Nonbinary Bear Flag

Identity & Context

For non-binary people in bear communities. The LGBTQIA+ Wiki's Bear article lists a range of terms the subculture uses for its members, among them cubs, muscle bears, sugar bears, otters, leather bears, ursulas, femme bears and trans bears, and carries no entry for non-binary bears as a term. Neither source states who this flag was made for beyond its name. ^[2][1]

Creators

Attribution notes

The designer is an attribution rather than an established fact. The LGBTQIA+ Wiki credits the design to duwang-flags-inc, a Tumblr account since deactivated, in a sentence that carries no citation, where the neighbouring credit for the Trans Bear Flag on the same page does. No original post, archive capture or statement by the account has been recovered. Nothing further about duwang-flags-inc is documented, including pronouns. Bear World Magazine, which reproduces the flag, names Craig Byrnes and Paul Witzkoske for the parent flag in the same article and nobody for this one. ^[1][2]

Origin

Origin Type

online publication, attributed

Physical Origin Status

Physical place of origin unknown.

The design is attributed to a Tumblr account, which would place its first publication online, but no original post or capture of one has been recovered. No physical place of origin is documented. ^[1]

Dates & Chronology

Documented

Documented by 2 January 2024

Creation Bounds

The creation date is unknown. The LGBTQIA+ Wiki, which attributes the designer, gives no date, and the flag carries none in Bear World Magazine's article of 2 January 2024, the earliest documentation located and directly read for this entry. The flag may be substantially older than that bound; it cannot precede its parent, the International Bear Brotherhood Flag of 1995. The sibling design reproduced beside it is documented from January 2019. ^[1][2]

Les K. Wright places the flag among the variants made as "the expansion of sex and gender identities under the queer umbrella has been reflected in the still changing variants of the (gay pride) rainbow flag. Similarly, new variants of the bear flag have been created to reflect this diversity in the bear community." No date is given for it. ^[2]

Lineage

Direct predecessors

International Bear Brotherhood Flag

Sibling flags

Chicago Bear Pride, Trans Bear Flag

A variant of the International Bear Brotherhood Flag, keeping its seven-stripe structure, its equal stripe depths and its black paw at the upper hoist, and changing the palette. Bear World Magazine presents it as one of the variants that followed the parent rather than as an independent design. ^[2]

The Nonbinary Pride Flag of 2014 is an apparent palette reference, not a documented parent: the violet stripe closely matches that flag's purple, but no source states the relationship, and it is recorded here as an inference from the artwork.

The Trans Bear Flag is a parallel recolouring of the same parent, reproduced beside this flag in Bear World Magazine's article. No evidence connects the two designers. ^[2]

Lineage tree

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

Ancestor

International Bear Brotherhood Flag

This record

Nonbinary Bear Flag

Colors & Symbolism

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

No meanings are documented. Craig Byrnes describes the parent flag's own colours as reflecting real-world species of bears; no source carries that reading across to this variant. The LGBTQIA+ Wiki accounts for the stripes of the Trans Bear Flag reproduced beside it, as blends of two parent palettes, and says nothing equivalent here. ^[2][1]

No values are published. These are measured from the reproduction printed with Bear World Magazine's article, in which each stripe holds a single flat value. The top three stripes stay close to the parent flag, with the golden yellow carried over unchanged; the lower half turns to purple, and the violet closely matches the Nonbinary Pride Flag's purple. That resemblance is a visual observation about the artwork, not a documented statement of the designer's method. ^[2]

Design

Aspect Ratio

3:5 · apparent

Ratio Notes

The artwork held is 600 by 360 pixels, which is 3:5 exactly, and matches both the ratio recorded for the parent flag and the sibling variant reproduced beside it. It is the reproduction published with the article rather than a designer's file, so the ratio describes that copy. ^[2]

Orientation

horizontal

Stripe Count

7

Layout

horizontal stripes with canton device

Stripes (Top → Bottom)

dark brown, rust, golden yellow, orchid, violet, dark purple, black

Additional Symbols

a black bear paw print at the upper hoist

Seven horizontal stripes of equal depth, with a black bear paw print over the upper hoist spanning 7 to 36 per cent of the width and 7 to 50 per cent of the depth. That is the layout of the International Bear Brotherhood Flag, and the paw is the parent flag's rounded paw at the parent's size and position. ^[2]

The Trans Bear Flag reproduced beside it in the same article shares the reproduction's geometry exactly: the same seven stripe boundaries and the same rounded paw on the same mask. That points to a shared standardized base file behind the two reproductions rather than independent redrawing; the Trans Bear Flag's creator-posted artwork, by contrast, carries a different, clawed paw. ^[2]

Seven horizontal stripes, dark brown, rust, golden yellow, orchid, violet, dark purple and black, with a black bear paw print at the upper hoist. ^[2]

Usage & Adoption

Current Status

unknown

No documented use has been located. Bear World Magazine reproduces the flag; no user of it has been identified. ^[2]

Image Archive

The flag it varies

The other variant

Footnotes & Citations

Image Sources

Rendering

The reproduction published with the Bear World Magazine article

• The reproduction published with Bear World Magazine's 2024 article, a later secondary copy of the design. Bear World did not create the design. ^[2] · Credit: Not named · Bear World Magazine · 600 × 360Rights Reproduced from the Bear World Magazine article, which states no licence and names no image-maker. The original artwork's licence is unresolved.
• The International Bear Brotherhood Flag of 1995, this design's parent. It supplies the seven-stripe structure, the equal depths, the paw at the upper hoist, the golden yellow and the black. ^[2] · Credit: Craig Byrnes, with graphic design by Paul Witzkoske · Encycloflaggia
• The Trans Bear Flag as its creator posted it, the parallel recolouring of the same parent. Its later reproductions share this flag's standardized rounded-paw geometry; the creator-posted artwork carries this clawed paw instead. ^[2] · Credit: beartrans · Archived Tumblr post

Archive Notes

Two sources carry this design, and between them they supply a name, an attribution and nothing else. Bear World Magazine reproduces and captions it without a designer or a date; the LGBTQIA+ Wiki names duwang-flags-inc in an uncited sentence and also gives no date. No original post by the attributed account has been recovered, so the designer remains an attribution rather than an established fact. The palette and geometry here are measured from the published artwork.