The CASES Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Group give a brief history of the Pride Flag
2nd June 2025
As CASES begins its annual Pride Month celebrations through information and education, it is essential to honour the LGBTQIA+ community's history, struggles, and achievements.
The 1969 Stonewall riots in June marked a turning point in the LGBTQIA+ community’s rights, starting a journey towards inclusivity, equality, and acceptance, and raising awareness about the ongoing challenges the community faces. The Pride Flag goes hand-in-hand with these celebrations and their history, bearing its own distinct meaning.
The Traditional Pride Flag, used for decades, is a simplified version of the original Pride Flag created by Baker in 1978. Each colour has its own meaning: pink for sex, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sunlight, green for nature and growth, turquoise for magic, indigo for serenity and violet for spirit. Pink and turquoise were quickly dropped due to a shortage of pink and tortoise fabric at the time.
Over the years, the Pride Flag has evolved to increase visibility of under-represented groups within the LGBTQIA+ community and beyond. Different version of the Pride Flag incorporates colours and flags created to spotlight specific groups of the LGBTQIA+ community.
The Philadelphia Pride Flag (2017) added the brown and black colours to symbolise communities of colour.
The Progress Flag, created by Quaser in 2017-2018, incorporated the Philadelphia Pride and Trans Flags, where brown represents people of colour, black symbolises lives lost during the HIV/AIDS crisis, and white, pink, and light blue colours symbolise the Trans community.
The Intersex-Inclusive Progress Pride Flag, created by Vecchietti in 2021, features a purple circle on a yellow background, increasing the visibility of intersex people within the LGBTQIA+ community. The Intersex-Inclusive Progress Pride Flag is often named as the most recent version of the Pride Flag.
It can be tempting to use the most up-to-date version of the Pride Flag, as we have been taught to use the most current evidence in our research and practice. We encourage you to pause and reflect on your values, intentions, and true representation of the groups that each flag aims to spotlight.
We know that CASES has more work to do to truly represent all underrepresented minorities within the LGBTQIA+ community, some of which may not yet have their own version of the Pride Flag. Today, we choose to represent the universal values of humanity – life, healing, sunlight, growth, serenity, and spirit – as part of Pride Month 2025
