Gay Men's Pride Flag (Seven-Stripe, 2016, Anonymous and Mod Hermy)
Gay Men's Pride Flag ·
A seven-stripe flag in teal-to-blue tones with a pale centre stripe, published on 25 August 2016 by the Tumblr blog ask-pride-color-schemes in answer to an anonymous request. Its credit line names Anonymous and Mod Hermy jointly, and its stripe meanings were given by reference to the Pink Lesbian Flag rather than written out. Mod Hermy has since described it as a suggestion rather than a finished design.
Key facts
- Designer
- Anonymous and Mod Hermy
- Created
- First published
- Documented circulation
- 2016–present
- Aspect Ratio
- 3:5 · standard
- Ratio Notes
- The designer's own file on DeviantArt is 5000 by 3000 pixels, exactly 5:3. [1] The copies served with the two Tumblr posts, 640 by 384 and 540 by 324, hold the same proportion. [2][3] The archive renders it at the standard 3:5.
- Stripes
- 7
- Represented Identity
- gay men
Also known as
- Gay Man (Original proposed)
- Gay Man Seven-Stripe Flag
- Toothpaste Flag (informal)
- Listerine Flag (informal)
- All-Blue Gay Flag (informal)
Status Historical Proposed
Archive categories Sexual & Romantic Orientation Pride Flags
Overview
To answer an anonymous request for a flag specifically for gay men, on the reasoning that the rainbow flag had come to stand for LGBT people generally.
The flag was published on 25 August 2016, in a single exchange on the Tumblr blog ask-pride-color-schemes. An anonymous ask opened it: "Relating to the old discussion on a separate flag just for gay men a while back (since the regular gay flag tends to be used for LGBT overall)." The requester offered two routes, the bear flag without its pawprint, or "the same set up as the lesbian flag, but using blue and purple colors instead of red and pink". Mod Hermy answered the same day, took the second route and moved it off the requested colours: "Looks like someone already beat you to the blue/purple idea and used it for the Butch lesbian design: I tried it with blue/green instead, I think it looks distinct enough." The bear route was declined on the reasoning that "the brown colors might be so distinctly 'bear' that just removing the pawprint will just confuse people". [2]
The design went into the Pride-Flags gallery on DeviantArt on 29 May 2017, at 5000 by 3000 pixels. [1] On 26 June 2017 the Pride-Flags archive blog reposted it under the heading "Some proposed flags to represent specifically gay men since the rainbow flag represents all gay people and there like 6 lesbian flags", with the joint credit line and the reason for the palette: "Designed by: Anonymous and Mod Hermy (anonymous wanted blues and purples, but it looked too much like the butch lesbian flag so Hermy suggested using greens instead)." The meanings were given by reference rather than written out: "Color meanings: Based on the pink lesbian flag", with a link. The same post carried a second proposal by @shadowofthedude and Auri, a white and green flag with grey interlocking Mars symbols; the seven-stripe is the one that circulated. [3]
Identity & Context
- Represented Identity
- gay men
The request and the credit line both name gay men. [2][3] The broader term "MLM", covering gay, bisexual, pansexual and other men who are attracted to men, is applied to the design by later guides rather than by its makers.
Creators
The Creators
Anonymous
Requester, named first in the credit line
The flag began as an anonymous ask sent to the Tumblr blog ask-pride-color-schemes and answered there on 25 August 2016. [2] The requester proposed two routes to a gay men's flag, the bear flag stripped of its pawprint or a version of the lesbian flag recoloured into blues and purples, and Mod Hermy took the second and shifted it off blue and purple. [2] When the design was reposted to the Pride-Flags archive blog on 26 June 2017, the credit line read "Designed by: Anonymous and Mod Hermy", naming the requester first. [3]
Nothing else about this person is recoverable: Tumblr asks sent anonymously carry no identity, and Mod Hermy records that they never followed up. [1] The credit stands as the blog gave it.
Relating to the old discussion on a separate flag just for gay men a while back (since the regular gay flag tends to be used for LGBT overall). Since theres a lesbian flag that is the lipstick lesbian flag minus the lipstick symbol, maybe a gay man pride flag could be the gay bear flag without the bear symbol? Alternatively, maybe the same set up as the lesbian flag, but using blue and purple colors instead of red and pink. Just some suggestions!
The ask that produced the flag, 25 August 2016
Motivations
- To give gay men a flag of their own, on the reasoning that the rainbow flag had come to stand for the whole of LGBT
Stated inspirations
- The lipstick lesbian flag with its emblem removed, and the bear flag with its pawprint removed, offered as two possible models[2]
Mod Hermy
Designer of the published version
Mod Hermy answered the anonymous ask on 25 August 2016 and drew the flag that circulated. The palette was the part they changed: the requester had asked for blues and purples, and Hermy replied that "someone already beat you to the blue/purple idea and used it for the Butch lesbian design", so "I tried it with blue/green instead, I think it looks distinct enough." [2] The butch lesbian flag in question is Dorian Rutherford's of 2016, which already held the blue-to-purple range. Hermy also declined the bear-flag route, thinking "the brown colors might be so distinctly 'bear' that just removing the pawprint will just confuse people". [2]
Hermy moderated ask-pride-color-schemes and the Pride-Flags account on DeviantArt, which fielded requests for identity-specific designs through the mid-2010s and published them with credit lines. The flag went into the DeviantArt gallery on 29 May 2017 at 5000 by 3000 pixels and onto the Pride-Flags archive blog on 26 June 2017. [1][3]
Hermy is nonbinary and bi, and has said so while explaining that the flag was never presented as settled: "this was never meant to be a finalized design (especially since I'm nonbinary and bi), it was simply a suggestion". [4] The 2021 statement that carries that line also gives Hermy's own account of what happened to the design after it was posted, and sets out seven stripe meanings written with gay men in a pride Discord server. [4]
Looks like someone already beat you to the blue/purple idea and used it for the Butch lesbian design
Answering the anonymous request, 25 August 2016
I tried it with blue/green instead, I think it looks distinct enough. What do you think?
Posting the design for the first time, 25 August 2016
Also this was never meant to be a finalized design (especially since I'm nonbinary and bi), it was simply a suggestion since the anon that asked me about a gay man flag suggested one that was too similar to the butch lesbian flag.
March 2021, on the status of the design
I never want any of my flags being used to exclude part of the LGBTQAI+/MOGAI community.
March 2021, rejecting the flag's use by transmedicalist accounts
Motivations
- To answer a request for a gay men's flag with a design that would not be mistaken for the butch lesbian flag
Stated inspirations
- The Pink Lesbian Flag, whose stripe structure the design follows and whose meanings the post cites in place of its own[3]
Attribution
- Organization
- ask-pride-color-schemes / Pride-Flags
Origin
- Digital Origin
- Tumblr (ask-pride-color-schemes)
Digital origin; no verified physical location.
Published as an answer to an anonymous ask on the Tumblr blog ask-pride-color-schemes. [2] No offline launch is documented.
Dates & Chronology
- Year Created
- Exact date
- First published
- Documented circulation
- 2016–present
The design circulated on Tumblr and then through pride-flag guides, where it is generally the flag shown for gay men before 2019. [5] It travelled largely without its credit line. A community history of the flag records that it was "somewhat popularized through people arguing about it after transmedicalist/transmed/truscum blogger @discourse-king posted it without credit and it gained traction", and that many people took it for that blogger's own design. [6] Mod Hermy's account matches: a repost "wording it in a way that made people think it was made by them (and also 'official')", drawing far more attention than the original, "8.2k notes vs the 9 notes my original post has". [4]
The same history records the flag being adopted by r/LGBDropTheT, a trans-exclusionary subreddit later removed by Reddit for breaching its terms of service, and preserves screenshots because the posts can no longer be reached. It also notes that using the flag does not itself indicate those views, "as the flag is neither explicitly inclusive or exclusive of trans/nb spectrum gay men". [6]
By the designer's own framing the flag was superseded rather than adopted. Hermy's 2021 statement points readers to gayflagblog's 2019 designs as "a better version made by @gayflagblog to deal with the problems with my proposal/suggestion". [4][7] The 2016 origin post stood at 289 notes, 66 of them reblogs, when read on 14 August 2026. [2]
Major revisions
Mod Hermy published a revised version with seven new stripe meanings and a redrawn palette, describing the change as having "also made it prettier". The revision runs #00906F, #00C8BB, #87EEED, #FBFAFF, #7DCAF8, #049CF0, #002A89, measured from the 1280 by 768 file served with the post; not one of the seven matches the 2016 original. The meanings were written with gay men in a pride Discord server and based on gayflagblog's flag. [7][4]
Two dates in the record disagree. The origin post carries a 25 August 2016 timestamp, and Wikipedia gives the same date. [2][5] The description Mod Hermy later wrote on the DeviantArt posting recalls it differently: "Around May 2017 an anon made a suggestion on my blog ask-pride-color-schemes about a flag specifically for gay men." [1] The recollection was written years after the fact and the DeviantArt upload itself is dated 29 May 2017; this entry uses the timestamp on the original post.
Hermy's two accounts of the post's early reach also differ, at "like 6 notes" on DeviantArt and "9 notes" in the 2021 statement. [1][4] Both are the designer's own recollections of a figure the post no longer shows.
Mod Hermy has never treated the flag as settled. The 2021 statement calls it "a suggestion" rather than a finished design, and the design that answered its problems came from someone else. [4]
Lineage
- Indirect influences
- Pink Lesbian Flag
The model is the Pink Lesbian Flag. The 2016 ask asked for "the same set up as the lesbian flag" recoloured, the 2017 repost gives the stripe meanings as "Based on the pink lesbian flag" rather than stating them, and Wikipedia describes the design as based on that flag. [2][3][5] The butch lesbian flag sits in the record as the design the palette was steered away from, and the bear flag as the route the designer declined. [2]
The 2019 five-stripe flag by gayflagblog is a response to this design rather than a redrawing of it. gayflagblog set out the complaints he was answering and published his own seven-stripe and five-stripe versions on the same day; those two share no stripe value with this flag except the light blue #7BADE2, which appears in the same position in both. [8] Mod Hermy has endorsed that succession, calling gayflagblog's "a better version". [4] The edge recorded here is therefore an explicit inspiration, not a direct visual descent.
Colors & Symbolism
Seven equal stripes running dark teal to dark blue across a pale centre. The post that published the flag did not write its meanings out; it cited another flag's. [3]
| Colour | Hex | Inherited meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Dark Teal | #0A7C69 | Gender non-conformity. |
| Teal | #43A4A6 | Independence. |
| Light Teal | #5BC8D2 | Community. |
| White | #F1EFFF | Relationships unique to manhood. |
| Light Blue | #7BADE2 | Serenity and peace. |
| Blue | #1583CC | Love and sex. |
| Dark Blue | #083371 | Masculinity. |
Sampled from Mod Hermy's 5000 by 3000 file on DeviantArt; the smaller copies served with both Tumblr posts carry the same values. [2][1][3]
This flag has no official digital palette. Color values shown are approximate.
The origin post states the colour meanings by reference: "Color meanings: Based on the pink lesbian flag", with a link, and no list of its own. [3] The seven meanings in the table are that flag's, carried across to this palette, which is also how the guide literature presents them.
The 2021 reinterpretation above does not replace the table. Hermy wrote it five years after the flag was published, in response to the design being used by accounts that excluded trans and nonbinary gay men, and its stripe meanings were drawn from gayflagblog's 2019 flag rather than from the Pink Lesbian Flag. [4] The two sets belong to different moments and are kept apart here for that reason.
Readings supplied by the community
- Mod Hermy, working with gay men in a pride Discord server · 6 March 2021
- Seven replacement meanings, published on a redrawn version of the flag: Community; Inclusion; She/her and pronoun nonconforming gays; GNC, nonbinary, and trans men; Ace/arospec and split-attraction gays; Love and attraction; Diversity. Hermy describes them as developed "based on @gayflagblog's flag" and as covering "GNC, nonbinary, trans, ace/arospec, split-attraction, and pronoun nonconforming gay men". [7] [4]
No specification was ever published. The values above are measured, and they agree across every file the designers served: the 5000 by 3000 DeviantArt original, the 640 by 384 file on the 2016 post and the 540 by 324 file on the 2017 repost all sample to the same seven. [2][1][3] The values that circulate on reference sites are therefore the original's rather than an approximation of it.
The centre stripe is not pure white. It reads #F1EFFF across most of its depth, with its upper portion a shade cooler at #EFEFFF, in the 5000-pixel original as in the smaller copies. This entry's rendering uses #F1EFFF throughout.
Design
- Aspect Ratio
- 3:5 · standard
- Ratio Notes
- The designer's own file on DeviantArt is 5000 by 3000 pixels, exactly 5:3. [1] The copies served with the two Tumblr posts, 640 by 384 and 540 by 324, hold the same proportion. [2][3] The archive renders it at the standard 3:5.
- Orientation
- horizontal
- Stripe Count
- 7
- Layout
- horizontal_stripes
- Stripes (Top → Bottom)
- Dark Teal, Teal, Light Teal, White, Light Blue, Blue, Dark Blue
Each stripe is a seventh of the height. In the 5000 by 3000 original they measure 428 or 429 pixels, within a pixel of exact, and no stripe is emphasised by width. [1]
Seven equal horizontal stripes descending from dark teal through two lighter teals to a near-white centre, then through light blue and blue to a dark navy. No emblem. The structure mirrors the Pink Lesbian Flag, a graded run into a pale centre stripe and out again, with the pink-to-red range replaced by teal and blue. [2][3]
Usage & Adoption
- Geographic Usage
- Online circulation
- Online Usage
- Tumblr, DeviantArt and pride-flag reference guides
- Current Status
- historical
The earlier of the two flags that guides show for gay men, and the one generally reproduced for the years before 2019. [5] Its designer treats it as superseded. [4]
Image Archive
The flag
The designs behind the request
What followed
Discourse & Debates
- Whether a flag can be recovered from the uses it has been put to. Hermy's answer was to restate the meanings rather than withdraw the design, and to point readers at gayflagblog's flag as the better one. [4]
- Whether the mirrored structure with a pale centre stripe belongs to lesbian flags. The structure here is taken from the Pink Lesbian Flag by the designers' own account, and predates the sunset lesbian redesign family of 2018. [3][9]
Common misidentifications
- Attributed to @discourse-king, the transmedicalist blogger whose uncredited repost circulated far more widely than the original. [6][4]
- Treated as interchangeable with gayflagblog's 2019 flags, which are a different designer's work with a different palette and stated meanings of their own. [8]
- Credited to Mod Hermy alone. The credit line names Anonymous first. [3]
- Dated to 2017, from the DeviantArt upload of 29 May 2017 or the archive repost of 26 June 2017. The design was published on 25 August 2016. [2][1][3][5]
- Confused with a five-stripe simplification of this design by the Tumblr user Gee-Makes-Flags, which has been used in place of the original and is not gayflagblog's five-stripe flag. [6]
- Hosted on Wikimedia Commons as "Vincian flag (original)", a name coined for gayflagblog's 2019 family and applied there to this earlier design [10]
Criticisms
- The flag was reposted without its credit line by a transmedicalist account and read for years as that account's work. Mod Hermy's account is direct: "some truscum/transmed took this flag and reuploaded it (that got 8.2k notes vs the 9 notes my original post has), wording it in a way that made people think it was made by them (and also 'official')", and "it seems like it's been co-opted by truscum and transphobes to exclude trans and nonbinary gay men". Hermy rejected that reading and wrote seven replacement stripe meanings naming trans, nonbinary, gender-nonconforming, ace and arospec, split-attraction and pronoun-nonconforming gay men. [4] A community explainer page dates the repost to 2019 and argues from the three-year gap that the reposter cannot have originated the design. [9]
- The design was criticised for having no meanings of its own, since the post that published it cited the Pink Lesbian Flag's instead of stating any, and for reading as a recolour of a lesbian flag. gayflagblog put both complaints in writing when publishing the 2019 alternative: "no meaning behind the stripes, seemed to be 'lipstick lesbian but blue for boys instead of pink for girls'". [8] Mod Hermy has not contested the criticism, describing the flag as a suggestion rather than a finished design. [4]
The makers and the credit line say "gay men". [2][3] "MLM", covering gay, bisexual, pansexual and other men attracted to men, and "achillean", offered as a masculine counterpart to "sapphic", are wider terms applied to the design by later writing rather than by its makers.
The design is also called the "all blue" flag. A community history explains the nickname as an artefact of reproduction rather than of the palette: the greens read as shades of blue when image quality, screen brightness or display colour is poor. [6]
The "listerine" and "toothpaste" nicknames circulate the same way, from the palette, but the archive has not located a readable source that documents their origin; they are carried as reported names, not attributed ones. None of the three nicknames is endorsed by the makers.
Footnotes & Citations
Sources and footnotes 11 sources
- 1. Designer page Gay Man (Original proposed). Pride-Flags (Mod Hermy). DeviantArt (2017-05-29). Accessed 2026-08-14
The designers' own 5000 by 3000 file, the source for the measured palette and the 5:3 proportion. Its description was rewritten later and carries Mod Hermy's recollection of the flag's origin, including the "Around May 2017" dating this entry does not follow.
- 2. Social media Relating to the old discussion on a separate flag just for gay men a while back. Anonymous and Mod Hermy. ask-pride-color-schemes (Tumblr) (2016-08-25). Accessed 2026-08-14
The origin: the anonymous ask in full and Mod Hermy's answer, with the flag as first posted. The source for the date, the palette decision and the two routes the requester proposed.
- 3. Social media Gay Man: Some proposed flags to represent. Pride-Flags. pride-color-schemes (Tumblr) (2017-06-26). Accessed 2026-08-14
The archive repost: the joint credit line, the palette reasoning, the meanings-by-reference line, and the second proposal published alongside it.
- 4. Designer page Clearing up some things about the gay man flag. Pride-Flags (Mod Hermy). DeviantArt (2021-03-06). Accessed 2026-08-14 · Archived version
Mod Hermy's statement in full: the unattributed repost, the note counts, the seven replacement meanings and the endorsement of gayflagblog's design.
- 5. Encyclopedias & Reference Gay men's flags. Wikipedia. Accessed 2026-08-14
Corroborates the 25 August 2016 publication date and the Pride-Flags attribution, and is the reference account of how the design is presented in guides.
- 6. Community A compiled history of the first popularized Gay / Gay Man / Gay Men / Gay Male flag proposal. archivalflags. archivalflags (Tumblr) (2020-05-25). Accessed 2026-08-14 · Archived version
A footnoted community history of the flag, updated 12 April 2022, transcribing each source it uses and stating that it is free to be cited. The source for the reposting account, the "all blue" nickname, the r/LGBDropTheT screenshots and the separate five-stripe simplification.
- 7. Social media Clearing up some things about the "official" gay man pride flag. Mod Hermy / ask-pride-color-schemes. ask-pride-color-schemes (Tumblr) (2021-03-06). Accessed 2026-08-14 · Archived version
The Tumblr companion to the DeviantArt statement, posted the same day and live. It carries the revised flag and one line the DeviantArt copy does not: that Hermy "also made it prettier".
- 8. Social media Gay Man Flag. gayflagblog. gayflagblog (Tumblr) (2019-07-10). Accessed 2026-08-14
gayflagblog's proposal post of 10 July 2019, which states the complaints about this design that it was made to answer and publishes the seven-stripe and five-stripe versions whose values are compared here.
- 9. Community Gay Man Flag Facts. Carrd. Accessed 2026-08-14
An anonymous community explainer written to rebut the claims made about the flag's origin. Cited only for the account it gives of the repost and the dates it argues from; it names no author and cites no sources of its own.
- 10. File:Vincian flag (original).svg. Wikimedia Commons. Accessed 2026-08-14
A 1200 by 720 vector of this flag, its author field crediting Mod Hermy, published under CC BY-SA 4.0 and filed under the site's accuracy-disputes category. The "Vincian" name belongs to the later five-stripe family.
- Designer page Gay Man (1). Pride-Flags. DeviantArt (2020-05-13). Accessed 2026-08-14
gayflagblog's seven-stripe flag as reposted to the Pride-Flags gallery, with its seven stripe meanings listed. Distinguishes that design from this one and shows the two palettes side by side.
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Image Sources
- Rendering
- sourced
- Redrawn from the designers' own 5000 by 3000 file, at its measured values and its proportion. [1] · Credit: Design: Anonymous and Mod Hermy. Rendering: Encycloflaggia. · Encycloflaggia rendering · SVG at 3:5Rights The design carries no licence: the DeviantArt posting is marked "© 2017 - 2026 Pride-Flags" with no reuse grant, and neither Tumblr post states terms. This rendering is the archive's own vector redraw and is offered for reference and study.
- The Bear Pride Flag, the requester's other suggestion: a gay men's flag made by removing its pawprint. Mod Hermy declined it, thinking "the brown colors might be so distinctly 'bear' that just removing the pawprint will just confuse people". [2] · Encycloflaggia
- Dorian Rutherford's 2016 butch lesbian flag, the design that ruled out the requested palette. Mod Hermy answered that "someone already beat you to the blue/purple idea and used it for the Butch lesbian design" and moved to blue and green instead. [2] · Encycloflaggia
- The flag as published on 25 August 2016 and reposted on 26 June 2017, redrawn at 3:5 from the designers' 5000 by 3000 file. Every stripe value is measured rather than reconstructed. [2][1][3] · Credit: Design: Anonymous and Mod Hermy. Rendering: Encycloflaggia. · Encycloflaggia rendering
- gayflagblog's five-stripe flag of 10 July 2019, made to answer the complaints this design had attracted. Mod Hermy calls it "a better version made by @gayflagblog to deal with the problems with my proposal/suggestion". [4] · Credit: gayflagblog · Encycloflaggia
- The Pink Lesbian Flag, the design this flag follows. The 2016 ask asked for "the same set up as the lesbian flag" in other colours, and the 2017 repost gives this flag's meanings in place of writing its own. [2][3] · Encycloflaggia