Heading to a pride festival? Well, chances are that you’ll want to bring a flag along with you. You can give it a bit of a wave during certain events, or maybe just drape it over your shoulders to represent who you are. But, what LGBTQ flag should you bring to a pride festival?
On this page, we’re going to walk you through not only how to choose the right LGBTQ flag for your pride festival adventures, but we’ll tell you some of the most common flags that you’ll find. Hopefully, this will make it easier to choose which flag is right for you.
Pride Flag Crowd
Why Take an LGBTQ Flag to a Pride Festival?
Because the flag is a way to represent who you are. Now, don’t get us wrong. There is no obligation to take any flag to a pride festival. Plenty of people don’t. But, you have to remember that a pride festival is a way of celebrating LGBTQ culture, and it is a nice way to show off who you are as a person.
If you fly an LGBTQ flag at a pride festival, chances are that you’ll have people come up and talk to you who may be interested in becoming friends, or perhaps something more. A lot of people fly flags at these festivals in a way to try and make a few friends. It is certainly one of the reasons why we enjoy whipping out an LGBTQ flag.
Remember, you don’t have to take a huge flag to the pride festival. Many do not. Sure, it is nice to wave a big flag around throughout the day, but they are pretty cumbersome to carry. Sometimes, just taking a small flag that you can drape over your shoulders (or perhaps a tiny flag to pin to your coat) is much better.
How Do You Choose the Right LGBTQ Flag to Take to a Pride Festival?
So, how do you choose an LGBTQ flag to fly at a pride festival? Well, it is incredibly easy. In fact, things are far easier now than they were a few years ago.
Nowadays, there are a ton of different LGBTQ flags. In the past, you would have had the rainbow flag and not much else. Well, there would have been flags other than the rainbow flag, but most people wouldn’t have recognized them. Nowadays, you have tons and tons of recognizable options. In the next section, we’re going to detail the main LGTBQ flags that you’ll find at a pride festival. Hopefully, this will make it easier for you to choose the one that is right for you.
Remember, always choose a flag that says something about your personality. For many LGBTQ people, a pride festival is one of the only opportunities that they ever have to really show off who they are, so why wouldn’t you want to make the most of it?
Chances are that there will be multiple flags that describe your sexuality. Some people will take multiple flags to the pride festival, but you don’t really need to do that. You just need to choose the one that shows off your personality the most.
The Top Choices for LGBTQ Flags
As we said, there are plenty of different LGBTQ flags to choose from, and chances are that you’ll find a good number of them flying at any pride festival. In this section, we want to go through the most popular LGBTQ flags.
This is not a complete list of LGBTQ flags that you can choose from. There are tons and tons of different options. Instead, we want to, briefly, run you through the most popular. The ones that you are most likely to find at any pride festival. So, if you’re really struggling to choose which pride flag to use, choose one of the ones on this list and you probably won’t go too far wrong.
Rainbow Flag (Gilbert Pride Flag)
This 8-color pride flag was the one that kickstarted the whole trend toward there being flags that celebrate LGBTQ pride. It was designed in 1977 and eventually led to the rainbow flag that we will discuss in the next section.
The Gilbert Pride Flag is a little old now, and one that you won’t really find commonly flown at pride flags, with many people opting for the 6-color rainbow flag instead. However, this is still a flag that is worth considering, especially if you are on the older side of things. We also see it as a great flag that can help to celebrate the history of LGBTQ causes, and really shows everybody how far the community has come since the 1970s.
6-Color Rainbow Flag
The 6-color rainbow flag was also designed by the same guy that developed the 8 color flag. This one is now the most commonly used rainbow flag at pride festivals, and you’ll see it pretty much everywhere.
The 6-color rainbow flag represents pretty much the same thing that the 8-color rainbow flag represents. This means pride in gay culture. The only reason it has fewer colors is that it was a bit more practical to make at the time. Back when this flag was developed, it was difficult to get the hot pink color needed on the 8 color flag, and the second color (turquoise) was dropped to make the flag easier to hang up in certain locations.
This is the flag that we really think that you should go for if you don’t really have any idea about any other flag that you should be bringing along to the pride festival. Sure, some people may think it is a little bit cliche, but at the end of the day, this is the flag that you are going to be seeing flown the most at the pride festivals, so why not use it and show the world just how much you care for pro-LGBTQ causes?
Transgender Flag
While the transgender flag was created in 1999, it is only recently that we have started to see it appear in any sort of numbers at pride festivals. We suppose that this is because many pride festivals are starting to encourage more and more transgender people to attend the festival.
The colors on this flag are simple. You have baby blue and baby pink. These colors are meant to represent both males and females. In the center, you have a white color. This is meant to represent intersex people.
Obviously, this is the type of flag that you would be flying at a pride festival if you are transgender.
Transgender Flag
New Progress Pride Flag
This is an incredibly new flag, and one that we haven’t seen flown a whole lot at pride festivals, but we reckon that it is going to gain a whole lot of traction over the coming years.
The purpose of the New Progress Pride Flag is to try and combine multiple pride flags into a single flag. So, you get the rainbow colors, something to symbolize transgender people, etc.
This is a flag that is constantly being updated to try to include as many different sexualities into the flag as possible, so the version that you see today may not necessarily be the same version that you see a few years from now.
As we said, this isn’t really a flag that you are going to see flown too often at pride festivals, especially those located outside of the United States. Still, it is a nice flag to choose to bring with you if you are looking for a flag that is unique but isn’t too different.
New Progress Pride Flag
Non-Binary Pride Flag
The non-binary pride flag was created in 2014 and was designed specifically for nonbinary people. It includes multiple colors:
Yellow
White
Purple
Black
Each of these colors is meant to cover a different subgroup of nonbinary people. Because it is a newer flag, it isn’t flown a ton at pride festivals. Well, that and the fact that nonbinary people are often outnumbered at pride festivals, but it is one that we have seen gain a little bit of traction due to its prevalence on social media.
Obviously, this is a flag that you should be flying if you class yourself as nonbinary. It is going to be the flag that best represents who you are as a person, we think.
Bisexual Flag
The bisexual flag was developed at the tail end of the 1990s and was a way to try and draw bisexual people into the gay community.
The bisexual flag has blue and pink colors which, in the center, combine to form a purple color. The idea is to symbolize that bisexual people can be found loving whoever they want, no matter their gender.
This is a flag that we have started to see flown more and more at pride festivals, possibly because many pride festivals have started to become more accepting of bisexual people.
This is a flag that you should be flying if you consider yourself bisexual.
Pansexual Flag
This yellow, blue, and pink flag was developed in 2010. It is a flag meant to represent those people who are attracted to others and where gender will not play a major role in who they choose. They are attracted to just about anybody with good looks and an awesome personality.
The pansexual flag’s colors are fairly self-explanatory. The pink and the blue colors are meant to symbolize attraction to males and females, while the yellow color is meant to symbolize attraction to those who do not categorize themselves as any gender.
Fly this flag if you are a proud pansexual. At many of the smaller pride festivals, you will come across as very unique as this flag isn’t flown a whole lot.
Lesbian Flag
The lesbian flag combines various shades of orange and pink, along with a white center. It is meant to showcase various aspects of being a lesbian. It is a fairly new flag, and it is only recently that many lesbians have opted to move from the standard rainbow flag to the lesbian flag.
This isn’t a flag that you’ll find flown a whole lot as pride festivals. Not because it isn’t a decent flag. There are still some lesbians opposed to the lesbian flag because they feel as if it doesn’t cover certain groups of lesbians. Still, if you choose to fly this yourself, you probably won’t run into too many issues.
Lesbian Flag
Gay Men’s Pride Flag
The gay men’s pride flag is very similar to the lesbian flag. It just switches up the colors a little bit. So, you have white, shades of blue, and shades of green.
Again, this isn’t a flag that you are going to see flown a whole lot at pride festivals (since many gay men opt for the rainbow flag), but it is starting to become more popular. It certainly doesn’t have any of the same issues that the lesbian flag has.
Heterosexual Pride Flag
Yes. Some heterosexual pride flags will be flown at LGBTQ pride festivals. There are a few reasons for this.
The main is that it allows heterosexual people to demonstrate their support for the LGTBQ community.
Secondly, it allows transgender people to show that they are looking for the opposite gender i.e. they are heterosexual.
Obviously, it isn’t flown a huge amount. Some people feel as if they flew this, they would come across as insulting. It’ll probably be easier to have this at one of the larger pride festivals than a small town one.
Final Thoughts
There you have it! All the information that you really need to help you to choose which LGBTQ flag to bring to a pride festival. The only thing you really need to think about is how large you want that pride flag to be. We’ll leave that part to you, though!
Remember, you don’t have to bring a flag to that pride festival. A lot of people don’t! The only thing that you really need to remember to bring to the pride festival is the ability to have fun because, trust us, you are going to have a huge amount of fun on the day!
Hello, my name is Gay Worlley - no, really - and I love learning about all things queer. I am also a qualified gardener and enjoy traveling in my spare time.
I love sharing my travel stories with anyone who will listen, and now I want to share them with the world through my new website! Not only that, but I want to inspire others and teach you about LGBTQ+ travel, queer media, pride, and much more.
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