with Chase Bank and Chipotle floats. According to Nair, LGBTQ Pride events began to pivot away from their radical origins in the 1990s, which is when she claims that “corporations began to realize that the LGBTQ community was also a consumer community.”

But as New York City’s Queer Liberation March protests the increasing corporatization of Pride, many events have carved out their own space in recent years. The Los Angeles Resist March, held in 2017, protested rollbacks of LGBTQ rights under President Trump. The “Walk a Million Faces” march in Jackson, Mississippi, is akin to a giant job fair, one featuring locals who have started their own businesses or community groups.

So while Pride Month might seem like a very mainstream celebration today, it still recognizes that many of the struggles Stonewall protesters faced 50 years ago are the same issues LGBTQ people deal with currently. For example, on June 29, marchers in Montgomery, Alabama, walked right up to the steps of the state capitol building following a particularly difficult few months for the community. In May, lawmakers passed a bill to abolish all marriage certificates rather than issue same-sex marriage licenses, and Alabama Public Television declined to air an episode of the children’s show Arthur because it featured a “gay rat wedding.”

“Montgomery was the site of the first murder of the year of a trans woman of color, Dana Martin,” Jose Vazquez, president of Montgomery Pride United, tells Vox. “We remember all these people that are still victims to a system that ignores the lives of people of color, trans people of color, and queer people of color.”

What distinguishes the genesis of LGBTQ Pride from this year’s Straight Pride event is that heterosexuals — as a group — have never faced targeted police violence or systemic discrimination on the basis of their identities as straight people. Today, LGBTQ people can be fired from their jobs or denied housing in 29 states because of who they are or who they love. A dozen states still have sodomy laws on the books, even after the 2003 US Supreme Court ruling decriminalizing homosexuality.

In contrast, no state in the US has a law punishing consensual intercourse between two heterosexual adults (who aren’t related to each other, at least).

There are many ways to counterprotest Straight Pride — like living authentically queer
While anyone is free to get angry or march in the streets over Straight Pride, Bigham says she would like to see that same energy directed back toward the LGBTQ community itself. According to Bigham, many of the young people — and even some of the older folks — that she interacts with at Trans Pride LA haven’t heard of Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, two trans activists who boldly put their lives on the line to fight for LGBTQ equality.

A recent Bospar poll attests to this lack of awareness. According to the marketing research firm Propeller Insights, only 15 percent of Americans are aware of Stonewall’s role in kickstarting the modern LGBTQ rights movement.

“That makes me sad because what makes me proud of my community is the fact that we’ve always been there,” she tells Vox. “There’s been times when we’ve been kicked and we’ve been beaten. And people like Sylvia, they got up and they screamed and they yelled and they fought. That’s what’s beautiful to me — we cannot be held down.”

LGBTQ+ Pride Flags and What They Stand For
2022-12-12
June is #Pridemonth. This is the most colorful month of the year since the LGBTQ+ pride is celebrated. The RAINBOW flag is used widely but it is not the only flag that people in the community connect with. Did you know that there are more than 20 different Pride Flags? Ambassadors of Volvo Group’s internal LGBTQ+ network called V-EAGLE tell us what they stand for.

Volvo Group thrives to leave society in a better shape for the next generations. This applies to our transport solutions and also to the way we work with people, employees and partners alike. With equal job opportunities and LGBTQ+ inclusive workplace, we seek to create an environment where you can bring your true unique self to work every day.

Join our teams - explore available job openings
Everyone has their personal story and reason for using a pride flag. For some it gives a feeling of belonging, for others it might be a way of coming out, and for others it is a way to show their support for the LGBTQ+ community. It all started in 1977…

15 Pride Flags and what they mean?

Gilbert Baker Pride Flag
Gilbert Pride Flag , the flag that started it all…
It was created in 1977 by Gilbert Baker, an artist, activist, and openly gay military veteran. Tasked by Harvey Milk, a historic figure in the fight for LGBTQ rights, to create a flag for the queer community, Baker created a rainbow flag with eight different colors.
Inspired by the classic song "Over the Rainbow" from the 1939 film The Wizard from Oz, Baker created a rainbow flag to represent LGBTQ folks. Each color in the flag also had a specific meaning.

Hot Pink symbolizes sex
Red equals life
Orange symbolizes healing
Yellow stands for sunlight
Green represents nature|
Turquoise equals magic & art
Indigo stands for serenity
Violet represents the spirit of LGBTQ people

8-Color Pride Flag - 6-Color Pride Flag
The 6-Color Pride Flag is one of the most well-known and used LGBT flags throughout history. This flag includes the colors red, orange, yellow, green, indigo, and violet on it.
Hot pink wasn´t included in the fabrication of these flags, because the fabric was hard to find. As the demand for the flag started to rise after the assassination of gay San Francisco City Supervisor Harvey Milk on November 27, 1978.
In 1979, the flag was modified again. Aiming to decorate the streetlamps along the parade route with hundreds of rainbow banners, Gilbert Baker decided to split the motif in two with an even number of stripes flanking each lamp pole. To achieve this effect, he dropped the turquoise stripe that had been used in the seven-stripe flag. The result was the six-stripe version of the flag that would become the standard for future production.

Philadelphia Pride Flag
The Philadelphia Pride Flag came out in response to the demand of more inclusivity across the LGBTQ+ community. The flag launches in 2017 as part of the "More Color More Pride" Campaign in Philadelphia and was designed by a small Philly-based PR agency.

The addition of black and brown stripes to the traditional pride flag symbolized people of color, who historically were not always included in aspects of the mainstream gay rights movement.

Lena Waithe, an American actress, wore the Philadelphia Pride Flag as a cape at the 2018 Met Gala. She is a powerful advocate for black people within the entertainment industry and this flag spiked in popularity after she elevated its visibility.

Transgender Flag
The Transgender Flag was first created in 1999 by Monica Helms, a transgender woman. Light blue and pink are featured because they’re the traditional colors associated with baby boys and girls, respectively. The white stands for those who are intersex, transitioning or those who don´t feel identified with any gender.
Transgender people have a gender identity or gender expression that differs from the sex that they were assigned at birth. According to Amnesty International, 1.5 million transgender people live in the European Union, making up 0.3% of the population. And more than 1.4 million trans adults living in the U.S., which is about 0,5% of the population.
Violence against the queer community affects trans people of color the most. Therefore, the Transgender Flag is so important! The trans community needs representation and resources to be visible without fear.

New Progress Pride Flag
Given the evolving nature of the LGBTQ+ community and society at large, the Progress Pride Flag integrates many of these flags into one. Thankfully, it has been redesigned to place a greater emphasis on “inclusion and progression.” Our community is such a huge umbrella of different kind of people and that is what makes us so special, that is what makes us so unique and that is what makes us so powerful.
The modern pride flag now includes stripes to represent the experiences of people of color, as well as stripes to represent people who identify as transgender, gender nonconforming (GNC) and/or undefined.
Daniel Quasar’s flag includes the colors of the trans flag, as well as black and brown stripes harkening back to 2017 Philadelphia Pride Flag, which sought to further represent the queer and trans identities of black and brown people. Those two stripes also represent those living with HIV/AIDS, people who have passed from the virus and the overall stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS that remains today.

In 2021, the Progress Pride Flag was revised by Valentino Vecchietti of Intersex Equality Rights UK to incorporate the intersex flag. In the new design, the chevron of the Progress Flag includes a yellow triangle with a purple circle in the middle.

Nonbinary Pride Flag
In 2014, Kye Rowan created the Nonbinary Pride Flag to represent people whose gender identity does not fit within the traditional male/female binary. The colors of the nonbinary flag are yellow, white, purple, and black. The colors each symbolize a different subgroup of people who identify as nonbinary.
Yellow signifies something on its own or people who identify outside of the cisgender binary of male or female. A cisgender person would be a person whose gender identity matches their sex assigned at birth. White, a color that consists of all colors mixed, stands for multi-gendered people. Purple, like the lavender color in the genderqueer flag, represents people who identify as a blending of male and female genders. Finally, black (the absence of color) signifies those who are agender, who feel they do not have a gender.
Some non-binary/genderqueer people use gender-neutral pronouns. Usage of singular 'they', 'their' and 'them' is the most common.

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Intersex Flag
This flag went through a variety of iterations before the current Intersex Flag emerged. Previous versions embraced the rainbow that is often associated with queer pride, while others used colors like blue and pink, which are found on the transgender flag.
In 2013, Morgan Carpenter chose the colors yellow and purple for the intersex flag. Morgan moved away from the rainbow symbolism and selected these colors because neither is associated with the social constructs of the gender binary.
The circle, perfect and unbroken, represents the wholeness of intersex people. It is a reminder that intersex people are perfect the way they are or choose to be.

Asexual Flag
The Flag for the Asexual Community was created in 2010 by the Asexual Visibility and Education Network. Asexual is the lack of sexual attraction to others, or a low interest in sexual activity, but asexuality can mean different things to different people, it is best to ask each individual what it means to them. For some people, it may mean that they rely on other types of attraction instead of or in place of sexual attraction.
Asexual can be an umbrella term and each color in this flag also represents something unique. Black stands for asexuality. Gray represents demisexuality, for those who develop sexual attraction to someone only after forming a deep emotional bond with them. White stands for the allies of the community. Purple represents the entire community of asexual folks

Bisexual Pride Flag
The Bisexual Pride Flag was created in 1998 by Michael Page. His idea for the flag represents pink and blue blending to make purple. The way that bisexual people can blend into the straight community and the gay community.
The colors of the flag also represent attraction to different genders. The pink symbolizes attraction to the same gender, while the blue represents attraction to a different gender. The purple represents attraction to two or more genders, the definition of bisexuality.

Pansexual Flag
The Pansexual Flag was created in 2010. Pansexuality represents those people who feel attracted to a person without thinking about gender. Pansexual people may refer to themselves as gender-blind, asserting that gender and sex are not determining factors in their romantic or sexual attraction to others. This means that they can feel attraction to those who identify as women, men, both or neither.
The pink on the flag represents attraction to women, blue represents attraction to men, and yellow stands for attraction to those who don’t identify with either gender.
Pansexuality may be considered a sexual orientation or a branch of bisexuality, to indicate an alternative sexual identity. Because pansexual people are open to relationships with people who do not identify as strictly men or women, and pansexuality therefore rejects the gender binary, it is often considered a more inclusive term than bisexual.

Lesbian Pride Flag
The Lesbian Flag is one of the flags fewer people know about. This flag features different shades of pink and sometimes comes with a red kiss on it to represent lipstick lesbians.

This flag was created by Natalie McCray in 2010. Some lesbians oppose this flag because of its exclusion of butch lesbians but no other flag has as much popularity as this one.

In the new flag, the colors represent the following:

Darkest Orange: Gender nonconformity
Middle Orange: Independence
Lightest Orange: Community
White: Unique relationships to womanhood
Lightest Pink: Serenity and peace
Middle Pink: Love and sex
Darkest Pink: Femininity

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Abrosexual Pride Flag
The Abrosexual Pride Flag has existed since 2015. The flag was created by Mod Chad of pride-flags-for-us after another anonymous person requested it. It is unknown why this person chose these colors specifically.
Abrosexual refers to an individual whose sexuality is changing or fluid. For example, someone could be gay one day, then be asexual the next, then polysexual the next. While it is possible - and even common - for a person's sexual identity to shift or change in some way throughout their life, an abrosexual person's sexuality may change more frequently, over the course of hours, days, months, or years. Because of their inconsistent attraction, some abrosexual people may not feel compelled to seek out a relationship or may prefer a wavership.
The timing of the fluctuations is different for every person; for some the fluctuations may be erratic and for others they may be regular. The sexualities that a person fluctuates between also varies. Some abrosexual people may be fluid between all sexualities, while others may only be fluid between a few.

Gay Men’s Pride Flag
The Gay Men’s Pride Flag is another lesser known pride flag. It features different shades of green, blue, and purple.
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. That version of the flag evolved as it used colors that were perceived stereotypical of the gender binary. The updated flag is meant to be inclusive of a much wide range of gay men, including but not limited to transgender, intersex, and gender nonconforming men.

Heterosexual Pride Flag
The Heterosexual Pride Flag. Straight is most viewed as men attracted to women and women attracted to men. The term "straight" is used to describe for both straight men and straight women. While straight is often used to describe non-LGBT people it is possible for straight people to be part of the LGBT community. For example, they might be transgender. They also might be, asexual heteroromantic, or aromantic heterosexual, which also makes them LGBT.

However, some believe “straight pride” events are simply the latest manifestation of anti-LGBTQ bigotry. Heterosexual pride parades exist as a response to societal acceptance of LGBTQ visibility and originated in campuses in the 1990s as a backlash tactic. Straight pride is a slogan that arose in the late 1980s and early 1990s that has primarily been used by social conservatives as a political stance and strategy. The term is described as a response to gay pride adopted by various groups (later united under the moniker LGBT) in the early 1970s, or to the accommodations provided to gay pride initiatives.

Drag Feather Pride Flag
The Drag Feather pride flag is an earlier, somewhat obscure version of the Drag pride flag. It was created in 1999 by Sean Campbell and was then called the Feather pride flag. It has a phoenix in its center, which symbolizes the drag community's rebirth and the fire of passion they use to raise awareness and funds for different causes.

The phrase "to drag" refers to a performance of masculinity, femininity, or other forms of gender expression – it is to dress up or exhibit yourself in a way that differs from your everyday expressions. For example, a drag queen is someone (usually male) who performs femininity, while a drag king is someone (usually female) who performs masculinity.

Maverique Pride Flag
The Maverique pride flag was first created on Tumblr by Vesper H. (queerascat) in 2014, who coined the term "Maverique" to describe their gender. The term combines the English words "maverick" and the French suffix "ique." Maverique is a non-binary or abinary gender with significant gendered experiences but is neither male nor female. However, it is not a lack of gender; it is defined by autonomy and inner conviction about a gender that is unusual and exists outside the standard conceptions of gender. Maverique individuals are free to use whatever pronouns they prefer and present themselves however they want.

The colors of the Maverique pride flag are yellow, white, and orange. The yellow represents non-binary gender – as yellow is a primary color (meaning it isn't obtainable from combining any other colors and is entirely independent of other primary colors, cyan (blue) and magenta (pink), Vesper H believed it was the perfect analogy for maverique's relationship with masculinity and femininity. Non-binary genders are also frequently related to the color yellow. White represents autonomy or independence from the gender binary and the spectrum of genders created by the combinations of cyan/blue (masculinity) and magenta/pink (femininity). White is a blank slate upon which maverique is based. Orange represents the inner conviction of what a maverique feels regarding their gender. It also describes the unorthodox and individualistic nature of mavericks.

Bigender Pride Flag
The Tumblr user no-bucks-for-this-does created the original version of the Bigender pride flag; the creation date of the flag is unknown but is assumed to have existed before July 30th, 2014. It features different shades of pink, blue, and purple. The meaning of the colors is unknown, but it is often speculated that blue represents masculinity, pink represents femininity, and purple represents a mix of genders or androgyny. The white at its center symbolizes the nonbinary nature of bi-gender.

There is, however, another commonly used variation of the Bigender pride flag, which features four horizontal lines in four different colors – pink, yellow, white, purple, and blue. The creator is unknown, and so is the colors' meaning – but it is assumed that the colors have the same meaning as the original flag and that yellow is added to represent non-binary. It was created either before or on August 23rd, 2015.

A bigender individual is a person having or experiencing two different genders of any combination. For example, a bigender person could be both a woman and a man, or be agender and a woman simultaneously. The genders may be binary or non-binary, can be experienced simultaneously or alternately, and may not be experienced equally or in the same way.

Grey Asexuality Flag - Graysexual Pride Flag
Milith Rusignuolo created the first version of the Graysexual pride flag in 2013. It features two lines of purple on the top and bottom of the flag, two grey lines further in, with a white center line. The colors are supposed to represent someone starting with no sexual attraction (purple - asexuality), then going through an episode of attraction (grey to white), with white indicating allosexuality from the asexual flag, and then returning to asexuality once again.

Graysexual is used to describe a person who identifies themselves asexual but does not fall into one of the primary kinds of asexuality.

Genderflux Pride Flag
There are multiple variations of the Genderflux pride flag; however, the original version is most commonly used – it is unknown who created it, and it is speculated to have been created sometime between 2014 and 2015. It has six horizontal strips and six colors where dark pink represents women, light pink represents demi girls, grey represents agender, light blue represents demi boy, dark blue represents men, and yellow represents non-binary genders.

Genderflux is a catch-all phrase for gender identities where an individual's gender or sense of the intensity of their gender changes over time.

Gender Queer Pride Flag
The Gender Queer pride flag was created by the advocate and genderqueer writer Marilyn Roxie in 2011. The flag has three horizontal stripes: lavender, white, and dark chartreuse green. The lavender, a mix of pink and blue which traditionally represents women and men, expresses queer identities and androgyny. White represents gender-neutral and agender identities. Chartreuse represents identities that aren't in the gender binary and the third gender.

A genderqueer does not subscribe to conventional gender distinctions but identifies with neither, both, or a combination of male and female. Gender queer is similar to non-binary but has a slightly different meaning. It is sometimes used as an umbrella term to cover any identity that isn't cisgender.

Demiboy Pride Flag
The Demiboy pride flag was created in 2015 by the Tumblr user Transrants. While Transrants did not explicitly explain the colors, the demiboy community who identify with the flag have assigned meaning to them. The flag features four colors, blue represents manhood/masculinity, white represents non-binary or agender, and the shades of grey represents the grey areas and partial connections to other genders than the binary concepts of gender (male or female).

A demiboy, also referred to as demiguy, demiman, demimale, or demidude, is a person who identifies with the concept of masculinity.

Straight Ally Flag
The Straight Ally flag is using 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, LGBT social movements, and challenges homophobia, biphobia and transphobia. A straight ally believes that LGBT people face discrimination and thus are socially and economically disadvantaged. - https://www.rd.com/list/lgbtq-flags/

A Guide To Gender Identity Terms Issues of equality and acceptance of transgender and nonbinary people — along with challenges to their rights — have become a major topic in the headlines. These issues can involve words and ideas and identities that are new to some.

That's why we've put together a glossary of terms relating to gender identity. Our goal is to help people communicate accurately and respectfully with one another.

Proper use of gender identity terms, including pronouns, is a crucial way to signal courtesy and acceptance. Alex Schmider, associate director of transgender representation at GLAAD, compares using someone's correct pronouns to pronouncing their name correctly – "a way of respecting them and referring to them in a way that's consistent and true to who they are."

Glossary of gender identity terms
This guide was created with help from GLAAD. We also referenced resources from the National Center for Transgender Equality, the Trans Journalists Association, NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ Journalists, Human Rights Campaign, InterAct and the American Psychological Association. This guide is not exhaustive, and is Western and U.S.-centric. Other cultures may use different labels and have other conceptions of gender.

One thing to note: Language changes. Some of the terms now in common usage are different from those used in the past to describe similar ideas, identities and experiences. Some people may continue to use terms that are less commonly used now to describe themselves, and some people may use different terms entirely. What's important is recognizing and respecting people as individuals.

Jump to a term: Sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, cisgender, transgender, nonbinary, agender, gender-expansive, gender transition, gender dysphoria, sexual orientation, intersex

Jump to Pronouns: questions and answers

Sex refers to a person's biological status and is typically assigned at birth, usually on the basis of external anatomy. Sex is typically categorized as male, female or intersex.

Gender is often defined as a social construct of norms, behaviors and roles that varies between societies and over time. Gender is often categorized as male, female or nonbinary.

Gender identity is one's own internal sense of self and their gender, whether that is man, woman, neither or both. Unlike gender expression, gender identity is not outwardly visible to others.

For most people, gender identity aligns with the sex assigned at birth, the American Psychological Association notes. For transgender people, gender identity differs in varying degrees from the sex assigned at birth.

Gender expression is how a person presents gender outwardly, through behavior, clothing, voice or other perceived characteristics. Society identifies these cues as masculine or feminine, although what is considered masculine or feminine changes over time and varies by culture.

Cisgender, or simply cis, is an adjective that describes a person whose gender identity aligns with the sex they were assigned at birth.

Transgender, or simply trans, is an adjective used to describe someone whose gender identity differs from the sex assigned at birth. A transgender man, for example, is someone who was listed as female at birth but whose gender identity is male.

Cisgender and transgender have their origins in Latin-derived prefixes of "cis" and "trans" — cis, meaning "on this side of" and trans, meaning "across from" or "on the other side of." Both adjectives are used to describe experiences of someone's gender identity.

Nonbinary is a term that can be used by people who do not describe themselves or their genders as fitting into the categories of man or woman. A range of terms are used to refer to these experiences; nonbinary and genderqueer are among the terms that are sometimes used.

Agender is an adjective that can describe a person who does not identify as any gender.

Gender-expansive is an adjective that can describe someone with a more flexible gender identity than might be associated with a typical gender binary.

Gender transition is a process a person may take to bring themselves and/or their bodies into alignment with their gender identity. It's not just one step. Transitioning can include any, none or all of the following: telling one's friends, family and co-workers; changing one's name and pronouns; updating legal documents; medical interventions such as hormone therapy; or surgical intervention, often called gender confirmation surgery.

Gender dysphoria refers to psychological distress that results from an incongruence between one's sex assigned at birth and one's gender identity. Not all trans people experience dysphoria, and those who do may experience it at varying levels of intensity.

Gender dysphoria is a diagnosis listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Some argue that such a diagnosis inappropriately pathologizes gender incongruence, while others contend that a diagnosis makes it easier for transgender people to access necessary medical treatment.

Sexual orientation refers to the enduring physical, romantic and/or emotional attraction to members of the same and/or other genders, including lesbian, gay, bisexual and straight orientations.

People don't need to have had specific sexual experiences to know their own sexual orientation. They need not have had any sexual experience at all. They need not be in a relationship, dating or partnered with anyone for their sexual orientation to be validated. For example, if a bisexual woman is partnered with a man, that does not mean she is not still bisexual.

Sexual orientation is separate from gender identity. As GLAAD notes, "Transgender people may be straight, lesbian, gay, bisexual or queer. For example, a person who transitions from male to female and is attracted solely to men would typically identify as a straight woman. A person who transitions from female to male and is attracted solely to men would typically identify as a gay man."

Intersex is an umbrella term used to describe people with differences in reproductive anatomy, chromosomes or hormones that don't fit typical definitions of male and female.

Intersex can refer to a number of natural variations, some of them laid out by InterAct. Being intersex is not the same as being nonbinary or transgender, which are terms typically related to gender identity.

Pronouns: questions and answers
What is the role of pronouns in acknowledging someone's gender identity?

Everyone has pronouns that are used when referring to them – and getting those pronouns right is not exclusively a transgender issue.

"Pronouns are basically how we identify ourselves apart from our name. It's how someone refers to you in conversation," says Mary Emily O'Hara, a communications officer at GLAAD. "And when you're speaking to people, it's a really simple way to affirm their identity."

"So, for example, using the correct pronouns for trans and nonbinary youth is a way to let them know that you see them, you affirm them, you accept them and to let them know that they're loved during a time when they're really being targeted by so many discriminatory anti-trans state laws and policies," O'Hara says.

"It's really just about letting someone know that you accept their identity. And it's as simple as that."

What's the right way to find out a person's pronouns?

Start by giving your own – for example, "My pronouns are she/her."

"If I was introducing myself to someone, I would say, 'I'm Rodrigo. I use him pronouns. What about you?' " says Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, deputy executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality.

O'Hara says, "It may feel awkward at first, but eventually it just becomes another one of those get-to-know-you questions."

Should people be asking everyone their pronouns? Or does it depend on the setting?

Knowing each other's pronouns helps you be sure you have accurate information about another person.

How a person appears in terms of gender expression "doesn't indicate anything about what their gender identity is," GLAAD's Schmider says. By sharing pronouns, "you're going to get to know someone a little better."

And while it can be awkward at first, it can quickly become routine.

Heng-Lehtinen notes that the practice of stating one's pronouns at the bottom of an email or during introductions at a meeting can also relieve some headaches for people whose first names are less common or gender ambiguous.

"Sometimes Americans look at a name and are like, 'I have no idea if I'm supposed to say he or she for this name' — not because the person's trans, but just because the name is of a culture that you don't recognize and you genuinely do not know. So having the pronouns listed saves everyone the headache," Heng-Lehtinen says. "It can be really, really quick once you make a habit of it. And I think it saves a lot of embarrassment for everybody."

Might some people be uncomfortable sharing their pronouns in a public setting?

Schmider says for cisgender people, sharing their pronouns is generally pretty easy – so long as they recognize that they have pronouns and know what they are. For others, it could be more difficult to share their pronouns in places where they don't know people.

But there are still benefits in sharing pronouns, he says. "It's an indication that they understand that gender expression does not equal gender identity, that you're not judging people just based on the way they look and making assumptions about their gender beyond what you actually know about them."

How is "they" used as a singular pronoun?

"They" is already commonly used as a singular pronoun when we are talking about someone, and we don't know who they are, O'Hara notes. Using they/them pronouns for someone you do know simply represents "just a little bit of a switch."

"You're just asking someone to not act as if they don't know you, but to remove gendered language from their vocabulary when they're talking about you," O'Hara says.

"I identify as nonbinary myself and I appear feminine. People often assume that my pronouns are she/her. So they will use those. And I'll just gently correct them and say, hey, you know what, my pronouns are they/them just FYI, for future reference or something like that," they say.

O'Hara says their family and friends still struggle with getting the pronouns right — and sometimes O'Hara struggles to remember others' pronouns, too.

"In my community, in the queer community, with a lot of trans and nonbinary people, we all frequently remind each other or remind ourselves. It's a sort of constant mindfulness where you are always catching up a little bit," they say.

"You might know someone for 10 years, and then they let you know their pronouns have changed. It's going to take you a little while to adjust, and that's fine. It's OK to make those mistakes and correct yourself, and it's OK to gently correct someone else."

What if I make a mistake and misgender someone, or use the wrong words?

Simply apologize and move on.

"I think it's perfectly natural to not know the right words to use at first. We're only human. It takes any of us some time to get to know a new concept," Heng-Lehtinen says. "The important thing is to just be interested in continuing to learn. So if you mess up some language, you just say, 'Oh, I'm so sorry,' correct yourself and move forward. No need to make it any more complicated than that. Doing that really simple gesture of apologizing quickly and moving on shows the other person that you care. And that makes a really big difference."

Why are pronouns typically given in the format "she/her" or "they/them" rather than just "she" or "they"?

The different iterations reflect that pronouns change based on how they're used in a sentence. And the "he/him" format is actually shorter than the previously common "he/him/his" format.

"People used to say all three and then it got down to two," Heng-Lehtinen laughs. He says staff at his organization was recently wondering if the custom will eventually shorten to just one pronoun. "There's no real rule about it. It's absolutely just been habit," he says.

But he notes a benefit of using he/him and she/her: He and she rhyme. "If somebody just says he or she, I could very easily mishear that and then still get it wrong."

What does it mean if a person uses the pronouns "he/they" or "she/they"?

"That means that the person uses both pronouns, and you can alternate between those when referring to them. So either pronoun would be fine — and ideally mix it up, use both. It just means that they use both pronouns that they're listing," Heng-Lehtinen says.

Schmider says it depends on the person: "For some people, they don't mind those pronouns being interchanged for them. And for some people, they are using one specific pronoun in one context and another set of pronouns in another, dependent on maybe safety or comfortability."

The best approach, Schmider says, is to listen to how people refer to themselves.

Why might someone's name be different than what's listed on their ID?

Heng-Lehtinen notes that there's a perception when a person comes out as transgender, they change their name and that's that. But the reality is a lot more complicated and expensive when it comes to updating your name on government documents.

"It is not the same process as changing your last name when you get married. There is bizarrely a separate set of rules for when you are changing your name in marriage versus changing your name for any other reason. And it's more difficult in the latter," he says.

"When you're transgender, you might not be able to update all of your government IDs, even though you want to," he says. "I've been out for over a decade. I still have not been able to update all of my documents because the policies are so onerous. I've been able to update my driver's license, Social Security card and passport, but I cannot update my birth certificate."

"Just because a transgender person doesn't have their authentic name on their ID doesn't mean it's not the name that they really use every day," he advises. "So just be mindful to refer to people by the name they really use regardless of their driver's license."

What is the full acronym for LGBTQQIP2SAA+++ ?
https://qmunity.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Queer-Glossary_2022_Digital.pdf

When I asked Google for the most common question people asked about the queer community, many asked about the acronym we often use. What is it, why do we use it, and what do the initials represent?
The initial abbreviation was LGBT and first emerged in the 1990s as an inclusive term encompassing lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals. Over time, letters were added to include other identities and experiences. The addition of the letter Q, standing for queer, was an effort to embrace a broader spectrum of sexual orientations and gender identities.

Typically on What’s On Queer we use LGBTQ2Si+ and leave it at that - the + sign hopefully encompassing anyone we might have left out. But I was pleasantly surprised to see an additional Q and will start to include that in our blogs.

This additional Q stands for Questioning. Why do we need it in the acronym? Think back to when you started to question your own sexuality, attractions, and gender. If you were like me, you were drawn to queer events and queer friends but if someone were to have challenged you at that time, you might have shrunk back from your path. The extra Q gives you an answer to “Why are YOU here? Are you gay/queer/lesbian etc?” Maybe you didn’t really have an answer but people now do. They can say with assertion, “I’m Questioning.” And that’s awesome.

Here than is a simplified outine of the different letters and their meanings. At the bottom of the article we have listed some Canadian resources for those who want to do more research.

L - Lesbian
G - Gay
B - Bisexual
T - Transgender
Q - Queer
Q - Questioning
I - Intersex
P - Pansexual
2S - Two-Spirit
A - Asexual
A - Allies

Lesbian: Refers to women who are emotionally, romantically, or sexually attracted to other women.

Gay: Primarily used to describe men who are emotionally, romantically, or sexually attracted to other men, but can also be used as an inclusive term for the entire LGBTQ+ community.

Bisexual: Describes individuals who are emotionally, romantically, or sexually attracted to both men and women.

Transgender: People whose gender identity differs from the sex they were assigned at birth.

Queer: An umbrella term that encompasses diverse sexual orientations and gender identities outside of heterosexual and cisgender norms.

Questioning: Individuals who are exploring and questioning their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Intersex: People born with physical or genetic characteristics that do not fit typical definitions of male or female.

Pansexual: Refers to individuals who are emotionally, romantically, or sexually attracted to people regardless of their gender identity or biological sex.

Two-Spirit: An English term used to broadly capture concepts traditional to many Indigenous cultures. It is a culturally-specific identity used by some Indigenous people to indicate a person whose gender identity, spiritual identity and/or sexual orientation comprises both male and female spirits.

Asexual: People who experience little to no sexual attraction to others.

Allies: Individuals who support and advocate for the LGBTQ+ community, even if they do not personally identify as LGBTQ+.

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