Chicago Trans Pride Flag

Overview

To let Chicago's trans community and allies express civic and trans identity simultaneously, reusing the same graphic logic PrideFlags.com applies to its six-stripe-rainbow Chicago Pride Flag. ^[2][3]

Chicago's municipal flag was designed by poet and self-taught vexillographer Wallace Rice, who wrote the rules for a 1915–1917 flag competition sponsored by the city and then won it himself; the design was adopted by City Council in 1917 with two stars, gained a third in 1933, and reached its current four-star form by 1939. Each of the four red, six-pointed stars marks a historical event (the founding of Fort Dearborn, the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, and the Century of Progress Exposition of 1933–34). ^[4][3] The transgender pride flag was designed by Monica Helms, a trans American Navy veteran, and first flown at the Phoenix Pride Parade in 2000; Helms has stated the flag cannot be copyrighted because it belongs to the entire transgender community. ^[5][6] This mashup substitutes the transgender flag's full five-stripe sequence (light blue, pink, white, pink, light blue) for the municipal flag's white field and two light-blue bars across the entire surface, with the four stars alternating pink and light blue instead of the municipal flag's uniform red.

Identity & Context

Represented Identity

Transgender community

Subcommunity

Chicago transgender community

Movement

Trans visibility, civic pride, hometown pride

National Context

United States; Chicago

Chicago has a distinctive culture of civic flag pride: the four-star municipal flag appears on tattoos, storefronts, and apparel far more than most American city flags, a phenomenon that accelerated in the 1990s. ^[3] This design channels that civic-flag enthusiasm specifically toward trans visibility, narrower than the broader LGBTQ community addressed by this archive's other Chicago Pride Flag entries.

Creators

The Creator

Attribution notes

The design is attributed to PrideFlags.com as its designing organization and manufacturer; no individual designer is named. PrideFlags.com states in its FAQ that each PrideFlag is designed, cut, sewn and quality-tested in its Chicago studio. That supports Chicago as the organizational design and production location for the series; it names no individual designer. ^[4][2]

Origin

Country

United States

Region / state

Illinois

City

Chicago

Place Type

design and production studio / civic Pride design

Origin Type

organizational design and production location

Designed and produced in Chicago, Illinois, on the traditional homeland of the Council of the Three Fires (Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi). ^[7][8]

Indigenous land context

Council of the Three Fires (Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi) — traditional and historical homeland (Indigenous name: Niswi-mishkodewin). The Chicago area is the traditional homeland of the Council of the Three Fires, the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi Nations, and has also been home to the Miami, Ho-Chunk, Menominee, and Sac and Fox peoples. The 1833 Treaty of Chicago forced the migration of Odawa, Potawatomi, and Ojibwe peoples west of the Mississippi River, and Chicago later became a destination for coerced relocation under the federal Indian Relocation Act of 1956. ^{[7][8] [7][8]}

Colonial / settler context

Chicago was incorporated as a U.S. city in 1837 following the Treaty of Chicago (1833), which forced the removal of Odawa, Potawatomi, and Ojibwe peoples from the region. ^{[8] [8]}

Chicago is the city the design represents and the documented organizational design and production location: the seller states each flag is designed, cut, sewn and quality-tested in its Chicago studio. No individual designer is named. ^[4][2]

Dates & Chronology

Year Created

2019

Documented

Documented for sale from 21 June 2019

Creation Bounds

The product record’s publishOn and addedOn fields both carry 21 June 2019, the first documented PrideFlags.com publication of the listing. Publication of the product page bounds the design’s creation rather than dating it. The sitewide footer "All flag designs ©PrideFlags.com 2019" is a copyright notice, not a creation or publication date; several products in the series demonstrably predate it. ^[1][2]

Sold as a printed poly-silk flag by PrideFlags.com under the name "Chicago Trans Pride," alongside similar products from other retailers including Flags For Good's "Chicago-Inspired Trans Pride Flag" and independent marketplace listings on Etsy — though this archive could not confirm whether those other listings share this entry's exact composition. ^[2][9][10]

This entry is part of PrideFlags.com’s fourteen-design Chicago series, documented in publication cohorts of 2016, 2017, 2019 and 2024, alongside the six-stripe-rainbow "Chicago Pride" flag (chicago-pride-flag) and a further chevron-added "NEW Chicago Pride Flag" variant, both documented elsewhere in this archive. Unlike those two, this design carries no rainbow content — it is built entirely from the transgender pride flag's own five-color sequence. ^[2][1]

Lineage

Direct predecessors

Transgender Pride Flag

Related flags

Chicago Stars Pride Flag, Chicago Pride Flag (Rainbow Stripes, Purple Stars)

Sibling flags

Anarcha-Queer Flag (transgender variant), Cisgender Ally Flag, "Fuck Around and Find Out" Trans Pride Flag, Nonbinary Trans Flag (2026, cirrus42), Progress Pride Flag, Sego Visibility Flag

+ 4 more

Trans Ally Flag, Transgender Pride Flag with Transgender Symbol, Transneutral Pride Flag, Two-Spirit Transgender Pride Flag

A two-source design, in the pattern of the whole series: the City of Chicago municipal flag (Wallace Rice, 1917, four stars by 1939) supplies the civic structure, its white field and its bar and star positions, and Transgender Pride Flag supplies the palette. The municipal flag has no entry in this archive, as a civic rather than Pride flag. The other Chicago designs from the same seller are family members rather than parents or children of this one. ^[5][1]

Lineage tree

Every record reachable from this one through documented parent and child relationships: 2 records across 2 generations.

Ancestor

Transgender Pride Flag

This record

Chicago Trans Pride Flag

Colors & Symbolism

The flag keeps Chicago's civic identity legible through the retained star positions and overall proportions, while fully adopting the transgender pride flag's own color language and symmetry — the five-stripe sequence reads identically upside down, per Helms's original design intent. Trans identity, not a general rainbow-pride identity, is the flag's primary content. ^[2][5]

This flag has no official digital palette. Color values shown are approximate.

First six-pointed star (pink)

Fort Dearborn, established 1803. Position inherited from the City of Chicago's municipal flag. ^[4][3]

Second six-pointed star (light blue)

The Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Position inherited from the City of Chicago's municipal flag. ^[4][3]

Third six-pointed star (pink)

The World's Columbian Exposition of 1893. Position inherited from the City of Chicago's municipal flag. ^[4][3]

Fourth six-pointed star (light blue)

The Century of Progress Exposition of 1933–34. Position inherited from the City of Chicago's municipal flag. ^[4][3]

The palette and any motifs are inherited from Transgender Pride Flag, whose documented symbolism is carried on its own entry; the seller publishes no new statement of meaning for the Chicago recolouring, and none is invented here. The municipal flag’s stars historically mark four events in Chicago’s history; the recolouring keeps their positions, and no source states that their event meanings were intentionally retained. ^[5]

No colour specification is published. The values here are measured from the first-party flat product JPEG exposed by the seller’s own product record; they are measurements from lossy retailer artwork, not creator-issued specifications. Palette meanings belong to the parent flag and are documented on its entry; the recolouring inherits the palette without a new statement of meaning from the seller. ^[1]

Design

Aspect Ratio

3:2 · manufactured

Ratio Notes

The seller manufactures the flag in 36 × 54 inch and 60 × 90 inch sizes, both 3:2 in width-to-height terms. The first-party flat artwork file (WebFlag_ChicagoTrans.jpg) is 1441 by 947 pixels, a source-image canvas recorded separately from the manufactured ratio. ^[2][1]

Orientation

horizontal

Stripe Count

5

Layout

horizontal_stripes_with_stars

Stripes (Top → Bottom)

Light Blue, Pink, White, Pink, Light Blue

Center Symbol

Four six-pointed stars, alternating pink and light blue, centered within the white stripe

The transgender flag’s five-stripe sequence fills the municipal flag’s entire field, light blue, pink, white, pink, light blue, and the four six-pointed stars sit in the white centre stripe, alternating pink and light blue. Described and measured from the seller’s flat product artwork. ^[1]

The transgender flag’s five-stripe sequence fills the municipal flag’s entire field, light blue, pink, white, pink, light blue, and the four six-pointed stars sit in the white centre stripe, alternating pink and light blue.

Usage & Adoption

Organizations

PrideFlags.com

Geographic Usage

Chicago, Illinois

Online Usage

Low

Event Usage

Chicago Pride Parade, Trans Day of Visibility / Trans Day of Remembrance observances in Chicago

Current Status

Documented for sale from 2019

The design is documented for sale from 21 June 2019 through the seller’s own product record, in 36 × 54 inch and 60 × 90 inch printed poly silk. A retail listing demonstrates manufacture and sale, not community adoption, and no organizational adoption or photographed community use has been located. ^[1][2]

Image Archive

The product

Discourse & Debates

• Whether Chicago-flag mashups should be organized around the general rainbow palette (as in chicago-pride-flag) or around a specific identity flag like this one, and what that choice implies about which communities get a dedicated civic-pride variant.

Common misidentifications

• Sometimes mistaken for the rainbow-based Chicago Pride Flag at a glance, since both apply the same "identity flag colors on the Chicago flag" logic; the color palettes are otherwise unrelated.
• This entry versus Flags For Good's separately marketed "Chicago-Inspired Trans Pride Flag," which this archive could not confirm shares an identical composition. ^[9]

"Chicago Trans Pride" and "Chicago Transgender Pride Flag" are used interchangeably across retailers for this general design approach; this entry documents the specific composition sold under those names by PrideFlags.com. ^[2]

Editorial note

This entry was built following the same research and correction process used for this archive's other Chicago Pride Flag entries: the user supplied PrideFlags.com's own official product image directly, and this entry's design fields are built to match it exactly instead of relying on ambiguous retailer marketing language.

Footnotes & Citations

Image Sources

Rendering

trans-flag-chicago-full-field

• The image shown is Encycloflaggia’s derived copy of the seller’s product artwork; the first-party flat JPEG (1441 by 947 pixels) is the principal visual evidence. ^[1] · Credit: PrideFlags.com · PrideFlags.com · first-party product artwork
• The seller’s flagpole mockup, evidence that the design is sold as a physical flag. ^[2] · Credit: PrideFlags.com · PrideFlags.com