Queerplatonic Pride Flag (anonymous heart design)

Overview

A queerplatonic relationship is a committed non-romantic relationship that departs from the cultural norm for a friendship. AUREA's aromantic glossary defines it that way and credits the terminology to Meloukhia and Kaz. ^[3] The pride-color-schemes post that documents this flag opens with a definition it takes from S. E. Smith, writing as realsesmith: the relationship is one where "an intense emotional connection transcending what people usually think of as 'friendship' is present, but the relationship is not romantic in nature", and "The 'queer' is a reference to the idea of queering relationships and ideas about relationships, not for describing the orientations or genders of anyone in a queerplatonic relationship." ^[2]

Identity & Context

Represented Identity

Queerplatonic relationships (QPRs)

Subcommunity

Aromantic spectrum; asexual spectrum; relationship diversity

Queerplatonic relationships are closely associated with aromantic and asexual communities without being exclusive to them. People of any orientation may be in one.

Creators

The Creator

Attribution notes

The design is anonymous, and both sources that carry it say so. The DeviantArt file page describes it as "Flag by anonymous", and the pride-color-schemes post that documents it records "Term coined by: Unknown" and "Designed by: Unknown". ^[1][2] The Wikimedia Commons record for the five-band companion design gives its author as Anonymous and its source as that same post. ^[4]

A credit to a designer named Mist, paired with the date 6 July 2016, circulates with this flag in guides and reposts. No located source carries it. FlagColorCodes, cited for it in earlier versions of this entry, publishes five colour swatches with their conversions and no designer, date or history at all. ^[5] Mist is recorded here as an unresolved credit rather than as an attribution.

Origin

Place Type

online

Digital Origin

Yes

Digital origin. No specific geographic location documented.

Published to the Pride-Flags DeviantArt gallery at 19:25 Pacific on 21 August 2015, which is 22 August in UTC and the date the site displays. The pride-color-schemes Tumblr write-up followed on 6 July 2016. Where and by whom the design was made is not documented. ^[1][2]

Dates & Chronology

Year Created

2015

First documented publication

August 22, 2015

Period in Use

2015–present

Documented circulation is online and wide: the Pride-Flags DeviantArt gallery, the pride-color-schemes Tumblr post, flag reference sites, and a Wikimedia Commons copy of the companion design used on Wikipedia language editions. ^[5][1][2][4]

Two designs were published together and are documented together. This one carries seven mirrored bands and a yellow heart; the other carries five bands in pastel yellow, pastel pink, white, grey and black and no emblem. The archive's post of 6 July 2016 sets them out one after the other, gives "Designed by: Unknown" once, and gives one colour key for both. ^[2]

The files predate that post. The five-band design went up on DeviantArt on 17 August 2015 and the heart design on 22 August 2015, ten and a half months before the write-up that is usually cited as the flag's date. ^[1][6]

The copy of the five-band design on Wikimedia Commons, uploaded on 2 May 2023, is dated 2016 there and sourced to the Tumblr post rather than to the earlier DeviantArt file. ^[4]

Lineage

Indirect influences

Aromantic Pride Flag

Related flags

Asexual Pride Flag

The white, grey and black of both designs are read by the archive that documents them as a gray-aromantic reference, in its own hedged wording: "Likely symbolizes the gray-aro spectrum." ^[2] That is a reading offered by a documenting party rather than a statement by the designer, so the connection to the aromantic flag is recorded as a qualified influence and not as derivation.

Colors & Symbolism

The archive that documents the flag gives one colour key covering both designs in its post: "Pink: A lighter version of red, which stands for romantic attraction. Yellow: Platonic attraction. White, Gray, and Black: Likely symbolizes the gray-aro spectrum." The key sits below both images and is not written for either one specifically, so it reads as family-level meaning; the hedge on the third line is the archive's own. ^[2]

The key is published for the pair of designs rather than for this one, which matters because only this design has a yellow heart while both carry pink, white, grey and black. The bands are mirrored, so the four band colours cover seven positions; the order is in the design specification. Nothing from the designer has been located. ^[2]

No palette was published, so these are sampled values, taken from the 5000 by 3000 file the archive links for the full-size copy. ^[1]

A second set of values circulates and does not come from that file. FlagColorCodes publishes #F89FC9, #2E2826, #7E7E7E, #FFFFFF and #FEE900, which are the pixel values of its own redrawn rendering rather than of the original artwork. Both sets describe the same design; the values here are the designer's file. ^[5][1]

Design

Aspect Ratio

3:5 · standard

Orientation

horizontal

Stripe Count

7

Layout

stripes_with_emblem

Stripes (Top → Bottom)

Pink, Near-black, Grey, White, Grey, Near-black, Pink

Center Symbol

Yellow heart

Seven bands of equal depth, symmetric about the white centre, under a yellow heart. The archive's image description reads "7 horizontal stripes from top to bottom: pink, dark gray, gray, white, gray, dark gray, pink. There is a yellow heart in the center." ^[2] Measured on the 5000 by 3000 original, each band is a seventh of the height and the heart spans a third of the width, from 0.33 to 0.67, and just under half the height, from 0.26 to 0.74. ^[1]

Seven horizontal bands of equal depth with a centred yellow heart. No aspect ratio was published with the design; the file is 5000 by 3000 pixels, which is the archive's standard canvas rather than a specification for this flag. ^[1]

Seven equal horizontal bands, symmetric about the centre: pink #FF93C9, near-black #2A2A2A, grey #7F7F7F, white #FFFFFF, grey, near-black, pink. A yellow #FFF200 heart is centred on the flag. ^[1]

Usage & Adoption

Online Usage

Pride-Flags DeviantArt gallery and pride-color-schemes Tumblr. ^[1][2], Flag reference sites, which publish colour values for the design. ^[5], The five-band companion design is on Wikimedia Commons and is used on Wikipedia language editions. ^[4]

Current Status

Documented variant; circulation documented online

Documented in online reference material and in flag guides. No photographed physical use has been located.

Image Archive

The two 2015 designs

Discourse & Debates

• Whether queerplatonic is exclusive to aromantic and asexual people or open to anyone regardless of orientation. The definition the archive quotes takes the second position: "Anyone, sexual or asexual, romantic or aromantic, straight, gay, queer, bi, lesbian, poly, cis, trans, etc can be in a queerplatonic relationship." ^[2]
• Quasiplatonic, quirkyplatonic and qplatonic circulate as alternatives for people who would rather not use the word Queer here. The archive's own post title carries three of them at once. ^[2]

Common misidentifications

• Credited to a designer named Mist, usually with the date 6 July 2016. No located source carries that credit, and the page most often cited for it publishes colour swatches and nothing else. ^[5]
• Dated 2016, which is the date of the write-up. The file has been on DeviantArt since August 2015. ^[1][2]
• Merged with the five-band design published beside it. They are separate designs with separate files and separate upload dates. ^[1][6]
• Confused with the aromantic flag, whose black, white and grey it echoes.

AUREA's aromantic glossary credits the terminology to Meloukhia and Kaz, and records QPR for the relationship and QPP for a partner in one. ^[3] The LGBTQIA+ Wiki gives a fuller chronology, placing the first use on 25 December 2010 in a Dreamwidth thread called Kaz's Scribblings and the spread from a Tumblr post by Meloukhia, also known as S. E. Smith, on 22 January 2011, and dating quasiplatonic to May 2014 as an alternative for aromantic people uncomfortable with the word Queer. ^[7] Those coiners named the relationship, not the flag; no source connects any of them to a flag design.

Footnotes & Citations

Image Sources

Rendering

Anonymous heart design (2015)

• The anonymous heart design, published to DeviantArt on 22 August 2015 and documented by the pride-color-schemes archive on 6 July 2016. Archive rendering, with the band depths and the five colours sampled and the heart outline traced on the original 5000 by 3000 file. · Credit: Design: anonymous. Source documentation: pride-color-schemes, 6 July 2016. Source file published by Pride-Flags on DeviantArt. Rendering: Encycloflaggia, measured from the original file. · DeviantArt (Pride-Flags) · reconstructionRights The DeviantArt file page carries a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence, applied by the account that uploaded the file. The design itself is anonymous and no statement from its designer has been located.
• The five-band queerplatonic design, published to DeviantArt on 17 August 2015 and documented beside the heart design in the pride-color-schemes post of 6 July 2016. This copy is the Wikimedia Commons file, uploaded on 2 May 2023 while its uploader was editing the English Wikipedia article on queerplatonic relationships. · Credit: Design: anonymous. Source documentation: pride-color-schemes, 6 July 2016. Commons upload: Acidapplepie, 2 May 2023. · Wikimedia Commons · verifiedRights Commons applies its threshold-of-originality rationale to this file, classifying it as public domain because it consists of information that is common property and contains no original authorship. That is a classification of this file by Commons, not a licence issued by the anonymous designer. The DeviantArt file page for the same design carries a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence applied by the uploading account.