Thread by @lesflagisracist

WE OFFICIALLY HAVE A FLAG TO BUY! pridenation.lgbt/products/commu…
Now comes the LONG thread about why/how this flag was chosen for production (and why the 5-stripe and not the 7-stripe (spoiler: I wasn’t granted permission to use the 7-stripe flag initially)) but thread 👇 1/

This flag and its meanings for those who don’t know 2/

A little about the development of this flag. This flag is a revision of a revision of a revision of the Lesbian flag and, to understand how it came to be required knowing the history of the controversy around the lesbian flag. So! Let’s get started: 3/

The all-pink Lesbian flag was originally the Lipstick Lesbian Flag and was only created for lipstick lesbians in 2010. This flag featured a prominent lipstick mark marking it as only for lipstick lesbians: thislesbianlife.wordpress.com/2010/07/28/lip…

In late 2015 (October) someone on Tumblr (unknown at this point) removed the lipstick mark and simply started to claim that this flag was ‘the lesbian flag’. deviantart.com/pride-flags/ar…

This flag was highly contested and This lead to an outcry by Butch lesbians who did not like and appreciate having the Lipstick Lesbian flag be re-purposed for all lesbians and did not feel that the flag represented them.

A number of Butch Lesbian flags were proposed at that point (attaches) with the yellow/orange flag by Butchspace taking off the most.

At this point people start to combine the Butch and all-pink Lesbian flags to make butch/femme lesbian flags and lesbian flags for all lesbians. The last of these while it originated as a butch-femme flag was revamped and given meaning to represent all lesbians.

the fist flag was created on April 2018

the second with orange on the bottom was created in July 2018 by shapeshifter-of-constellation (they also offer combination flags with black and brown stripes) …peshifter-of-constellation.tumblr.com/post/162570229…

while the orange on top was created in June 2018 by sadlesbiandisaster: sadlesbeandisaster.tumblr.com/post/174618152… )

The last flag in this line up was presentes to the @lesbianflag poll and won but the complexity of the design still left it far from ideal for the content creation and keeping merchandise affordable so two alternatives were created that simplified.

Both of these alternatives were created by taqwoman/shimmeringatoms and the 5-stripe version was declared the official winner.

(A note: In putting together my poll, I reached out to the creators of The flags in order to get their permission to mass-produce the flags. Shimmeringatoms gave me permission to use their 5-stripe flag but I was not given permission to use the 7-stripe flag

This was later redacted, but the poll already had 2500 votes making it impossible to go back and re-add the flag. If you like this version please consider buying OFFICIAL merchandise from the creator or donating to their PayPal!: redbubble.com/people/emilygw… sadlesbeandisaster.tumblr.com/post/183515942…)

My poll lasted from December to March and received 3,976 votes. The poll is still open and you can still see the content but the The 5-stripe flag has officially won with the attached votes docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAI…

The profile for this Lesbian flag as approved by its creator is as follows:

“A update to the 7-striped Orange and Pink flag. This 5-stripe flag was created by Cheri, a 25 year old, white, afab bigender femme lesbian. She had this to say about her flag:

1) This flag is open to all lesbians and all lesbians are welcome to it.

2) This 5-striped flag is a version of sadlesbeandisaster’s flag 7-striped flag, one of two flags that won one of the lesbian flag polls.

3) This flag was an attempt to address the potential issue of the gradient being hard to produce in IRL products while still maintaintaing the theme of the flag

4) The meanings of each stripe are: Transgressive womanhood, Community, Gender Nonconfermity, Freedom, and Love.”

Over all I decided in contacting companies to label this flag as “The Community Lesbian Flag” since its creation was a process of gaining inspiration from different lesbians rendition of the flag and building upon it to include more and more lesbians, of saying:

“we need to make sure everyone feels comfortable and welcome in our community”. Of taking a flag created by a terrible person for only a small group of lesbians and re-working it, re-coloring it, and re-creating it for ALL lesbians.

The creation of this 5-stripe flag was truly a community process and, in that, it got its name.

So: if you would like to purchase this flag you can do so here: and please remember, to those who both like and dislike this flag: this was NOT a poll to select an ‘official’ lesbian flag and I didn’t label this flag as the ‘official’ lesbian flag for this reason.

This is NOT the ‘official’ Lesbian flag. This poll was only to produce a purchasable flag before Pride this year. And if you don’t like this flag I can’t recommend Pride Nations custom flag option enough. pridenation.lgbt/collections/lg…

Thank you to everyone who voted and helped with this process and please help spread the word to those who might want or need this flag!

Forgot the link on this one: nillia.tumblr.com/post/173451867…

For those that might be curious: these are the results for the rainbow flag which I use as a ‘positive control’ in this survey. It received the least 1&2’s So never be afraid to use the rainbow flag for yourself! It’s a symbol of our whole community and a beautiful one at that!