Last modified: 2016-03-12 by randy young
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A pink triangle is sometimes located in the hoist of the Pride Flag.
Don Hagemann, 4 May 1996
During the renovation of Montreal’s (Canada) metro (subway) system in 1999-2000, the access to Beaudry metro, the station serving the gay village, was torn down and replaced with a beautiful new building with the colours of the gay pride flag integrated into it. To my knowledge this is one of the only public buildings in the world so
decorated. You can see a picture of it here.
Matt McLauchlin, 11 December 2001
Lacking any official specifications, the Gay Pride / Rainbow Flag may have any ratio its users like. The most widespread ones, though, seem to be 2:3 and 3:5, which are among the most widespread ones in
general, too. Long "flags" carried by rows of people at LGBT-related events also appear frequently.
A specific ratio worth noting is 1:1, which has been used in Zurich, Switzerland, alone or together with the national and cantonal flags, from which it was clearly borrowed. Most of its photos date from the
Zurich Pride / Europride 2009; the best examples can be found here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. These flags might easily be the predecessors of the Swiss gay flags which were seen at the Eurovision Song Contest 2015 in Vienna, Austria.
Tomislav Todorovic, 28 May 2015
Image by Marcus Schmöger, 26 Aug 2001
This is the rainbow flag with an added black stripe to be aware of AIDS called "Victory over AIDS" flag. See for example here and here.
Marcus Schmöger, 26 Aug 2001
Black: AIDS awareness; this stripe will be removed, as soon as a cure is found against AIDS.
Marcus Schmöger, 26 Aug 2001, (translating from
EuroGay.net)
The Victory Over AIDS Flag modifies the rainbow flag by adding a black stripe at the bottom. Suggested by a San Francisco group, the black stripe commemorates those we have lost to AIDS. Sergeant Leonard Matlovich, a much-decorated Vietnam Veteran dying of AIDS, proposed that when a cure is eventually found the black stripes should be removed from all the flags and ceremoniously burned in Washington, D.C.
Marcus Schmöger, 26 Aug 2001 (quoting from Jasewells.com)
The flag was used (photo) at Guatemala Pride 2011 (Orgullo Guatemala 2011). Note the unusually light shade of violet color, much lighter than the one used on the "ordinary" gay rainbow flags which can be seen on the same photo.
The same flag was used (photo) at the Guatemala Pride 2010 (Orgullo Guatemala 2010), although on the flag photographed at the event, violet stripe turned out to look almost white, so it probably could not be recognized without the later source.
Tomislav Todorovic, 07 September 2014
Image by Marcus Schmöger, 24 Aug 2001
Reportedly, gay leather aficionados might also modify a rainbow flag to have a black stripe instead of a violet one. (However, this version might be confused with the "Victory
Over AIDS" version of the rainbow flag, as they are similar.)
Marcus Schmöger, 24 Aug 2001 (quoting from this page)
A variant of the rainbow flag for “leathermen”. The two lower stripes (blue and black) refer to the respective colours of the leather pride flag.
Marcus Schmöger, 24 Aug 2001 (quoting from this page)
Image by António Martins, 12 Jan 2000
Raibow flag with white stripe vertically in the hoist, to denote that "all are included".
Steve Kramer, 06 May 1996
Images by Tomislav Todorovic, 06 June 2015
A flag used during Stockholm Pride Festival in Stockholm, Sweden, was like the Rainbow flag with red on top but with a white vertical stripe along the fly with the text "STOCKHOLM PRIDE" in sans serif letters of which the word "PRIDE" was in bold letters.
Elias Granqvist, 02 Aug 2004
The flag was also used at the Stockholm Pride 2007, as can be seen here. It was used again at the Stockholm Pride 2010, as shown here, here and here, as well as the Stockholm Pride 2012, as shown here. All these photos reveal that the inscription is purple.
A variant of the flag has the reversed order of colors (purple at the top, red at the bottom) and the inscription in black. It is incompletely visible in a photo at a webpage which has been created as an announcement of the Stockholm Pride / Europride 2008. Even though the colors are obviously too dark for the real life (certainly due to the photographing conditions), all rainbow colors are recognizable, and the inscription is visibly darker of them all, so it can hardly be any color other than black. Regarding the frequency of its appearing in the photos, compared with the other variant, this flag seems to be much less used.
Tomislav Todorovic, 06 June 2015
Since astronomical/astrological symbol for Mars is used to represent male gender, doubled symbol is often used to represent male homosexuality and is included as such into the Unicode since version
4.1.0 and assigned the code point U+26A3.
Source:
Unicode Consortium website - code chart for Miscellaneous Symbols block in version 4.1.0 (in PDF format)
Tomislav Todorovic, 21 June 2015
Image by Tomislav Todorovic, 21 June 2015
Flags with double Mars symbol in white on blue canton were seen in London, UK on 2010-07-03, in New York City on 2011-06-26, in Nottingham, UK on 2010-07-31 and in Belfast, UK on 2013-07-06. On these flags, the individual Mars symbols are conjoined and the canton is much darker than the blue stripe.
Tomislav Todorovic, 21 June 2015
This flag was also used at the Uganda Pride 2012.
Tomislav Todorovic, 30 August 2015
Image by Tomislav Todorovic, 21 June 2015
Flag with large double Mars symbol over all in white, exhibited together with several other sexual orientation flags, can be seen here and here. A photo of the flag, taken in Washington, DC on 2013-03-26, can be found here. On these flags, the individual Mars symbols are interlaced and fimbriated black.
Tomislav Todorovic, 21 June 2015
Since astronomical/astrological symbol for Venus is used to represent female gender, doubled symbol is often used to represent female homosexuality and is included as such into the Unicode since version 4.1.0 and assigned the code point U+26A2.
Source:
Unicode Consortium website - code chart for Miscellaneous Symbols block in version 4.1.0 (in PDF format)
Tomislav Todorovic, 21 June 2015
Image by Tomislav Todorovic, 21 June 2015
Flags with double Venus symbol in white on blue canton were seen in Zurich, Switzerland on 2009-06-06, in Santa Fe, New Mexico in February 2010, in London, UK on 2010-07-03 and in Nottingham, UK on 2010-07-31. On these flags, the individual Venus symbols are conjoined and the canton is much darker than the blue stripe.
Tomislav Todorovic, 21 June 2015
This flag was also used at the Uganda Pride 2012.
Tomislav Todorovic, 30 August 2015
Image by Tomislav Todorovic, 21 June 2015
Flag with large double Venus symbol over all in white, exhibited together with several other sexual orientation flags, can be seen here and here. A photo of the flag, taken in Columbus, Ohio on 2014-06-20, can be found here. On these flags, the individual Venus symbols are interlaced and fimbriated black.
Tomislav Todorovic, 21 June 2015
Image by António Martins, 30 Mar 2005 (labrys image from
here)
A labrys (double-headed axe) is another lesbian symbol and is sometimes included, usually centered on the field of
the rainbow flag.
Steve Kramer, 06 May 1996
Image by António Martins, 19 Aug 2005
This Gay flag variant of the Rainbow Flag has a circle in the center containing a natural (not map) world globe showing America, Europa and Africa. Source: Communication from José Luís Cepero.
Jaume Ollé, 05 Jun 2000 and 24 Jun 2000
I think by "natural" he means a space-eye photo of earth like on this flag). (Just a guess though.)
David Kendall, 31 Mar 2005
Image by Tomislav Todorovic, 25 Oct 2014
Another variant is charged with the globe on dark blue square canton,
which occupies half of the flag width, thus repeating the design of
The Authentic Earth Flag (Earth Day Flag),although the relative size of the globe is much larger on the gay flag canton than on the Earth Day Flag, probably in order to make it not too small to be recognizable. The flag was seen at the Atlanta Pride, on 2007-06-24, its photos being available here and here. The canton might look black or almost black on the photos, as very dark blue color may look in the shadow, but the rainbow colors also look darker for the same reason.
Tomislav Todorovic, 25 Oct 2014
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Image by António Martins, 22 Jul 1999
Chicago held it’s Northalsted Market Days this weekend, the largest of Chicago’s summer street fairs. There were a lot of flags to see. The most prevelent was the gay Rainbow flag in several different varieties (including one with a smiley face on it) and a few other gay flags (since this is the gay mecca of the city).
Steve Stringfellow, 10 Aug 1998
Image by Marcus Schmöger, 26 Aug 2001
This is the rainbow flag with a cowboy hat for "gay cowboys". This was created by "Cowboy Frank". See CowboyFrank.net.
Marcus Schmöger, 26 Aug 2001
Image by Tomislav Todorovic, 07 Sep 2014
The name of its creator, also known as "Cowboy Frank", is Frank Harrell. The story about the flag creation can be found at his website.
There is another variant, created by the webmaster of a site which was dealing, among other things, with the flags representing different sexual orientations; according to its author, the flag design was approved by Frank Harrell in 2009. In our communication from November 2012, Mr Harrell confirmed me that he did approve the new flag. The designer's motivation was to create a flag which, unlike the original one, could be produced without the screen printing. In order to achieve that, he placed the hat, which kept its usual color (described as "tan"), on a dark brown canton, which symbolizes earth and nature. The band surrounding the hat, not very distinguishable on the original flag, was made much wider and also painted in dark brown, to symbolize cowboys' "perpetual mindfulness of the earth". The original description of the flag can be found at its creator's website (in PDF format).
Tomislav Todorovic, 07 Sep 2014
Image by Marcus Schmöger, 24 Aug 2001
This is a variant of the rainbow flag with a black heart and black bones (like in the Jolly Roger). Seen at the Christopher Street Day Parade 2001 in Munich; it seemed to me home-made.
Marcus Schmöger, 24 Aug 2001
Image by Tomislav Todorovic, 5 May 2015
A variation which displays two rainbow patterns, with red stripes along the top and bottom edges and conjoined by a single violet stripe in center, was seen at Belfast Pride on 2013-07-06. Its photos can be
found here (image 1)
(image 2) and here.
Tomislav Todorovic, 5 May 2015
