Leather Girl Pride Flag
Leather / Kink / Women's Subculture Flag ·
sheryl dee's 2003 variant of Tony DeBlase's Leather Pride Flag replaces its royal-blue stripes with pink "to represent female leather-lovers." Designed for the November 2003 Ms San Diego Leather contest while dee held both that title and American Leatherwoman, the design remains commercially manufactured. [1][2][3]
Key facts
- Designer
- sheryl dee
- Created
- First documented public use
- November 2003 contest context; form of presentation not recorded
- In use
- 2003-present
- Aspect Ratio
- 3:5 · standard
- Stripes
- 9
- Origin
- San Diego, California, United States
- Represented Identity
- Women in the leather and BDSM community
Also known as
- Leather Girl Flag
Status Variant
Archive categories Subculture Pride Flags
Overview
sheryl dee designed the Leather Girl Pride Flag for the November 2003 Ms San Diego Leather contest. The design directly modifies Tony DeBlase's 1989 Leather Pride Flag, replacing its royal-blue stripes with pink "to represent female leather-lovers" while retaining the black and white stripes and tilted red heart. [1]
dee created the flag while holding both Ms San Diego Leather and American Leatherwoman. She also founded the Leather Girl Network in 2003 and received the Pantheon of Leather Community Choice award for women in 2004. The flag continues to circulate through leather-community reference materials and commercial manufacture. [2][3][4][5]
Identity & Context
- Represented Identity
- Women in the leather and BDSM community
- Subcommunity
- Leatherwomen, leather dykes, female leather enthusiasts
- National Context
- United States
San Diego's women's leather history is documented locally by the San Diego Leather History Project, and it runs a quarter century deeper than this flag. A San Diego Lesbian S/M Support Group formed in 1978, renaming itself S.D.L. in K., San Diego Lesbians into Kink, in 1983. The first Ms. Southern California Leather contest was held in 1988 and the second and last in 1989; the first Ms. San Diego Leather Woman contest followed in 1994. The International Ms. Leather contest itself came to San Diego in July 1997, and Jo Blas of San Diego took the international title in 2000. The Ms San Diego Leather contest of November 2003, the flag's occasion, was the title's tenth-anniversary contest, with dee its sitting titleholder. [6][3]
The women's leather title culture behind that local sequence begins with Samois, described by the Leather Hall of Fame as the first lesbian S/M organization. Founded in San Francisco on 13 June 1978, the group marched at the 1979 parade, after defeating a proposed ban on S/M and leather contingents, in t-shirts carrying its slogan THE LEATHER MENACE, a deliberate reference to the Lavender Menace of 1970. Samois published the anthology Coming to Power, organized the first women's leather contest on 5 September 1981 at Ollies, a lesbian bar, and was quietly ended in May 1983; its surviving records and t-shirts, given by Gayle Rubin in 2003, are held by the GLBT Historical Society in San Francisco. [8][7][9] Samois is earlier women's leather history and title-culture context rather than a documented organizational ancestor of the flag.
Creators
The Creator
sheryl dee
Designer
sheryl dee, whose name the leather press and the San Diego community timeline style in lower case, was selected as Ms San Diego Leather 2003 at the contest held at the Hole on 2 November 2002, and was awarded the American Leatherwoman 2003 title at American Brotherhood Weekend in Washington, DC, on 25 to 27 April 2003, a national title judged on service to the leather community. [10][11][3][2][12] In 2003 she founded the Leather Girl Network, which ran as a Yahoo group, and designed the Leather Girl Pride Flag for that November's tenth-anniversary Ms San Diego Leather contest. [3][2][1]
The San Diego timeline documents her title year as one of fundraisers, educational events and community gatherings, including a benefit with Ladee at the Eagle for victims of the autumn 2003 wildfires. [3] At the 2004 Pantheon of Leather Awards, held at the Leather Archives & Museum in Chicago, she received the Community Choice award for women. [2][4]
Documented design sources
- Tony DeBlase's 1989 Leather Pride Flag, which this design modifies[1]
Attribution notes
Tony Scupham-Bilton attributes the design to sheryl dee and dates it to the November 2003 Ms San Diego Leather contest: "The blue of Leather Pride is substituted with pink to represent female leather-lovers." [1] Contemporary leather press and the San Diego Leather History Project independently document dee as Ms San Diego Leather and American Leatherwoman in 2003 and as founder of the Leather Girl Network. [2][3]
Origin
- Country
- United States
- Region / state
- California
- City
- San Diego
- Specific Place
- Ms San Diego Leather contest
- Place Type
- leather/kink community event
The flag was created in San Diego, on the unceded homeland of the Kumeyaay Nation. [13][14] San Diego State University's Native Resource Center records that the land it occupies "was never legally ceded by Kumeyaay people through treaty or sale," and the university's land acknowledgment, written by Michael Miskwish (Kumeyaay), speaks of "a land that carries the footsteps of millennia of Kumeyaay people." [14][13]
Indigenous land context
Kumeyaay Nation — unceded homeland [13][14]
Designed for the Ms San Diego Leather contest of November 2003, the title's tenth-anniversary contest, held at the newly renovated GLBT Center. [1][3][11] dee had been selected as Ms San Diego Leather 2003 at the contest held at the Hole on 2 November 2002, so she made the flag as the title's sitting holder; the community timeline records the first Ms. San Diego Leather Woman contest, organized by Kim S., in 1994. [10][3]
Dates & Chronology
- Year Created
- First public use
- November 2003 contest context; form of presentation not recorded
- Period in Use
- 2003-present
Tony Scupham-Bilton documented the flag in February 2013, attributing it to dee and the November 2003 contest. [1] It circulates through community flag guides and remains in physical manufacture: retailers in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States sell printed flags in the standard 90 by 150 centimetre and 3 by 5 foot sizes, several under the shorter name Leather Girl Flag. [5][15][16][17] NLA-Dallas calls it "the most common flag for female-identifying Leatherfolkx," an organizational characterization, and records that it "sometimes appears with the stripes placed diagonally but is more commonly seen mirroring the Leather Pride Flag"; Rad Pride's current listing manufactures the diagonal form. [18][16]
Lineage
- Direct predecessors
- Leather Pride Flag
- Related flags
- International Bear Brotherhood Flag, Rubber Pride Flag
A direct colour-swap variant of Tony DeBlase's 1989 Leather Pride Flag: pink replaces royal blue, and the remaining construction carries over. [1] Parallel recolourings of the parent flag include the Leather Boi flag of 1998, whose green stands for younger leather lovers and whose stripes run diagonally with the heart moved to the upper fly, and the Bootblack Pride Flag introduced by Jesse Penley in 2005. [1][19] Tori Jones's Leather Woman Pride Flag of 2016 substitutes purple; whether it descends from this flag or recolours DeBlase's directly is not established. The variants differ in construction as well as colour. [18]
Lineage tree
Every record reachable from this one through documented parent and child relationships: 2 records across 2 generations.
- Ancestor
- Leather Pride Flag
- This record
- Leather Girl Pride Flag
Colors & Symbolism
The flag represents women in the leather and BDSM community. Pink replaces the Leather Pride Flag's royal blue "to represent female leather-lovers"; the retained black stripes, white center stripe and tilted red heart carry over from Tony DeBlase's 1989 design, whose symbolism DeBlase deliberately left to the viewer. [1][19]
| Colour | Hex | Meaning | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Black | #000000 | — | Sampled from the digital rendering this entry shows. The black stripes carry over from DeBlase's Leather Pride Flag, which has no official specification either. [1] |
| Pink | #C780B5 | Female leather-lovers. The substitution of pink for blue is the design's one documented meaning. [1] | Sampled from the digital rendering this entry shows; sheryl dee issued no colour values. [1] |
| White | #F7F5F5 | — | Sampled from the digital rendering this entry shows, where the center stripe reads as white; the sampled value is a near-white. |
| Red (heart) | #EB1A22 | — | Sampled from the digital rendering this entry shows. The parent flag's entry records circulating conventions for the heart, including #E80035; the shade varies across reproductions. |
This flag has no official digital palette. Color values shown are approximate.
- Retained elements (black stripes, white stripe, red heart)
- No designer-assigned meaning: DeBlase left the parent flag's symbolism to the viewer. Later community readings, recorded by NLA-Dallas citing Las Vegas Pride, give black for leather and permanence, white for purity and innocence, and the heart for the love of leather women. [19][18]
DeBlase's published position on the parent flag: "I will leave it to the viewer to interpret the colors and symbols." [19] The circulating fuller reading is a gendered adaptation of folk meanings recorded for the parent flag by 2000, prefaced there "many times I have heard or read the following (sometimes vague) descriptions." [19]
No creator-published color specification exists. sheryl dee issued no values, and DeBlase deliberately published none for the parent design, so every element here is convention or sampling rather than specification. The values above are sampled from the 768 by 461 pixel digital rendering this entry displays, whose own maker is unrecorded; they document this rendering, not the flag of 2003.
Design
- Aspect Ratio
- 3:5 · standard
- Orientation
- horizontal
- Stripe Count
- 9
- Layout
- horizontal_stripes_with_emblem
- Stripes (Top → Bottom)
- Black, Pink, Black, Pink, White, Pink, Black, Pink, Black
- Additional Symbols
- Tilted red heart in upper-left canton
Nine equal horizontal stripes, black, pink, black, pink, white, pink, black, pink, black, with a tilted red heart in the upper hoist. The construction follows Tony DeBlase's Leather Pride Flag, replacing royal blue with pink. [1]
Nine horizontal stripes alternating black and pink around a central white stripe, with a tilted red heart in the upper hoist, the Leather Pride Flag's layout with pink in place of royal blue.
Usage & Adoption
- Online Usage
- Sold as a printed flag by Gays & Gadgets (Amsterdam), The Flag Shop (UK), Rad Pride and NW Flags (UK), in 90 by 150 centimetre and 3 by 5 foot sizes [5][15][16][17]
- Current Status
- active
Documented circulation includes community flag guides and continuing manufacture in standard 3:5 sizes. Photographed use at a named leather-community event has not yet been established. [5][18]
Image Archive
Women in Leather
Manufacture
The Flag
Discourse & Debates
Common misidentifications
- May be confused with the original Leather Pride Flag at a distance, since only the stripe color differs (pink vs blue). The heart canton is identical. [1]
- Should not be confused with the Leather Boi flag (green replacing blue, Keith Polannen, 1998) or the Bootblack Pride Flag (Jesse Penley, 2005), which are separate color-swap variants. [1]
The flag is documented as the Leather Girl Pride Flag and circulates commercially as the Leather Girl Flag. "Female leather-lovers" is the wording attached to the 2003 documentation; NLA-Dallas later describes the represented community as "female-identifying Leatherfolkx." Leather dyke, leather woman and similar phrases are community identities rather than names of this flag. [1][18][16]
Footnotes & Citations
Sources and footnotes 19 sources
- 1. Blogs & Personal Sources Flags Out Again for Mr Leather. Tony Scupham-Bilton. The Queerstory Files (2013-02-25). Accessed 2026-08-04
- 2. News Leather Life: The Envelope, Please. Steve Lenius. Lavender Magazine, issue 229 (2004-03-05). Accessed 2026-08-04
- 3. Community Leather History Timeline. San Diego Leather History Project. San Diego Leather History Project. Accessed 2026-08-04
- 4. News Pantheon of Leather Awards: All-Time Recipients. The Leather Journal. Accessed 2026-08-05
- 5. Retail listing Leather Girl Pride Flag. Gays & Gadgets Amsterdam. Accessed 2026-08-04
- 6. Encyclopedias & Reference International Ms. Leather. Wikipedia. Accessed 2026-08-04
- 7. Blogs & Personal Sources The Leather Women Return. Tony Scupham-Bilton. The Queerstory Files (2015-04-10). Accessed 2026-08-04
- 8. Award Samois (1978-1983), Leather Hall of Fame inductee history. Leather Hall of Fame. Leather Hall of Fame. Accessed 2026-08-04
- 9. Archived Sources Samois records and t-shirts, 1975-1983 (finding aid, collection 2003-37). GLBT Historical Society. Online Archive of California. Accessed 2026-08-04
- 10. News News 2002 (Ms San Diego Leather selected at the Hole, 2 November 2002). The Leather Journal (2002). Accessed 2026-08-05
- 11. News News 2003 (American Leatherwoman awarded at American Brotherhood Weekend; Ms San Diego Leather contest at the GLBT Center; Leather Girl Network new on the scene). Dave Rhodes. The Leather Journal (2003). Accessed 2026-08-05
- 12. Reference American Brotherhood Weekend. Leatherpedia. Accessed 2026-08-04
- 13. Academic Land Acknowledgement. SDSU American Indian Studies. San Diego State University. Accessed 2026-08-05
- 14. Academic SDSU Land Acknowledgment (Native Resource Center resources). SDSU Native Resource Center. San Diego State University. Accessed 2026-08-05
- 15. Retail listing Leather Girl Flag 5ft x 3ft. The Flag Shop. Accessed 2026-08-05
- 16. Retail listing Leather Girl Pride Flag 3x5ft. Rad Pride. Accessed 2026-08-05
- 17. Retail listing Leather Girl Flag 5ft x 3ft. NW Flags. Accessed 2026-08-05
- 18. Organizations Community Flags: Leather Girl Pride. NLA-Dallas. NLA-Dallas NewsLeather. Accessed 2026-08-04
- 19. Reference Leather Pride flag. Flags of the World contributors. Flags of the World (2025-01-11). Accessed 2026-08-04
Image Sources
- Rendering
- circulating rendering of the 2003 design
- International Ms. Leather 2015 banner, San Jose · Credit: International Ms. Leather promotional material, reproduced in The Queerstory Files; rights not identified · The Queerstory Files
- Diagonal-stripe form, Rad Pride product photograph, 2026 · Credit: Rad Pride product photograph; rights not identified · Rad Pride
- Circulating rendering of the 2003 design · Credit: Design: sheryl dee, 2003. Digital rendering: maker unrecorded. · Rendering of the documented 2003 design
- Samois badge, THE LEATHER MENACE · Credit: Samois (badge design); photograph as reproduced by The Queerstory Files, original source unrecorded · The Queerstory Files