Lesbian flag

The lesbian flag is a symbol of the lesbian community. No single design for the lesbian flag has yet been widely adopted.

LGBT symbols
      
Flags
Other symbols

History

The labrys lesbian flag was created in 1999 by graphic designer Sean Campbell, and published in June 2000 in the Palm Springs edition of the Gay and Lesbian Times Pride issue.[1][2] The design involves a labrys, a type of double-headed axe, superimposed on the inverted black triangle, set against a violet background. Among its functions, the labrys was associated as a weapon used by the Amazons of mythology.[3][4] In the 1970s it was adopted as a symbol of empowerment by the lesbian feminist community.[5][6] Women considered asocial by the Third Reich because they did not conform to the Nazi ideal of a woman, which included homosexual females, were condemned to concentration camps[7] and wore an inverted black triangle badge to identify them.[8] Some lesbians reclaimed this symbol as gay men reclaimed the pink triangle (many lesbians also reclaimed the pink triangle although lesbians were not included in Paragraph 175 of the German criminal code).[8] The color violet became associated with lesbians via the poetry of Sappho.[9]

The "pink" lesbian flag consists of six shades of red and pink colors with a white bar in the center.[10][11] The design is derived from the lipstick lesbian flag, which includes a red kiss[11] and was introduced in the weblog This Lesbian Life in 2010.[10][12] The lipstick lesbian flag represents "homosexual women who have a more feminine gender expression"[13] and has not been widely adopted;[1] however, its non-kiss pink variant attracted more use.

An "orange-pink" lesbian flag modeled after the seven-band pink flag was introduced on Tumblr in 2018, with colors dark orange representing 'gender non-conformity', orange for 'independence', light orange for 'community', white for 'unique relationships to womanhood', pink for 'serenity and peace', dusty pink for 'love and sex', and dark rose for 'femininity'.[14] The flag was also meant to include trans women. A five-stripes version was soon derived from the 2018 colors.[15]

See also
  • Labrys lesbian flag created in 1999[1]
  • Illustration of Lipstick lesbian flag created in 2010[11]
  • Pink lesbian flag derived from the Lipstick lesbian flag[10]
  • Lesbian flag derived from the Pink flag, circulated on social media in 2018[14]
  • Five-stripes variant of 2018 flag[15]

References
  1. Bendix, Trish (September 8, 2015). "Why don't lesbians have a pride flag of our own?". AfterEllen. Archived from the original on September 9, 2015. Retrieved 8 June 2019.
  2. Kasandra Brabaw (19 June 2019). "A Complete Guide To All The LGBTQ+ Flags & What They Mean". Refinery29. Retrieved 6 July 2019.
  3. "Gay Symbols Through the Ages". The Alyson Almanac: A Treasury of Information for the Gay and Lesbian Community. Boston, Massachusetts: Alyson Publications. 1989. pp. 99–100. ISBN 0-932870-19-8.
  4. Murphy, Timothy F., ed. (2000). Reader's Guide to Lesbian and Gay Studies (1st ed.). Chicago, Illinois: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers. p. 44. ISBN 1-57958-142-0.
  5. Zimmerman, Bonnie, ed. (2000). "Symbols, Christy Stevens". Lesbian Histories and Cultures: An Encyclopedia (1st ed.). New York, New York: Garland Publishing. p. 748. ISBN 0-8153-1920-7.
  6. Pea, Georgie (9 August 2013). "LABRYS Tool of Lesbian Feminism". Finding Lesbians. Retrieved 4 August 2018.
  7. "Lesbians and the Third Reich". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Retrieved 16 January 2015.
  8. Elman, R. Amy. "Triangles and Tribulations: The Politics of Nazi Symbols". Remember.org. Retrieved December 10, 2016. (Originally published in the Journal of Homosexuality, 1996, 30 (3): pp.1–11, doi:10.1300/J082v30n03_01, ISSN 0091-8369)
  9. Prager, Sarah (January 29, 2020). "Four Flowering Plants That Have Been Decidedly Queered (Sapphic Violets)". JSTOR Daily. Retrieved 19 July 2020.
  10. Mathers, Charlie (1 January 2018). "18 Pride flags you might not have seen before". Gay Star News. Retrieved 4 June 2019.
  11. Rawles, Timothy (July 12, 2019). "The many flags of the LGBT community". San Diego Gay & Lesbian News. Retrieved 3 September 2019.
  12. McCray, Natalie (July 28, 2010). "Lipstick Lesbian Pride!!!". This Lesbian Life. Archived from the original on November 19, 2015. Retrieved 27 September 2020.
  13. Blaxk, Natasha A.; Stern, Alana (June 22, 2016). "9 Queer Pride Flags That You Probably Didn't Know About". Odyssey. Retrieved 23 January 2019.
  14. "Lesbian Flag, Sadlesbeandisaster". Majestic Mess. April 2019. Archived from the original on 8 June 2019. Retrieved 1 December 2019.
  15. Murphy-Kasp, Paul (6 July 2019). "Pride in London: What do all the flags mean?". BBC News. Retrieved 6 July 2019. (video)
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