Gay Men's Pride Flag (Five-Stripe)

Overview

To reclaim the gay men's flag concept from its association with exclusionary ideology, simplify the design for practical reproducibility, and embed explicit trans and nonbinary inclusion into the flag's documented meanings.

The five-stripe gay men flag emerged from a specific set of circumstances: the earlier seven-stripe design by Mod Hermy had been co-opted through unattributed reposts by a transmedicalist blog, creating a false association with exclusionary ideology that many gay men found unacceptable. gayflagblog's redesign was a deliberate act of reclamation, and with intention this time to act as a bulwark against future misappropriation. The teal-to-blue color language that had come to signify gay male identity stayed, while building explicit inclusivity into the flag's foundational documentation. Most flags undergo a stripe reduction at several points in their evolution. This new flag saw its stripes drop from seven stripes to five. Five-stripe flags reproduce more legibly at small sizes, and are easier to manufacture as sewn fabric. The simplified palette retained the green-to-indigo gradient of the original but condensed it. The green stripes were chosen to represent nature as a deliberate counter to the centuries-old framing of love between men as 'unnatural' by religious and legal institutions. The pale lavender-white center stripe carried the most politically significant meaning: explicit inclusion of trans, intersex, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming men, with the white deliberately borrowed from Monica Helms's Transgender Pride Flag. This was a specific design intention that gayflagblog reiterated repeatedly in their Tumblr FAQ. ^[1][2]

Identity & Context

Represented Identity

gay men

Subcommunity

men loving men (MLM)

Creators

The Creator

gayflagblog

Designer

gayflagblog is a disabled trans man who runs a popular Queer vexillological blog on Tumblr. He is best known for the five-stripe gay men flag (2019), a redesign of the earlier seven-stripe version that embedded explicit trans and nonbinary inclusion into its documented meanings. gayflagblog altered the earlier ask-pride-color-schemes seven-stripe design to address specific issues: the original had no creator-attributed stripe meanings, and its visual similarity to the sunset lesbian flag led to a persistent perception of being 'the lesbian flag but blue for boys.' The documented meanings gayflagblog assigned were inspired by research into Queer history, personal experience, and Gilbert Baker's original rainbow flag. ^[1][2][3]

Stripe meanings were inspired by my personal research of LGBT+ history, my (and others) experiences as gay men, and the meanings on Gilbert Baker's original rainbow flag which I love dearly and hold close to my heart, this flag is not meant to replace or erase it in any way! I would love for them to be used in tandem like I personally do. ^[1]

Motivations

• To create a more intentional and inclusive gay-men-specific flag with explicit color meanings

Origin

Digital Origin

Tumblr (gayflagblog)

Digital origin; no verified physical location.

Published on Tumblr. ^[1] No offline launch event documented.

Dates & Chronology

Year Created

2019

Exact date

July 10, 2019

First public use

July 10, 2019

Period in Use

2019–present

The five-stripe design became the most widely circulated contemporary gay-men-specific striped flag, appearing across institutional pride flag guides, social media platforms, and commercial merchandise. Users who wanted a gay men's flag but were uncomfortable with the seven-stripe version's perceived association with transmedicalism found the five-stripe redesign a clean alternative with documented inclusive intent. gayflagblog noted that the earlier all-blue flag had been adopted by r/LGBDropTheT, a trans-exclusionary subreddit that was eventually banned by Reddit as part of a purge of hate-speech forums. ^[2] The flag appears in reference guides from Library.LGBT, Wikipedia, and the LGBTQIA+ Wiki, and has been included in institutional pride materials alongside lesbian, bisexual, and transgender flags. ^[4][5]

The flag is sometimes referred to as the Vincian flag, after the term 'vincian' coined in 2018 by Tumblr user bivirgil as a masculine counterpart to 'sapphic.' The word derives from Leonardo da Vinci, who is widely believed to have had romantic and sexual relationships with men -- he was charged with sodomy in Florence in 1476, though the case was dismissed. ^[5][6]

However, the term 'vincian' can circulate more broadly than this single flag design -- some users apply it to men-loving-men identity generally, while others use it specifically for this flag. The relationship between the label and the design is thus one of partial rather than complete overlap. ^[4][5]

Lineage

Direct predecessors

Gay Men's Pride Flag (Seven-Stripe)

Indirect influences

Rainbow Pride Flag, Transgender Pride Flag

Related flags

Achillean Blue Rose Flag (CatColors, 2020), Achillean Flag, Achillean Pride Flag (2016 Redesign), International Bear Brotherhood Flag, Otter Pride Flag

A simplification and redesign of the 2017 seven-stripe gay men flag. ^{[1] [4]} The explicit inclusion of trans and gender-nonconforming men in the center stripe meaning reflects broader discourse about inclusive identity language in the late 2010s. ^[1] Part of the broader post-rainbow striped pride-flag tradition.

Lineage tree

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

Ancestor

Gay Men's Pride Flag (Seven-Stripe)

This record

Gay Men's Pride Flag (Five-Stripe)

Colors & Symbolism

The flag condenses the seven-stripe green-to-indigo gradient into a five-stripe format designed for practical reproducibility while embedding explicit trans and nonbinary inclusion into its foundational documentation -- a deliberate response to the transmedicalist co-option of the earlier design. The green tones were chosen as a counter to centuries of framing love between men as 'unnatural,' and the pale center stripe borrows white from the Transgender Pride Flag as a structural gesture of solidarity. ^[1][2]

Circulating community values from reference sites and Commons files

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

Stripe meaning phrasing varies slightly across sources. The center stripe inclusion language is the most consistently documented element. ^[1] In the precursor seven-stripe version, the full color-meaning set was: green (community), turquoise (healing), teal (joy), white (gender-nonconforming, nonbinary, and trans men, derived from the Trans Pride Flag), light blue (pure love), purple (fortitude), and indigo (diversity). The five-stripe redesign condensed these into fewer bands while preserving the core associations. Green and teal together carry a secondary meaning of nature, a deliberate counter to the centuries-old framing of love between men as 'unnatural.' ^[1][3]

No official creator-published hex specification. The values given are drawn from widely circulating community reference sites and Wikimedia Commons files. ^[7]

Design

Aspect Ratio

3:5 · standard

Orientation

horizontal

Stripe Count

5

Layout

horizontal_stripes

Stripes (Top → Bottom)

Green, Teal, Pale Lavender-White, Blue, Indigo

Five equal horizontal stripes: green, teal, pale lavender-white, blue, and indigo, from top to bottom. No emblem or additional symbols. ^[7][1]

Usage & Adoption

Online Usage

Widely circulated across pride-flag reference guides and social media

Current Status

active

One of the most widely circulated contemporary gay-men-specific striped flags. ^[4]

Discourse & Debates

• Whether the term 'vincian' should be adopted as the standard label for men-loving-men identity (paralleling 'sapphic' for women-loving-women), or whether it introduces unnecessary complexity -- some gay men find the classical reference empowering, while others consider it obscure and prefer the straightforward term 'gay' ^[4][5]
• Whether the flag represents all men who love men (including bisexual and pansexual men) or specifically gay men -- gayflagblog's original documentation framed it as a gay men's flag, but some MLM-umbrella communities have adopted it more broadly ^[2]
• The relationship between this flag and the achillean flag, which uses a different visual language (a green carnation on a blue field) to represent men-loving-men identity -- some users see them as complementary, while others view them as competing symbols for overlapping communities ^[4]
• Whether the mirrored-gradient-with-white-center structure appropriates the lesbian flag format. Some lesbians argued this borrowed one of the few visual symbols unique to their community, while gayflagblog stated they consulted lesbian and WLW followers on both Tumblr and Twitter during the design process. Proponents note that the seven-stripe-with-white-center format was used by the gay men's flag (Mod Hermy, 2017) before it appeared in the sunset lesbian redesign family (Emily Gwen, 2018), complicating the claim that the structure originated with lesbians. ^[2][3]

Common misidentifications

• Frequently conflated with the earlier seven-stripe version, which is a distinct precursor design by a different creator (Mod Hermy)
• Sometimes incorrectly attributed to discourse-king, the transmedicalist blog that co-opted the seven-stripe precursor -- the five-stripe flag postdates that controversy and was designed partly in response to it ^[2]

Common confusions

• The five-stripe and seven-stripe versions are distinct flags by different creators with different documented meanings, though they share a teal-to-blue color language -- they should not be treated as interchangeable ^[4]
• The 'vincian' label is sometimes applied exclusively to this flag and sometimes to men-loving-men identity broadly -- the two usages overlap but are not identical ^[4][5]

Criticisms

• Some users remain skeptical of any gay men's flag, arguing that the rainbow flag already represents gay men and that creating a separate symbol implies the rainbow has been 'given away' to the broader LGBTQ+ community -- a framing that can carry undertones of resentment toward other identities' visibility gains. Proponents counter that having an identity-specific flag does not diminish the rainbow but mirrors what lesbian, bisexual, and transgender communities have done for decades. ^[4][5]
• The flag inherits residual suspicion from the seven-stripe controversy: despite gayflagblog's explicit inclusive documentation, some users continue to associate any green-and-blue gay men's flag with the transmedicalist co-option of the precursor design. This guilt-by-color-association is a documented frustration for both the creator and users who adopted the flag specifically because of its inclusive intent. ^[2][5]

The flag is sometimes called the 'Ocean Gay flag' in informal community usage, a reference to its blue-green-teal color palette evoking the sea. ^[3] The term 'vincian,' derived from Leonardo da Vinci, was proposed as a masculine counterpart to 'sapphic' for describing men-loving-men identity. Its adoption remains uneven: it appears in academic and community-wiki contexts but has not achieved the mainstream recognition that 'sapphic' enjoys. The broader identity term 'MLM' (men loving men) encompasses gay, bisexual, pansexual, and other men attracted to men, while this flag was designed specifically for gay men. 'Achillean,' derived from the mythological relationship between Achilles and Patroclus, emerged as a competing umbrella term that some prefer over 'MLM' for its classical resonance and avoidance of the acronym's coincidental overlap with multi-level marketing. ^[4][5]

Footnotes & Citations

Image Sources

Rendering

five-stripe redesign

• The five-stripe gay men's flag published by gayflagblog on Tumblr on July 10, 2019. The design simplified the earlier seven-stripe version into five stripes while embedding explicit trans and nonbinary inclusion into the pale lavender-white center stripe, with its white deliberately borrowed from Monica Helms's Transgender Pride Flag. ^[1][2] · Credit: gayflagblog · Tumblr (gayflagblog)