I really don’t like the design of the progress pride flag, and I couldn’t really put my finger on it until I saw this: https://nava.org/good-flag-bad-flag
For reference, here is the flag I’m referencing as “bad flag”:
And here is the original:
So, the original has too many colors, but it’s the colors of the rainbow. In order. It’s recognizable from really far away, and it’s dead simple to draw.
With the Intersex flag, that’s 14 colors. There are three shades of “purple”. The circle won’t be visible from far away. The chevrons are too thin to be very recognizable from far away.
It’s not like there aren’t good pride flags. Like there are AMAZING ones:
Edit:
In case you don’t know what these are: https://flagsforgood.com/collections/pride-flags
it’s a long time meme that pretty much all LGBT flags are awfully designed. but they also got wide acceptance so it’s hard to redesign. as a designer I’ve looked for redesigns and have not seen anything really. even the ones you’ve shared are brand new to me. where did you find those?
The progress flag is copyrighted by one Daniel Quasar, and he sporadically exercises his copyright on people who use or sell designs involving the progress flag. Or so I’ve heard. Anyway, for this reason, I avoid using it.
i was sceptical of this claim but it appears you’re dead right
Most people do not know about this flag’s origins. Its creator appropriated Gilbert Baker’s 1978 rainbow flag and the light blue, pink, and white stripes from the 1999 trans pride flag created by Monica Helms (without even a call to her), and the black and brown stripes from the 2017 More Colors More Pride Flag designed in partnership with Philadelphia’s Office of LGBT Affairs and then proceeded to LICENSE THE DESIGN FOR PROFIT
https://gaycitynews.com/we-need-walk-away-progress-profit-flag/
rest of the article is interesting too
this just makes it all the more baffling that this graphic-design-is-my-passion gaudy clashing mess of a flag is the one you see everywhere now
The primary reason it’s copyrighted is to prevent corporations from profiting off of it.
and…?
What annoys me about takes like this is that it seems to be appealing to some sort of council of gays who are in charge of the flags. Nobody is. There’s no “official” flag. If you don’t like the progress flag or the intersex version of it then just don’t fly them or design your own that you do like. Nobody is stopping you. A ton of the pride flags in use today are just designed by random Tumblr users in the mid '10s. Which is fine, not hating on them, just making sure you know there is nothing stopping you from making one you like or flying the ones you prefer.
This is the very reason I’m surprised. These flags come and go by the winds of memetics; so why is it that this design is somehow able to propagate so well despite being so clearly visually incoherent?
I’m not necessarily complaining, I’m just astonished that it caught on. Like imagine if a really discordant and structureless song became super popular.
I fly the original pride progress flag on my house and I really like it. If it is shocking to you that not everyone agrees with what makes a flag look good look no further than the US’s state flags. They’re a mess. They’re all over the place. People have different tastes. I think the “state seal on blue background” is bad but clearly enough people in those places don’t dislike it enough to change it.
I’m pretty picky about flags but I like the progress pride flag well enough. not over the moon about it, but I fly it outside my house during June. If you can make a better one, it’s always okay to attempt to do so.
I’m just mad they didn’t add Italians and Jews to the progressive flag, cmon!
I’m of the option that the original rainbow flag is still the best. It was meant to include everyone under the rainbow so trans people and others are already included.
The Progress flag stands for the progress that has been made and the progress that STILL NEEDS TO BE MADE against racism and transphobia as well as memorializing those we lost to AIDS.
So yes, while the original flag is meant to include all the LGBT+ communities, progress stands for more than inclusion for a lot of us ✌️
My problems with the progress flag and the trans rainbow flag are not with the groups or ideas they are ment to express.
First like OP I think they are bad flag designs. To busy and lack the simple design a flag should have. I also just don’t like the look.
Second there is value in a consistent recognizable design like the rainbow. I spot all sorts of variants and often don’t know what they are supposed to mean.
I also don’t think there should be spefic meaning to the parts. Saying this color stripe is this group and that color is another group is problematic.
The rainbow colors were meant to symbolize broad inclusion. Everybody under the rainbow. Red isn’t gay, blue isn’t lesbian, etc. (I know some have tried to add that after the fact).
When you start adding spefic groups to the flag you start having included groups and excluded groups. So as much as I support trans rights and think they belong in the community I don’t want any spefic group in the flag.
You then get groups that are not included and want a new flag to included them. Like we are seeing with the trans flag causing groups to want the progress flag. Pretty soon the rainbow is going to look like nascar with logos everywhere.
A simple consistent flag with the message of broad inclusion is better.
I think you’re missing the forest for the trees and I don’t think I’ll be engaging with your slippery slope argument ✌️
Was it meant to represent black and indigenous people?
Does it need to?
Not sure why you would ask that. I’m responding to this claim:
It was meant to include everyone under the rainbow so trans people and others are already included.
Ah I get your point. Native and black people are their own sexual identity. Got it.
I’m responding to the claim that everyone on the progress flag is already included on the pride flag. I am not expressing an opinion about whether a flag should or should not represent whatever group of people. Am I wrong that the person I am responding to implied that this?
i just learned last week about the original lesbian flag:
and i gotta say it’s amazing
Fair warning with that one, its really cool looking but mostly popular with trans lesbians and terfs.
as a trans lesbian… ok that tracks.
Ugly flags & the LGBT+ community, name a more iconic duo. Like, I thought we had designers amongst us, whatever happened to them?
Its purpose isn’t to be aesthetically pleasing. Trans people and POC are constantly discriminated against by other queers, and intersex people rarely are even acknowledged to exist at all, let alone treated as anything else than disgusting or sex object.
I think it’s basically just “feature creep.” Too many ideas trying to be crammed into one symbol. And what’s annoying, to me, is that the rainbow by itself was already supposed to represent everyone. That’s why it is a rainbow.
It’s the same phenomenon as “LGBTQI+”
It was literally LGB at one point. I understand the concept of inclusion but I think pursuing it by appending and appending and appending is a lousy way to go. I believe the “Q” was finally added in part because it was hoped to be some kind of catch-all, but that didn’t work.
We could always use the GRSM acronym (Gender, Romantic, and Sexual Minorities)
I just learned about GSM two days ago here on Lemmy. Now I am learning about GRSM, and while I like both, learning that there is now an additional letter leads me to believe it may go down the same rabbit hole.
Really? I’ve never heard just GSM.
I’ve gone down the rabbit hole and gsm is apparently a common incorrect way to say it. Also a lot of LGBTQ people dislike the term.
Really? Why?
I’m just hearing it for the first time in this thread but my first impression isn’t great. Do you really want a label that brands you as a “minority?” That doesn’t seem like a great first step toward equality.
I propose reducing it down to QT
Why is this upvoted so much? Do you know anything about the Pride flag? Each color represented a particular concept (e.g., sex, sunlight, nature). The colors mean something and weren’t just a catch-all concept to “represent everyone.” Like you’re just saying shit lol. The fact that I see this dumbass discourse EVERY YEAR tells me that maybe it’s not just aesthetics that folks are complaining about, I think some people are bitches and don’t wanna make room. The Progress Pride flag is great and makes clear that it really is for everyone, not just gay men. Get over yourself fr.
Hot pink - Sex
Red - Life
Orange - Healing
Yellow - Sunlight
Green - Nature
Turquoise - Magic/Art
Indigo - Serenity
Violet - SpiritI’m seeing on Wikipedia that the original colors represented stuff like sunlight and life. Who was excluded by these categories?
Nobody. But apparently that means you’re a “dumbass”.
People of color, trans and intersex people, and people who died in the AIDS crisis.
Why do you think they are excluded? Do those concepts not apply to them equally as much as they do to anyone else?
Why does everyone complain about the progress flag when the poly flag is right there and is terrible? Absolute garbage. Terrible color choices. Barely holds up to heraldic color rules. and Pi? Seriously? Get out of here you fucking nerd. 2/10, workshop it and come back. I hate it.
I’m cool with poly people, this is just the flag equivalent of biting your tongue when eating a burrito.
downvoted for showing me that flag
Americans love to subdivide themselves, and that’s especially true for activists. The flag reflects that.
garbage opinion, you’re the kinda person that’d take issue with Black Lives Matter because you assume that implies white lives are inferior.
also, the progress flag is flown worldwide at Pride so you’re just spreading misinformation
Thats way too busy. Should definitely just keep the rainbow flag. Not every little niche needs specific representation, just have the rainbow as a catchall for any kind of deviation from heterosex
Edit to add : if they want to use them to identify and specify within rallies or amongst themselves somehow then whatever, go for it, as long as we can accept the layman isnt gonna have a clue and cant really be expected to.
Wasn’t the entire idea of the rainbow flag to just say “this includes everyone”, to be inclusive?
Then people started “well red is this, yellow is that, green is that …” Making the entire thing as exclusive as can be, now requiring a color and or symbol for each and every tiny different identity they were trying to be
Then people started “well red is this, yellow is that, green is that …”
But the stripes always meant something:
Hot pink = Sex
Red = Life
Orange = Healing
Yellow = Sunlight
Green = Nature
Turquoise = Magic/Art
Indigo = Serenity
Violet = Spirit
Flags being symbolic was never the issue. The progress flag was made in lieu of black, trans, and intersex queer USAmericans being excluded from big, corporate backed, pride events, which brought to the fore, a slew of intra-queer tensions.
By making this new flag, it was a way of symbolically coming together. And it’s stuck around because of, well… Everything going on lately.
I thought the rainbow was supposed to mean it encompassed everyone.
The colours on the flag apparently weren’t sufficiently inclusive so perhaps this should be the next flag:
God this website is just like reddit. Dumbasses just saying shit. No, the original Pride flag had 8 colors, and each color had a specific meaning. It wasn’t just “to encompass everyone.” Like what the hell, lemmy? Why are we doing bogus discourse on here too? Every year I gotta deal with a bunch of fucking straights dumping on the Progress Pride flag—seriously go fuck yourselves.
Damn, you’re awfully hateful
Each color had a specific meaning, but none of those meanings were a specific gender or sexuality. The meanings were intentionally tied to concepts, rather than to distinct groups of people. This was so it could encompass everyone. But then dumbasses started trying to claim specific colors as their own, which excluded people. And so then every group suddenly started making their own flags, since they were being excluded by the people claiming one of the colors on the rainbow.
