Maverique Pride Flag
Identity Pride Flag ·
Vesper H. introduced maverique in June 2014 and published its yellow, white, and orange flag on June 15. [1][2] The colors express a gender understood through autonomy and inner conviction rather than derivation from masculinity, femininity, or genderlessness. [2] Vesper revised the term's wording several times during the same month while inviting feedback. [3]
Key facts
- Designer
- Vesper H.
- Created
- First published
- In use
- 2014 to the present
- Aspect Ratio
- Not documented · original image 16:9
- Ratio Notes
- No creator statement prescribes a ratio. The original published image is 16:9. Nikki's 2020 Wikimedia rendering is 5:3, a proportion of that file's own choosing. [2][4]
- Stripes
- 3
- Represented Identity
- Maverique
Archive categories Gender Identity Pride Flags
Overview
To give a flag to the gender Vesper had just coined for their own experience, which existing labels including neutrois did not fit. [2][1]
Vesper H. posted a rough first definition of maverique on 1 June 2014, labelled as a draft. [1] On 15 June they posted a second wording, v2.0, and the same day at 13:28 UTC published the flag on Tumblr: three equal stripes of yellow, white, and orange, with each colour's meaning stated in the post. [5][2] A third rewording, v3.0, followed on 21 June, and on 25 June Vesper expanded on the yellow colour analogy while continuing to invite feedback. [3][6]
The flag post itself carries the tag "rough draft" and closes "commentary, criticism and suggestions are welcome!" [2]
Identity & Context
- Represented Identity
- Maverique
- Subcommunity
- nonbinary umbrella
- Language Context
- Vesper constructed the word as Franglais, joining English "maverick" to the French ending "-ique", and gave the pronunciation mav-REEK, rhyming with "antique". [7] The construction is the creator's own; this entry does not gloss the French ending beyond it.
Vesper H. coined maverique while trying to describe a gender that felt present and specific, but neither neutral nor derived from masculinity or femininity. [1] Their June 21 revision described it through "autonomy and inner conviction" and explicitly distinguished it from both genderlessness and a neutral gender. [3] The wording developed publicly across three June 2014 posts, and none of them is presented here as a rule governing every maverique person.
Creators
The Creator
Vesper H.
Coiner of the term and designer of the flag
Vesper H. published as queerascat on Tumblr and later at queerascat.com. They coined maverique to name their own gender experience after labels including neutrois did not fit, posted a rough first definition on 1 June 2014, and published the flag on 15 June 2014, tagging the post "rough draft" and closing it "commentary, criticism and suggestions are welcome!" The definition's wording developed publicly across three posts that month. [1][2][3] Vesper's physical location when the flag was designed is not documented.
"this is the flag that i've designed for maverique, the gender i've recently coined." [2]
"yellow is a primary color (see: subtractive color / CMYK), meaning that it isn't obtainable from combining any other colors and thus is entirely independent from the other primary colors, cyan (blue) and magenta (pink). i feel that this is the perfect analogy for maverique's relationship to male/masculinity and female/femininity." [2]
Motivations
- To name a gender that felt present and specific, but neither neutral nor derived from masculinity or femininity [1]
Attribution notes
Vesper H., posting as queerascat, coined the term and designed the flag. The attribution is direct and firsthand: the flag post opens "this is the flag that i've designed for maverique, the gender i've recently coined." [2]
Origin
- Digital Origin
- Tumblr
- Origin Type
- first_publication
- Physical Origin Status
- Not documented. Later versions of Vesper's site biography describe them living elsewhere than they may have been in 2014, and no contemporaneous source places them anywhere when the flag was designed.
Digital origin; no verified physical location.
Published on Vesper H.'s Tumblr blog, queerascat, on 15 June 2014, and later carried on their website Queer As Cat. [2][7] The origin is a publication venue, not a place; no physical location is documented.
Dates & Chronology
- Year Created
- Exact date
- First published
- Period in Use
- 2014 to the present
- Creation Bounds
- The original Tumblr post carries the timestamp 15 June 2014, 13:28 UTC. [2] The migrated copy of the same post on Vesper's later website displays 16 June 2014; the one-day difference reflects the surviving platform records, not a second design event. This entry dates the flag from the original Tumblr page, which exposes the exact timestamp. [7]
The yellow, white, and orange design has circulated in community reference guides and appears in Wikimedia projects. A 5:3 SVG rendering uploaded to Wikimedia Commons in 2020 is used across several Wikipedia-language editions, including English, Spanish, and Chinese articles. [4]
Nikki, a Wikimedia Commons contributor, drew a 5:3 vector rendering of the design on 28 June 2020 and released that file under CC0. It uses the creator's stated hex values on a proportion of its own choosing. [4]
Lineage
No design derivation is documented in either direction: Vesper described going through many designs of their own before settling on this one, and no later flag is recorded as derived from it. [2]
Later community references sometimes classify maverique under the aporagender umbrella because both describe a specific gender that is neither male, female, neutral, nor absent. This is a retrospective taxonomic relationship, not evidence that either flag influenced the other. [8]
The related entries are related by what the article can explain, not by descent: neutrois, a label Vesper explicitly discussed as not fitting their experience; agender, a useful contrast because Vesper's final wording distinguishes maverique from being without gender; aporagender, the later taxonomic association above; and nonbinary, the broader community context, yellow being a colour Vesper noted is "often associated with non-binary gender". [1][3][2]
Colors & Symbolism
Vesper deliberately excluded blue, pink, and purple because those colours carried gender associations that described what maverique was not: "i made it a point to not include any blues, pinks or purples as those all have set gender associations which have nothing to do with maverique except that they describe things which maverique is not." [2]
| Colour | Creator-stated values from the flag post | Meaning | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yellow | #FFF344 | A primary or elementary gender, independent from the blue and pink colour analogy; also associated by Vesper with nonbinary gender. Vesper's analogy is to yellow as a primary in subtractive CMYK colour, not obtainable by mixing cyan or magenta, "similar to maverique's relationship to male/masculinity and female/femininity". [2] | Stated in the flag post: "yellow (#fff344)". [2] |
| White | #FFFFFF | Autonomy and independence. Vesper noted that white can suggest genderlessness but retained it because the assigned meaning resonated. [2] | Stated in the flag post: "white (#ffffff)". [2] |
| Orange | #F49622 | Inner conviction and the individualistic association of "maverick". [2] | Stated in the flag post: "orange (#f49622)". [2] |
All colour meanings are stated in the flag post itself. The CMYK framing is Vesper's design analogy for the yellow, made within subtractive colour, not a universal statement about every colour system. [2] On 25 June 2014 Vesper expanded on the yellow analogy in a follow-up essay. [6]
The three values are stated directly by the creator in the flag post. [2] The raster published with that post matches the stated white and orange exactly; its yellow measures #FFF433 rather than the stated #FFF344, a small variance between Vesper's stated value and Vesper's exported image. The stated values are treated as the palette, and the raster is preserved in the Image Archive as published.
Design
- Aspect Ratio
- Not documented · original image 16:9
- Ratio Notes
- No creator statement prescribes a ratio. The original published image is 16:9. Nikki's 2020 Wikimedia rendering is 5:3, a proportion of that file's own choosing. [2][4]
- Orientation
- horizontal
- Stripe Count
- 3
- Layout
- horizontal_stripes
- Stripes (Top → Bottom)
- Yellow, White, Orange
Three equal horizontal stripes, yellow over white over orange, with no emblem. The image Vesper published is 16:9, served at 1280 × 720 and 640 × 360, with each band an equal third. [2]
No construction sheet or prescribed proportion has been documented. The artwork shown here is a reconstruction at the 16:9 ratio of the creator's published image, using the hex values stated in the post. [2]
Three equal horizontal stripes. The top stripe is yellow (#FFF344), the middle stripe is white (#FFFFFF), and the bottom stripe is orange (#F49622). [2]
Usage & Adoption
- Online Usage
- The 2014 Tumblr post carried 187 notes when read [2], Nikki's 2020 SVG is used on English, Spanish, and Chinese Wikipedia articles [4], Reproduced in community reference guides
- Current Status
- In circulation since 2014
The yellow, white, and orange design has circulated in community reference guides and appears in Wikimedia projects. A 5:3 SVG rendering uploaded to Wikimedia Commons in 2020 is used across several Wikipedia-language editions. [4] Catalog inclusion documents circulation, not organizational adoption; no organization, event, or formal adoption process has been located. The design continues to circulate as the creator-designed original.
Image Archive
Original Artwork
Later Renderings
Discourse & Debates
- Vesper treated the definition as a public work in progress. The June 1 post was explicitly labeled a rough draft, the June 15 v2.0 post requested feedback, and the June 21 v3.0 post simplified and clarified the wording again. The revisions show an effort to describe a specific gender without equating it with neutrality or genderlessness. [1][5][3] The flag post itself was tagged "rough draft" and closed by inviting commentary, criticism and suggestions. [2]
Common misidentifications
- Sometimes conflated with neutrois or agender. In Vesper's final June 2014 wording the distinction is explicit: maverique is a present, specific gender, not a neutral one and not the absence of one. The contrast is Vesper's, not a claim about how every person uses those labels. [3]
Vesper distinguished the word from its English root: being maverique is not a conscious stance against the gender binary but an inherent feature of the person, where "maverick" implies a deliberate rebelliousness. [7]
Footnotes & Citations
Sources and footnotes 8 sources
- 1. Blogs & Personal Sources "maverique" v1.0. Vesper H.. Queer As Cat (2014-06-01). Accessed 2026-03-19
The initial public definition, displayed as June 1, 2014 and labelled a rough draft, with Vesper's request for community feedback.
- 2. Social media "this is the flag that i've designed for maverique" (original flag post). Vesper H. (queerascat). Tumblr (2014-06-15). Accessed 2026-08-14
The original publication, timestamped 15 June 2014, 13:28 UTC, carrying the flag image, the exact hex values, every colour meaning, the statement that Vesper designed the flag and coined the gender, the "rough draft" tag, and the closing invitation for commentary. The image is served at 1280 × 720 and 640 × 360, both 16:9. The post carried 187 notes when read.
- 3. Blogs & Personal Sources "maverique" v3.0. Vesper H.. Queer As Cat (2014-06-21). Accessed 2026-03-19
The third and clearest 2014 rewording, displayed as June 21, 2014, describing maverique through autonomy and inner conviction and distinguishing it from genderlessness and from a neutral gender.
- 4. Image file page File:Maverique flag.svg. Nikki. Wikimedia Commons (2020-06-28). Accessed 2026-08-14
Nikki's own-work vector rendering, 28 June 2020, released under CC0, drawn at 5:3 with the creator's stated hex values. Its file-usage record shows the SVG on English, Spanish, and Chinese Wikipedia articles.
- 5. Blogs & Personal Sources "maverique" v2.0. Vesper H.. Queer As Cat (2014-06-15). Accessed 2026-03-19
The second wording of the definition, displayed as June 15, 2014. An intermediate revision, not the June 21 one.
- 6. Blogs & Personal Sources "yellow as a maverique". Vesper H.. Queer As Cat (2014-06-25). Accessed 2026-03-19
Vesper's further explanation of the yellow analogy, June 25, 2014, with a continued invitation for feedback.
- 7. Blogs & Personal Sources The Maverique Flag (migrated copy of the flag post). Vesper H.. Queer As Cat (2014-06-16). Accessed 2026-03-19
The flag post as migrated to Vesper's website, displaying June 16, 2014, one day after the original Tumblr timestamp; the difference reflects the surviving platform records. Carries the 1280 × 720 raster, the Franglais construction, and the mav-REEK pronunciation.
- 8. Encyclopedias & Reference Aporagender. MOGAI Wiki (2022-02-26). Accessed 2026-08-14
Cited for the later taxonomic placement of maverique under the aporagender umbrella. A retrospective community classification, not origin evidence.
Image Sources
- Rendering
- Creator-designed original, reconstructed at the published 16:9
- Reconstruction at the 16:9 ratio of the creator's published image, from the hex values stated in the post. [2] · Credit: Encycloflaggia reconstruction after Vesper H. · Creator-stated hex values · reconstruction at the published 16:9 · No explicit reuse licence located in the creator's surviving postA reconstruction at the ratio of the original published image, not a prescribed standard ratio.
- The flag as its creator published it. [2] · Credit: Vesper H. · Tumblr · 15 June 2014 · 1280 × 720 · No explicit reuse licence locatedRights No explicit reuse license was located in the creator's surviving post. Copyright is presumed to rest with Vesper H. Preserved at its served size and bytes as the documentary record of the design.
- A later technical rendering, separate from Vesper's original artifact. [4] · Credit: Nikki · Wikimedia Commons · 28 June 2020 · 5:3Rights CC0 applies to this 2020 SVG file only. It does not transfer to Vesper's original design, Tumblr raster, or definition graphics.