^{This page is part of © FOTW Flags Of The World website}

Sexual orientation flags

See also:

Flags of sex-related organizations:

Lesben- und Schwulenverband Deutschlands (Germany)
Federation of Gay Games

External links:

History of the Bear Flag (and of other sexual identity flags)
Gay Flags
Bear Pride Flags
Vlajky GLBT komunit, Ostatní symbology, Symboly pohlaví and Stužky (in Czech)
reported by Jarig Bakker, 06 Aug 2002
Colour Codes for Handkerchiefs
Perhaps this colour symbolism also find its way into the flags in some interpretations?
reported by Elias Granqvist, 24 Aug 2001

Symbols of gender

Being "♂" originally the symbol for Mars/Ares, and forming a logical pair with "♀", the symbol for Venus/Afrodite, these two deities were taken for quitessential archetypes of human male and female, and their astrological/astronomical symbols used also in Geneology, Biology and even in everyday life.
António Martins, 28 Jul 2004

The Mars symbol, in addition to the meanings already mentioned, can also represent Tuesday or even a biennial plant (given Mars’ approx. 2-year cycle relative to Earth).
Richard Knipel, 19 Jul 2004

Symbols of sexual orientation

“The Rainbow Flag” by Steven W. Anderson appeared in GAZE Magazine (Minneapolis) #191, on 28 May 1993, p. 25 [ans93]:

Color has long played an important role in our community’s expression of pride. In Victorian England, for example, the color green was associated with homosexuality. The color purple (or, more accurately, lavender) became popularized as a symbol for pride in the late 1960s — a frequent post-Stonewall catchword for the gay community was "Purple Power". And, of course, there’s the pink triangle. Although it was first used in Nazi Germany to identify gay males in concentration camps, the pink triangle only received widespread use as a gay pop icon in the early 1980s. But the most colorful of our symbols is the Rainbow Flag, and its rainbow of colors — red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple — represents the diversity of our community.

quoted by Christopher Pinette, 12 Jun 1996

Black is a color associated with lesbianism — a black triangle on pink is also sometimes used as a lesbian symbol.
Steve Kramer, 06 May 1996

The association boy-blue / girl-pink, though widespread, is not fully universal: in Russia, f.i., pink stands for lesbianism and not for femaledom in general, while blue (or rather light blue) is synonymous for male homossexuality and not for maleness in general.
António Martins, 22 Jul 2002

The rainbow is a symbol of gay pride, as opposed to gay liberation, which used the pink triangle on various colored fields.
Jim Ferrigan, 14 Feb 2003

In addition to the Rainbow coloration, the GLBT community [gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered] uses the Greek letter "λ" (lambda); a pink equilateral triangle, usually point down (used to represent homosexual males in the Nazi concentration camps, appropriated as a symbol of pride by gays); twinned Mars or Venus astrological symbols (representing gay males and lesbians respectively); and the labrys (a double-headed axe, representing lesbians). The BiCafe adds a relatively new symbol that resembles a trillium to represent bisexuals.
Steve Kramer, 16 Mar 1999

I’ve seen two Mars symbols (♂) or two Venus symbols (♀) juxtaposed on flags and posters to indicate homosexuality.
Albert Kirsch, 19 Jul 2004

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