The flag is “frankly insulting to a significant portion of the intersex community.”
A new LGBT flag design released “to better represent intersex people” has drawn backlash from the LGBT and intersex communities.
The “Progress Pride” flag, which contains brown and black stripes to represent ethnic minorities, and blue, pink, and white stripes to represent transgender people, placed on top of the classic rainbow pride flag, has now received an update to allegedly represent the intersex community better. “Intersex” refers to a spectrum of medical conditions that result in people having variations in sex characteristics somewhere inbetween male and female.
The flag was designed by Valentino Vecchietti, of Intersex Equality Rights UK, who posted the flag on their Instagram page. The organization claimed that it had received lots of positive feedback from “intersex people and allies from all over the globe” who “said it is bringing them joy to see intersex inclusion.” The intersex symbol, which is a purple circle on a yellow background, was originally created by Intersex Human Rights Australia in 2013, and states that “the circle is unbroken and un-ornamented, symbolizing wholeness and completeness, and our potentialities.”
However, as usual, the political LGBT and intersex activists seemingly do not represent all of those who they claim to speak for. Backlash was swift online from many in the LGBT community, who slammed the new design as being “overly complex,” and noting that the original LGBT rainbow flag was meant to represent everybody.
