Pride Flag vs Progress Pride Flag: Which One Are You Waving?

QUEER WORD
PROGRESS PRIDE FLAG

What it means:

an updated version of the traditional rainbow Pride flag, designed to put a spotlight on the inclusion and progress needed for certain marginalised groups within the LGBTQ+ community. In addition to the classic rainbow stripes it features black and brown stripes to represent LGBTQ+ people of colour, along with light blue, pink, and white stripes to represent the transgender community.

Let’s use it in a sentence:

Benny waved the Progress Pride flag so enthusiastically at Pride that he ‘accidentally’ knocked over a couple of rainbow-washed corporate sponsor displays. Oops.

A little bit of history:

It took me a long time to be ok with the concept of Pride and the rainbow flag that’s become its global symbol.

Not because I was closeted and afraid of all that it stood for, but because I’d somehow internalised all of those weird, queerphobic sentiments that completely miss the point of Pride. You know the ones: “why do you need to be proud?”, “there’s nothing special about being gay!”, “don’t make queerness your entire personality!'“

And, on top of that… well…. I’m just going to come out and say it… that flag is really bloody ugly.

But over time, I’ve learned to see beyond the aesthetics. The rainbow flag may be a little bit too garish for my tastes, but I’ve come to love it for what it represents: the history, the legacy, the lives lost, and the sheer nerve and courage it took to fly it in the first place.

But, what about the Progress Pride flag? You know, the one that updated the Pride flag and supposedly brought it in to the 21st century?

I still remember when I first became aware of its existence. It was during the COVID-19 lockdowns, that strange time when the world seemed to lurch leftwards in the wake of George Floyd’s murder.

It felt like one of those moments where everyone had quietly gotten together behind my back to agree on a new thing, and I was stuck playing catch up (you know the feeling - it’s like when suddenly there’s a new letter added to the LGBTQIAA2S+ acronym and you feel a bit too embarrassed to ask what it stands for)?

Almost overnight, the Progress Pride flag seemed to become the flag for the queer community. If you were still waving the old-school rainbow come June, it felt like you were either completely out of the loop or, worse, somehow against progress.

So, like a lot of people, I fell in line, rolling up my old Pride flag, ordering a shiny new Progress Pride flag, and getting back to the business of celebrating.

But over the past few years, I’ve noticed that the original Pride flag has been making a bit of a comeback, and now the two seem to sit side-by-side, equally valid, almost like interchangeable options.

But… which one should we be using? Or, perhaps the better question is - does it actually matter which one we use?

Let’s take some time to consider why not everyone is a fan of the Progress Pride flag. Because, as with most things queer, it’s a little more complicated than it first seems.

Inclusivity upon inclusivity

The original Pride flag, created all the way back in 1978 by Gilbert Baker, was designed to represent the entire LGBTQ+ community through universal symbols. Each colour in the flag symbolises values like life, healing, sunlight, nature, harmony, and spirit. The intention being that these could be applied to all members of the community, regardless of orientation, gender identity or background.

(Oooh, and quick sidebar - here’s my favourite fact about the Pride flag. It originally had two extra stripes—pink and turquoise—but when it came time to manufacture it, there was a shortage of fabric in those colours. So they were hastily removed, creating the flag that we are all familiar with today!).

People critical of the Progress Pride flag argue that adding the additional elements is redundant. If the original flag was meant to represent everyone, what’s the need for extra layers and complexity?

There’s also the argument that the black and brown stripes centre a distinctly Western perspective. In many places around the world, LGBTQ+ communities are already predominantly made up of Black and brown people, so the addition of these stripes can feel unnecessary (or even a little patronising) from a global lens.

But… also, not inclusive enough?

It gets more complicated.

The Progress Pride flag was created by layering the trans pride colours (blue, pink, and white) onto the original rainbow, alongside the black and brown stripes (borrowed from the ‘More Colour More Pride’ flag). Some versions even include a yellow triangle with a purple circle, representing the intersex community.

Which sounds like a good thing, right?

But what about the other communities that fall under the gloriously broad queer umbrella? By explicitly highlighting certain groups - that is, trans people, people of colour, intersex folks - some argue the Progress Pride flag unintentionally excludes others. Where’s the visual nod for asexuals? Non-binary people? Two-Spirit folks?

The intention behind the Progress Pride flag was to draw attention to these particularly marginalised groups, highlighting the unique challenges they face within the community and centring their visibility.

But critics worry that by singling out specific identities, the flag risks undermining the original message of unity and inclusivity the Pride flag was meant to stand for. Some also feel this approach can create a kind of ‘identity Olympics,’ where we compete for space on the flag instead of rallying together under a shared banner of queerness.

Profit before Community?

This is where the whole conversation really starts to fall off the rails for me.

One of the beautiful things about the original Pride flag - and most of the LGBTQ+ flags we’ve come to know and love (the trans flag, the asexual flag, the bisexual flag) - is that they were created for the community, by the community, and intentionally placed in the public domain. They’re meant to be freely used by anyone, anywhere, as a symbol of unity and pride.

But that’s not the case with the Progress Pride flag.

Daniel Quasar, the designer of the Progress Pride flag, holds the copyright. Which means you can’t legally reproduce it without paying licensing fees. So, every time you see a Progress Pride flag being waved at a Pride march, printed on a t-shirt, or hanging outside a bar? Quasar got paid for that.

Quasar has said that they believe that artists should be compensated for their work. Which I can totally get behind as a sentiment until you realise that, actually, there’s nothing about the Progress flag that is new. It’s a mish-mash of elements from other community flags - the original Pride flag, the trans flag, the More Colour More Pride flag - and none of the original creators are being compensated.

In fact, those original creators intentionally put their designs in the public domain, as a gift to the community. Now, by combining and copyrighting these elements, Quasar has essentially taken a shared community resource and locked it behind a paywall.

For a flag that’s supposed to represent inclusivity, that feels... a bit iffy.

So... Which Flag Should We Use?

I’m fully aware that my fence-sitter tendencies are showing here, but honestly... I don’t think there is a single right answer.

The Pride flag has decades of history behind it, a powerful symbol of defiance and unity that’s stood the test of time.

And the Progress Pride flag, for all its messy bits, carries an important ambition: to highlight intersectionality and signal solidarity with the most marginalised among us. But it’s also tangled up in questions of ownership, profit, and the tension between inclusivity and division.

The whole conversation kind of reminds me of similar conversations we’ve been having about whether we should be using queer or LBGTQ+ to describe our community (or some other acronym entirely - the options seemingly never end!). And, although I have my personal preference, in lots of ways… I don’t care.

Both terms have their merits, both have their complications, and both point to the same thing: us, trying to find each other and build something together.

So, maybe I’ve been asking the wrong question all along.

Maybe it’s not about which flag we wave, but why we’re waving it in the first place.

It's a scary world out there at the moment. Anti-LGBTQ+ legislation is popping up all over the place, our rights are under attack, and our community is facing real, tangible threats.

In that context, I don’t think it matters whether it's six stripes or nine, whether it's rainbow or chevron or green or grey or maroon. What matters is that we're still here, still fighting, and still refusing to be invisible.