Hello everyone,

Though this blog is largely on hiatus, I thought it was about time to provide a little update about the genderqueer flag.

Genderqueer Flag Around the World

I am always happy to see where the genderqueer flag is being used throughout the world; this update has been inspired in part by recently finding out by chance that the genderqueer (젠더퀴어) flag is being used in Korea, with lots of wonderful items being made incorporating the colors (like these cute pins), infographics, and flags. The Twitter account Genderqueer0425 posts a lot of useful information about genderqueer and non-binary identity in Korean, so give them a follow if that interests you.

The History of the Genderqueer Flag and the Matter of the Suffragette Flag

I also have seen a few times recently the issue of the colors of the British suffragette flag versus the genderqueer flag come up yet again. I had previously written a post about this in 2013, but discussion over it persists, so I would like to talk about it once more here.



The genderqueer flag I had designed went through several iterations, as follows:

June 2010, version 1:

September 2010, version 2:

A little bit before version 3, shown below, I had even incorporated the color black into a tentative idea. The reasoning behind moving the white into the middle was in part so the color would not disappear when the flag had a white background behind it when shown online.

June 2011, Version 3:

The colors had a slight adjustment in June 2012, which you can read about here.

As I wrote about in the aforementioned 2013 post, I was entirely unfamiliar with the association of similar colors with the British suffragette movement when deciding on what colors I wanted to utilize for the genderqueer flag. My familiarity with British culture at that time was largely confined to the music I was interested in and a few British friends I had made online, also through shared music interests.

As this post notes, the colors between the flags are not identical, and they also may appear in a different order. If I had observed such a similarity, it is possible I may have gone with different colors or a different design, though using lavender and white especially was the basis of the flag from the start. When I first designed the initial flag when I was 20 years old, I had not been out as genderqueer for very long and it is something I mostly did for my own sense of self, hoping a little that others may get some use out of it. I had no idea that people all around the world would still be using it, almost 9 years later.

Additionally, there unfortunately are anti-trans people who use the suffragette flag online in their profile, and people who confuse it for the genderqueer flag may not understand what is going on. There are some anti-trans people who may even discuss or utilize the suffragette flag on purpose in certain situations to create confusion and anger because they know it is similar to something that transgender and genderqueer people, especially outside of the UK, are more familiar with. If you are confused or harassed by these people, please report or ignore them and move on. The way they are using, or abusing, either of these flags does not reflect anything about genderqueer pride and has nothing to do with the GQ community.

In the past year and a half I have lived in the UK for grad school (I am from San Francisco), I have now regularly seen the suffragette flag in various political and museum contexts. I do not think it is necessarily a terrible thing that they are similar at all (they both concern gender and empowerment), but I don’t appreciate the hostility that has sometimes come with asking questions about where the colors of the genderqueer flag actually come from or people abusing or misunderstanding the history of either of these flags. I think it is important for people to know that these flags exist in very different contexts.

The Non-Binary Pride Flag

Many people today are also no doubt familiar with the non-binary pride flag created by Kye Rowan in 2014, which is also in common use today alongside or instead of the genderqueer flag. As always, individuals and communities should use whichever flag they feel represents them most accurately; the genderqueer flag is not meant to compete against any other design (which Rowan also has elaborated on), and over the years when this blog was more active I even encouraged people to submit alternate designs for a genderqueer or non-binary flag or for specific identities.

It is also worth noting that in 2010, at the time of my initial design, the term non-binary was not as common as it is today. On Google Trends and in the graph below, you can see “genderqueer” pictured in blue and “non-binary” pictured in red, from January 2010 to January 2019. Though I incorporated ‘non-binary’ in the name of the flag in 2013, it is unquestionable that most people think of the lavender/white/green flag as being ‘the genderqueer flag’ at this point, and of Rowan’s design as being the non-binary flag, and that is completely okay with me.

Genderqueer and non-binary have almost complete overlap in the identities they refer to, which I have written about previously, however ‘queer’ has political and theoretical, even confrontational, connotations. I personally love and embrace those connotations, but they are ones that not everyone wants or understands. I have even found it easier to explain my identity to cisgender people by using the term ‘non-binary’ myself than I ever did using the term genderqueer. Identity can be complex and easy isn’t always what we want or need though, is it? I love being queer, and will be, forever.



Likely the last update you will see from me for a long time here, but I hope this answers some questions. You can find me on Twitter @MarilynRoxie if you want to know what I’m up to these days..

Much love,

~Marilyn