What is Flag Library.LGBT?

Flag Library.LGBT is an online library of the most common Pride Flags you’ll find in the Queer community that celebrate and represent the various identities within the Queer umbrella, with an aim to bring information behind the designs, their histories, and the meanings behind them.

Flags in the Queer community have a special place – as well as being symbols of resistance to shame and an open expression of our Queerness, they express our individual sexual, romantic, and gender/sex identities in a concise way.

The Flag Library.LGBT will continue to be updated with flags and the variations in design that arise. We are, by no means, not the most comprehensive collection of flags. There are many other variants of flags that people design, and Queer vexillology is a popular hobby (check out this Reddit!), and there are many different sexual and gender identities (such as ‘pocket sexualities’ and ‘pocket genders’ – that is, sexualities and gender identities used by a small number of people) that are not represented on Library.LGBT.

This is an editorial decision – simply because keeping up with the huge number of them would be a mammoth task that would never end and grow exponentially! This is not an attempt at gatekeeping or dismissing identities as not being valid – we recognise that everybody’s experience of gender, sex and sexuality is unique, and may not be aptly represented by more well-known identities. That applies too to the flags that represent them.

As such, our selection criteria across Library.LGBT is uniform, and in regards to our flag database:

• Flags that are prominent in the Queer community;
• Flags that have gained notable coverage, for example, in the news;
• Flags that are used by other organisations, or websites that deal with health, human rights, etc;
• Flags that people are likely to come across – either in greater society, or through the internet (such as on websites like Google Images);
• Flags that have a notable history that is well documented.

It is the case that there are many different flags representing a single identity in circulation, and as such, Library.LGBT will use one to represent that identity throughout the sites (e.g. in our designs, on definition pages, etc). This is not an attempt to make one flag official over the others; it may simply be the case that a particular flag was known to us before others, or that one flag garnished more results on search engines – nor is it an endorsement over a particular design over another, or an endorsement of the creator of the flag (such as if they have problematic views).

Submissions

For more information about submissions, please read the above guidelines and click here.