Need to know
For #TeamEEAST Last updated: 18 May 2024 at 08:30
The Intersex Progress Pride flag is used throughout our community to symbolise LGBT+, but what does the flag actually mean?
When the LGBT+ community fought back against the police raid of Stonewall Inn in June 1969, there was not yet a universal pride flag. It would take another 9 years until Gilbert Baker designed the community’s first symbol of pride into what we now know as the rainbow flag.
Since then, Baker’s design has not only been reimagined to include people of colour and transgender people but has encouraged many communities under the LGBT+ umbrella to create their own flag to further represent queer identities.
Given the evolving nature of the LGBT+ community and society at large, the Progress Pride Flag integrates many of these flags into one. It has now been redesigned to place a greater emphasis on inclusion and progression.
The modern pride flag now includes stripes to represent the experiences of people of colour, as well as stripes to represent people who identify as transgender, gender nonconforming (GNC) and/or undefined.
It includes the colours of the trans flag (white, pink and blue) 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.
Designer Valentino Vecchietti has offered the intersex community further visibility by providing a new update to the original rainbow flag. Vecchietti’s design includes the intersex yellow and purple circle added next to the transgender blue, pink, and white colours. This is an exciting new level of visibility for intersex people as the fight for international acceptance continues.
EEASTs own LGBT network will be using the Intersex Progress Pride flag at this year’s Pride events, if you would like to participate or attend an event with the network please do contact them at LGBT@eastamb.nhs.uk.
Published 21st February 2023