Today we uploaded our latest LGBT History Month post covering the history of the Gilbert Baker rainbow pride flag and how it has become the enduring symbol and colours that we now associate with LGBT+ pride and liberation all over the world. You may have noticed there was a flag missing from our breakdown of the evolution of the flag from its origins to its current form today. We purposefully chose to leave out the ‘progress’ pride flag for reasons we would like to explain in this blog post.
To start with, we would like to be clear that although the progress pride flag contains stripes referencing the transgender flag colours and the black and brown stripes for recognition of non white members of the LGBT+ community, our position against the progress pride flag is not due to transphobia or racism.
In fact, we have not publicly criticised this flag before due to concerns that our issues with this flag may be misconstrued as such. But between the end of LGBT history month, and the start of pride season we would like to appeal to brands and organisations that would usually change their social media icons to the progress flag or use it as decorations in their shops and businesses this summer to consider these points first.
1 – The Progress pride flag is copyrighted and the profits go to one single creator.
Daniel Quasar, the designer of the progress pride flag holds the copyright for the design meaning it cannot be reproduced legally without paying them as the creator. This means that a symbol that is supposed to be representative of the entire LGBT+ community is generating profit for one person. By copyrighting this flag, Quasar has broken a tradition started in 1978 when the creators of the original rainbow flag chose not to copyright it so that it would belong to the community and not any one person. Since then, creators of LGBT+ flags have kept their flags in the public domain and with the creation of the internet, new flag designs are posted on social media to be spread far and wide without restrictions.
It is unclear just how much money has been generated through the copyrighting of this flag since its creation in 2018 as Quasar does not make this information public knowledge. On the Progress Initiative website it states that ‘permission’ (meaning licensing fees) is required so that “support is returned to the community it serves” however it is not made clear how this support is returned and to whom.
The homepage of the website does state that “25% of sales will go towards donations made to organizations that help our community” but that leaves 75% unaccounted for, room for a comfortable profit on the $55 flags and $12 pin badges even after manufacturing costs. (It also implies that it may not be the full 25% that is donated as it only says 25% goes towards these donations not that 25% is donated). This promise of donations only seems to apply to sales made through the website, however, and (presumably) not the money generated through collaborations with brands such as Target and Dr Martens meaning profit is generated not only for these brands but for Quasar themself through hefty licensing fees paid to their design company.
2- The flag is made from stolen elements with no compensation to the original creators.
None of the elements of Quasar’s design are new. They have simply taken the elements from three other flags (The six stripe pride flag widely attributed to Gilbert Baker, Monica Helm’s transgender flag and the black and brown stripes from the Philadelphia ‘More Colours More Pride’ flag unveiled in 2017). In fact, even the chevron design is not unique as this appears on the demisexual flag. As all of these designs are in the public domain, Quasar did not have to pay the creators of these flags to take their work, paste them all together and then copyright the result as their own design meaning they are essentially making money from other people’s work. These flags and creators are credited on the Progress Initiative website, but no money is going to the creators.
So not only has Daniel Quasar taken the work of other creators, they have gone directly against the wishes of these people by copyrighting the work. At the very least, Quasar could be paying for the use of these stolen design elements but if they are, this has not been publicly stated.
3- It’s less about representation and more about ticking inclusion boxes.
The rainbow flag is the symbol that represents the LGBT+ community as a whole. It is not only for gay people but for everyone under the LGBT+ umbrella including trans and nonbinary people.
“It’s all the colors. It represents all the genders. It represents all the races. It is the rainbow of humanity.” – Gilbert Baker.
The beautiful thing about the rainbow flag is that it’s design inspiration was nothing further than a want to add colour to the pride celebrations; and even when the colour meanings were decided, there weren’t stripes or sections of the flag devoted to specific identities, but instead they represented concepts and values that could be applied to all members of the community. To redesign it in order to make it more ‘progressive’ implies that the original is regressive and not inclusive enough. It implies that non white people and trans people were not included in the original pride flag design which is ahistorical.
The progress pride flag, and the Philadelphia flag’s inclusion of the black and brown stripes have also been criticised as being western – centric as they are claimed to highlight non white members of the LGBT+ community, which outside of the west is the majority of the community.
We understand the need to highlight more marginalised areas of the community and show solidarity with them, but it doesn’t feel that this is the Progress flag’s intention. Daniel Quasar has turned the pride flag into a commercial product neatly packaged and easy to sell, allowing the corporations that use it to tick inclusion boxes by displaying one symbol rather than doing anything of worth. This is further highlighted by the black doubling as representation for black LGBT+ people and also those living with, or lost to, AIDS. This is a very efficient way to tick one more box of inclusion and representation without having to add any new designs to the flag. It also doesn’t make a great deal of sense, as the internationally recognised symbol for AIDS awareness is the red ribbon but this has been ignored.
If organisations and companies want to show their support for transgender people and non white people, they should fly the trans flag and the black lives matter flag alongside the rainbow flag. On top of this, their support for these groups should be more than putting some colours in the window.
4- It encourages consumerism.
Bear with us on this one.
By redesigning the pride flag to contain the flags of specific identities, Quasar has set a precedent. Inevitably, other members of the LGBT+ community will ask why they are not represented in this symbol and this sparks further redesigns. We have already seen this happen with the creation of the Intersex Inclusive pride flag by UK based intersex activist Valentino Vecchietti*, and another version that features the sex workers umbrella symbol and a new gradient on the black and brown stripes to represent all colours of non white LGBT+ people.
Why is this a problem? Well, it means that your new Progress pride flag now has a half life. Already many businesses that display a rainbow flag during pride month have replaced their flags with the Progress pride flag to be seen as more inclusive. Then in 2021, only 3 years after the Progress flag was created, the intersex variant was released prompting many businesses to replace their flags again. This means that businesses cannot buy just one high quality flag and use it for years to come. It is expected that they show themselves to be the most inclusive they can be and buy every new combined pride flag variant that comes out.
*The creator of the Intersex Inclusion flag has stated to us that the design is her own and is not a Progress Pride Flag variant. Unlike the Progress flag, this design is in the public domain and free to use, however they would like organisations that use the flag to make profit to make donations to local LGBTQIA+ groups. Unlike Quasar, Vecchietti does not seem to intend to make profit from their design.
Consider the Gilbert Baker Diversity flag.
If you’ve been paying attention to our LGBT History month instagram posts you’ll have noticed we’ve bordered them with 9 colours. This is the 2017 Gilbert Baker Diversity flag. As our post highlighted, due to issues with sourcing fabric the pink and turquoise stripes were removed from the original flag resulting in the 6 stripe version we know today. Now, with the advent of digital printing, sourcing dyed fabrics is no longer a barrier to flag creation and we can include any amount of colours under the sun. Despite this, we never returned to the original 8 stripe flag because the 6 stripes had been tradition for several decades.
In 2017, shortly before his death, Gilbert Baker added a lavender stripe to the original 8 colours of the 1978 pride flag, stating that this colour was to celebrate the diversity of the LGBT+ community. This symbol predates the Progress pride flag by one year but has not had anywhere near the amount of publicity. We would personally love to see this flag get the recognition it deserves this pride season.
Unlike the progress flag and its variants, the original eight and six colour flags are enduring symbols that have stood the test of time, and as more identities are added to the LGBT+ umbrella it is understood that this flag represents these groups also.
The Diversity flag should be the flag to reach for when we want to make an inclusionist statement. It is a similarly timeless symbol and represents the changing fabric and diversity of the LGBT+ community and, unlike the Progress flag, is in the public domain and free to use without restrictions meaning it can be recreated, sold and displayed by anyone.
To conclude, we will not be cutting ties with anyone who flies the Progress Pride Flag this year. Any gesture of solidarity with the LGBT+ community is a good one. But we would like to see more thought go into the symbols organisations use to express this support. If the extent of your support is buying a commercialised polyester flag then it is simply not enough.
In addition, until Daniel Quasar is transparent about how much money is being generated by the licensing of this flag to brands and other organisations and it is clear the money is going back into the community and not just into their own pockets, it is not a flag that will get our support.
01/03/22 12:16am – Edited to include further information about the Valentino Vecchietti Intersex Inclusion flag.
Sources and further reading
https://progress.gay/pages/terms-of-use
https://progress.gay/
https://danielquasar.com/work/
https://gaycitynews.com/we-need-walk-away-progress-profit-flag/
https://www.inquirer.com/philly-tips/philadelphia-pride-flag-20210612.html
https://gilbertbaker.com/flags/
https://www.worldaidsday.org/the-red-ribbon/
https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2021/06/pride-flag-has-representation-problem/619273/
https://emjaymurphee.medium.com/we-dont-need-a-new-pride-flag-efc883e0817b
Northants Lesbian Society 
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