Leather Girl Pride Flag
Leather / Kink / Women's Subculture Flag ·
A variant of the Leather Pride Flag designed by Sheryl Dee for the Ms San Diego Leather contest in November 2003. The design replaces the royal blue stripes of Tony DeBlase's 1989 Leather Pride Flag with pink, representing female leather-lovers, while retaining the alternating stripe pattern and tilted red heart in the upper-left canton.
Key facts
- Designer
- Sheryl Dee
- Created
- First documented public use
- 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 Dyke Flag
- Women's Leather Flag
- Leather Girl Flag
- leather girl
- leather dyke
- leather woman
- women's leather
Status Variant
Archive categories Subculture Pride Flags
Overview
To provide a women-specific variant of the Leather Pride Flag, visually distinguishing women's leather identity while maintaining clear lineage to the original DeBlase design.
By 2003, the Leather Pride Flag (DeBlase, 1989) was firmly established as the primary symbol of the leather community. While DeBlase had explicitly intended the flag for 'leather men and women,' the flag's origins at International Mr. Leather and its strongest associations with gay male leather culture led some women in the community to seek a more specifically feminine variant. Sheryl Dee designed the Leather Girl Pride Flag for the Ms San Diego Leather contest in November 2003, swapping the royal blue stripes for pink while retaining the rest of the design. [1][2]
Identity & Context
- Represented Identity
- Women in the leather and BDSM community
- Subcommunity
- Leatherwomen, leather dykes, female leather enthusiasts
- National Context
- United States
Women's participation in leather culture has deep roots. Samois, the first lesbian-feminist BDSM organization in the United States, was co-founded in San Francisco in 1978 by Pat Califia, Gayle Rubin, and sixteen others. International Ms. Leather was first held in 1987. Tony DeBlase distributed one of the first three prototype Leather Pride Flags to the Outcasts, a San Francisco women's BDSM organization, in 1989, signaling his intent that the flag represent leather people of all genders. The Leather Girl Flag provides a women-specific variant within that broader tradition.
Creators
The Creator
Sheryl Dee
Designer
Sheryl Dee is a leather community organizer and titleholder. She held the Ms San Diego Leather title and went on to become American Leatherwoman. She founded the Leather Girl Network. In November 2003, she designed the Leather Girl Pride Flag for the Ms San Diego Leather contest, creating a women's variant of DeBlase's Leather Pride Flag by substituting pink for the royal blue stripes. [1][2]
Motivations
- To provide a visible symbol for women in the leather and BDSM community, distinct from the broader Leather Pride Flag
Stated inspirations
- Tony DeBlase's 1989 Leather Pride Flag[1]
Attribution notes
Sheryl Dee was a former Ms San Diego Leather, American Leatherwoman, and creator of the Leather Girl Network. She designed the flag for the Ms San Diego Leather contest in November 2003. [1][2]
Origin
- Country
- United States
- Region / state
- California
- City
- San Diego
- Specific Place
- Ms San Diego Leather contest
- Place Type
- leather/kink community event
- Digital Origin
- false
Created in San Diego, California.
Designed for the Ms San Diego Leather contest in November 2003. [1]
Dates & Chronology
- Year Created
- First public use
- Period in Use
- 2003-present
The flag is available from specialty pride flag retailers and appears in leather community contexts. Its adoption is concentrated in women's leather and leather dyke spaces. It has not displaced the original Leather Pride Flag for women in the community, and many leatherwomen continue to use the DeBlase flag. [3]
The Leather Girl Flag is one of several color-swap variants of the DeBlase Leather Pride Flag. Other variants include the Leather Boi flag (blue swapped for green, designed by Keith Polannen, first appearing at the Mid-Atlantic Leather contest in 1998) and the Bootblack Pride Flag (designed by Jesse Penley, introduced October 6, 2005). All share the same nine-stripe alternating pattern and heart canton, differing only in the color that replaces blue. [1]
Lineage
- Direct predecessors
- Leather Pride Flag
A direct color-swap variant of DeBlase's 1989 Leather Pride Flag. The design logic is straightforward: pink replaces blue, everything else stays. This positions it alongside the Leather Boi flag (green replacing blue, Polannen, 1998) and the Bootblack Pride Flag (Penley, 2005) as members of a small family of Leather Pride Flag variants distinguished only by their substitution color. [1]
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 royal blue to signify female leather-lovers, while the retained design elements (black stripes, white center stripe, red heart canton) carry over their associations from the original Leather Pride Flag. DeBlase left the original flag's symbolism deliberately unassigned, so the Leather Girl Flag inherits that interpretive openness for all elements except the color swap itself. [1]
| Colour | Hex | Meaning | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Black | #000000 | No fixed official meaning (inherited from DeBlase's deliberately unassigned symbolism). | Inherited from Leather Pride Flag. [1] |
| Pink | — | Female leather-lovers. The substitution of pink for blue is the defining modification. [1] | Replaces the royal blue of the Leather Pride Flag. No creator-issued hex code. Should be sampled from the flag image. [1] |
| White | #FFFFFF | No fixed official meaning (inherited from DeBlase). | Inherited from Leather Pride Flag. |
| Red (Heart) | #E70039 | — | Inherited from Leather Pride Flag. Circulating community value. |
This flag has no official digital palette. Color values shown are approximate.
- Tilted red heart in canton (retained)
- No fixed official meaning (inherited from DeBlase). Commonly interpreted as representing love within the leather community.
Only the blue-to-pink swap carries a documented meaning (female leather-lovers). All other design elements inherit DeBlase's deliberate refusal to assign fixed symbolism. [1]
No creator-issued hex codes. Black, white, and red values are inherited from the Leather Pride Flag. The specific shade of pink replacing royal blue has not been formally specified and should be sampled from the flag image. [1][3]
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
Identical layout to the 1989 Leather Pride Flag with pink substituted for royal blue. Nine equal horizontal stripes alternating black and pink, with a white center stripe. Red heart in the upper-left canton.
Nine equal horizontal stripes alternating black and pink, with a white center stripe (position 5). A tilted red heart appears in the upper-left canton. The design is identical to the Leather Pride Flag except for the blue-to-pink color swap. [1]
Nine horizontal stripes alternating black and pink around a central white stripe, with a tilted red heart in the upper-left canton. The layout mirrors the 1989 Leather Pride Flag exactly, with pink replacing royal blue.
Usage & Adoption
- First Users
- Ms San Diego Leather contest attendees (November 2003)
- Geographic Usage
- United States (leather community events)
- Online Usage
- Specialty pride flag retailers
- Event Usage
- Women's leather contests and events
- Current Status
- active
Available from specialty retailers (Gays & Gadgets Amsterdam, among others). Used in women's leather and leather dyke spaces. Has not displaced the original Leather Pride Flag among leatherwomen generally. [3]
Image Archive
Canonical flag
Documented variant
Discourse & Debates
- Whether a separate women's leather flag is necessary, given that DeBlase explicitly intended the original for 'leather men and women' and distributed prototype flags to both men's and women's BDSM organizations. Some leatherwomen prefer the original precisely because it represents the community as a whole. Others value having a specifically feminine symbol within the leather tradition. [1]
Common confusions
- 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' by its creator and in community sources. 'Leather dyke' is a community term for the identity but is not the flag's documented name.
Footnotes & Citations
Sources and footnotes 3 sources
- 1. Flags Out Again for Mr Leather. The Queerstory Files (2013-02). Accessed 2026-04-01
- 2. Leather Life: The Envelope, Please. Leather Life (blog) (2004-03). Accessed 2026-04-01
- 3. Leather Girl Pride Flag. Gays & Gadgets Amsterdam. Accessed 2026-04-01
Image Sources
- Rendering
- Sheryl Dee 2003 version
- The Leather Girl Pride Flag designed by Sheryl Dee for the Ms San Diego Leather Contest in November 2003. Nine horizontal stripes alternate black (for leather and permanence), pink (for female leather-lovers), and white (for innocence and novices). A red heart in the upper-left canton represents the love of leather women. The blue of the original Leather Pride Flag (Tony DeBlase, 1989) was replaced with pink to specifically represent women in the leather community. · Credit: Sheryl Dee · Canonical 2003 design (pink variant)
- A purple variant of the Leather Girl Pride Flag, in which the pink stripes are replaced with purple while keeping the same nine-stripe layout, black stripes, white stripes, and red heart. The exact provenance and date of this purple variant are uncertain. · Credit: Variant of Sheryl Dee design · Purple variant