Rainbow Polish Flag (2014, Angela Getler)
Regional Pride Flag ·
The Polish national flag with the rainbow in place of its red, designed by the Warsaw graphic artist and animator Angela Getler, who first carried it at the Equality Parade in Warsaw in 2014 and published it on Wikimedia Commons that June under CC BY 4.0. [1][2] She stayed publicly unnamed for four years, until the flag appeared at the 2018 Equality March in Częstochowa and the Interior Minister answered a tweet about it within two hours by saying police would refer it to prosecutors; the prosecutor found no crime. [3][4] Getler then gave an interview identifying herself and her reasons, among them that the United States, Great Britain, Scotland and Canada already had rainbow versions of their flags. [1]
Key facts
- Designer
- Angela Getler
- Created
- First documented public use
- In use
- 2014 to present
- Aspect Ratio
- 3:5 · standard
- Stripes
- 6
- Origin
- Warsaw, Masovian Voivodeship, Poland
Status Variant Contested
Archive categories Rainbow Pride Flags · Protest and Political Pride Flags · Regional and Language-Specific Pride Flags
Overview
Given by the designer in 2018. Two reasons: patriotic feeling, the flag "enriches the national symbols with the virtues and values we fight for at marches of this kind"; and precedent, that the United States, Great Britain, Scotland and Canada already had rainbow versions of their flags and "Poland also deserves to have one". [1]
Angela Getler, a graphic artist and animator in Warsaw, designed a rainbow version of the Polish national flag and first carried it at the Equality Parade in Warsaw in 2014. [1] She published the artwork as a PDF on Wikimedia Commons on 14 June 2014 under CC BY 4.0. [2] She checked its legality before carrying it: "Ja jednak już w 2014 sama sprawdziłam, czy na pewno nie łamię żadnego prawa chodząc z tęczową flagą Polski." ("Back in 2014 I checked for myself whether I was breaking any law by walking with the rainbow flag of Poland.") [1]
Identity & Context
- National Context
- Poland
Creators
The Creator
Angela Getler
Designer
A graphic artist and animator living in Warsaw, who designed the rainbow version of the Polish flag and first carried it at the Equality Parade in Warsaw in 2014. [1] She published the artwork on Wikimedia Commons the same month under a CC BY 4.0 licence. [2] She remained publicly unnamed until July 2018, when the flag became the subject of a government minister’s objections and a prosecutor’s investigation, at which point she gave an interview identifying herself. [1]
Jak najbardziej mogę się upublicznić: Angela Getler. Mieszkam w Warszawie. Zajmuję się grafiką i animacją.
Sprawa jest o tyle ciekawa, że pierwszy raz z tą flagą szłam już w 2014 roku na Paradzie Równości w Warszawie. Już wtedy jej zdjęcie było głównym ilustrującym Paradę w mediach.
Po pierwsze jest to wyraz moich uczuć patriotycznych. Flaga ta wzbogaca symbole narodowe o cnoty i wartości, o które walczymy na tego typu marszach.
Co więcej, uznałam, że skoro takie kraje jak USA, Wielka Brytania, Szkocja czy Kanada mają swoją tęczową wersję flagi, to Polska też zasługuje, żeby taką mieć.
Motivations
- Patriotic expression: "Po pierwsze jest to wyraz moich uczuć patriotycznych. Flaga ta wzbogaca symbole narodowe o cnoty i wartości, o które walczymy na tego typu marszach." ("First, it is an expression of my patriotic feelings. This flag enriches the national symbols with the virtues and values we fight for at marches of this kind.") [1]
- That Poland should have what other countries already had: "uznałam, że skoro takie kraje jak USA, Wielka Brytania, Szkocja czy Kanada mają swoją tęczową wersję flagi, to Polska też zasługuje, żeby taką mieć." ("I decided that since countries such as the USA, Great Britain, Scotland and Canada have their rainbow version of the flag, Poland also deserves to have one.") [1]
Broader influences
Attribution notes
Angela Getler identified herself as the designer in a July 2018 interview with gazetaprawna.pl, after four years of the flag circulating without a public author: "Jak najbardziej mogę się upublicznić: Angela Getler. Mieszkam w Warszawie. Zajmuję się grafiką i animacją." ("I can absolutely go public: Angela Getler. I live in Warsaw. I work in graphics and animation.") [1] She uploaded the artwork to Wikimedia Commons as a PDF on 14 June 2014 under CC BY 4.0, self-published. [2]
Origin
- Country
- Poland
- Region / state
- Masovian Voivodeship
- City
- Warsaw
- Place Type
- city
The designer lives in Warsaw and first carried the flag at the Equality Parade there in 2014. [1] The artwork was published on Wikimedia Commons on 14 June 2014. [2] Częstochowa, where a prosecutor opened an investigation in 2018, is a place of later reception rather than of origin. [3][4][1]
Dates & Chronology
- Year Created
- Exact date
- First public use
- Period in Use
- 2014 to present
A photograph of the flag at the 2014 Equality Parade in Warsaw became the main image illustrating the parade in the press, by the designer’s account: "Już wtedy jej zdjęcie było głównym ilustrującym Paradę w mediach." [1] The flag reached a far wider audience in July 2018, when it appeared at the first Equality March in Częstochowa. A Twitter post about it drew a reply from the Interior Minister, Joachim Brudziński, in under two hours, saying that police would notify the prosecutor’s office for insulting and desecrating national symbols; a prosecutor in Częstochowa opened an investigation and found no crime had been committed. [3][4] Getler’s own reading of that publicity is in the interview’s headline: "Dzięki fobiom Brudzińskiego flaga dotarła do szerszej publiczności" ("Thanks to Brudziński’s phobias the flag reached a wider audience"). [1]
The 2018 investigation turned on intent. Getler cited the Polish courts’ reasoning in the Behemoth case, that insulting a national symbol requires malicious intent and is generally a physical act such as trampling or burning a flag, and argued her intent was the opposite: "kolory tęczy podkreślać mają wartości związane z walką o równouprawnienie i tolerancję" ("the colours of the rainbow are meant to emphasise the values bound up with the struggle for equal rights and tolerance"). [1] She compared the charge to writing a town name on the flag: "Tak długo jak pisanie na fladze Szczyrk czy inny Pcim, czyli wyrażanie lokalnego patriotyzmu nie jest w żaden sposób profanacją, tak samo nie jest profanacją wyrażanie patriotyzmu połączonego z przynależnością do pewnej grupy społecznej." [1]
Lineage
- Direct predecessors
- Rainbow Pride Flag
- Sibling flags
- Alberta Gay Flag, Straight Ally Pride Flag, Anarcha-Queer Flag (rainbow variant), Argentina Gay Flag, Australia Gay Flag, Brazil Gay Flag
+ 44 more
British Columbia Gay Flag, Canadian Pride Flag, Chicago Pride Flag (Rainbow Stripes, Purple Stars), Chile Gay Flag, Dominican Republic Gay Flag, Egypt Gay Flag, European Union Gay Flag, France Gay Flag, Gay Pride Flag of Pakistan, Heteroflexible Pride Flag, Heterosexual / Straight Pride Flag, Homoflexible Pride Flag, India Gay Flag, Italy Gay Flag, Japan Gay Flag, Jewish Gay Pride Flag, Manitoba Gay Flag, Mexico Gay Flag, Netherlands Gay Flag, New Brunswick Gay Flag, Newfoundland Gay Flag, Northwest Territories Gay Flag, Nova Scotia Gay Flag, Nunavut Gay Flag, Ontario Gay Flag, Palestinian Gay Pride Flag, Panama Gay Flag, Philadelphia Pride Flag, Prince Edward Island Gay Flag, Quebec Gay Flag, Rainbow Flag with White Triangle (Sapporo), Rainbow Israel Flag, Russia Gay Flag, Saskatchewan Gay Flag, Social Justice Pride Flag, South African Gay Pride Flag, Switzerland Gay Flag, Tanzania Gay Flag, Texas Rainbow Flag, Turkish Gay Pride Flag, Two-Spirit Pride Flag (2005, Zoccole), Two-Spirit Pride Flag (2016 Tumblr documentation), Victory Over AIDS Flag (1980s, designer unknown), Yukon Territory Gay Flag
A direct six-stripe derivation applied to a national flag, in the same family of gestures as the South African hybrid. [5]
Lineage tree
Every record reachable from this one through documented parent and child relationships: 4 records across 4 generations.
- Ancestors -3
- Original Rainbow Flag (1978)
- Ancestors -2
- Seven-Stripe Rainbow Flag (1978)
- Ancestor
- Rainbow Pride Flag
- This record
- Rainbow Polish Flag (2014, Angela Getler)
Colors & Symbolism
Claims national belonging rather than opposing it. The argument is that Queer Poles are Poles, made in the vocabulary of the state's own emblem. [5]
| Colour | Hex |
|---|---|
| White | #FFFFFF |
| Red | #E40303 |
| Orange | #FF8C00 |
| Yellow | #FFED00 |
| Green | #008026 |
| Blue | #004DFF |
| Violet | #750787 |
Taken from the Commons SVG recreation, not from the designer’s own artwork. [6]
This flag has no official digital palette. Color values shown are approximate.
No palette has been read from the designer’s own artwork. Getler published the flag as a PDF on Wikimedia Commons, and its vector colour values have not been extracted. [2] The values recorded here come instead from a separate SVG recreation on Commons, and they are the standard six rainbow values in general use rather than anything specific to this design. [6] They should not be treated as the designer’s specification, and a reading of the PDF would replace them.
Design
- Aspect Ratio
- 3:5 · standard
- Orientation
- horizontal
- Stripe Count
- 6
- Layout
- national bicolor with the lower field replaced by rainbow stripes
- Stripes (Top → Bottom)
- white (upper field), red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet
- Center Symbol
- Polish eagle shield, the shield field filled with vertical rainbow stripes, eagle in plain white
The Commons rendering is nominally 1,280 by 800 pixels, an 8:5 field. [6] Measured from it: the white upper field is exactly half the height, and the six rainbow bands divide the lower half into equal sixths at 8.27 per cent of the height each. The shield sits centred in the white field.
The Polish flag's construction is kept, white above and a coloured field below, but the red lower half is replaced by the six rainbow stripes, and the coat-of-arms shield is filled with vertical rainbow stripes behind a plain white eagle. [6] Press photographs of the Częstochowa march show this design in cloth, confirming that the Commons rendering depicts the flag actually carried. [3][4] Whether the shield constitutes the state emblem or merely its outline was itself disputed in the coverage, a distinction with legal consequences, since the complaint against the marchers rested on desecration of national symbols. [4]
Usage & Adoption
- Event Usage
- Equality Parade (Parada Równości), Warsaw, 2014, the flag’s first documented public use, photographed for the press. [1], First Equality March (Marsz Równości), Częstochowa, July 2018. [3][4]
- Current Status
- Carried at Polish equality marches since 2014; the subject of a 2018 prosecutorial investigation
Discourse & Debates
- Whether the flag carries the Polish state emblem at all was contested in the coverage. The shield is rainbow-filled with a white eagle, and readers argued it reproduced only the emblem's outline; the distinction carried legal weight, since the complaint against the marchers was for desecrating national symbols. [4]
Editorial note
Whether this is a designed flag with an author or a recurring protest practice is not established by any source read for this entry, and the entry leaves it open rather than settling it by assumption.
Footnotes & Citations
Sources and footnotes 6 sources
- 1. Interview Tęcza nie obraża? "Dzięki fobiom Brudzińskiego flaga dotarła do szerszej publiczności" [WYWIAD]. Maciej Suchorabski (interview with Angela Getler). Dziennik Gazeta Prawna (2018-07-12). Accessed 2026-08-16
The designer identifying herself and giving the flag’s date, place, motive and legal history in her own words.
- 2. Image file page File:Tęczowa Flaga Polski; Polish Rainbow Flag.pdf. Angela Getler. Wikimedia Commons (2014-06-14). Accessed 2026-08-16
The designer’s own artwork, self-published under CC BY 4.0 on 14 June 2014.
- 3. News Tęcza nad Jasną Górą. I Marsz Równości w Częstochowie przeszedł mimo blokad nacjonalistów [ZDJĘCIA]. Anton Ambroziak; photographs by Emilia Oksentowicz. OKO.press (2018-07). Accessed 2026-07-26
- 4. News Tęcza obraża orła — Minister interweniuje w sprawie tęczowej flagi z „godłem”. Queer.pl editorial office. Queer.pl (2018-07-09). Accessed 2026-07-26
- 5. Encyclopedias & Reference Rainbow flag (LGBTQ). Wikipedia contributors. Wikipedia. Accessed 2026-07-24
- 6. Image file page File:Gay Pride Flag of Poland.svg. Uploaded by KamillaŚ (2019-06-08); current version by Mboro (2019-07-28). Wikimedia Commons (2019-06-08). Accessed 2026-08-16
The file page for the rendering published here: an SVG of nominally 1,280 by 800 pixels, licensed CC BY 4.0, current version uploaded 28 July 2019, captioned "Poland rainbow flag" in English and "Flaga polskich queerów" in Polish.
Image Sources
- Rendering
- verified_against_photograph
- Rainbow flag of Poland, as rendered on Wikimedia Commons and matched to photographs of the flag carried at Częstochowa · Credit: KamillaŚ and Mboro, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons · Wikimedia Commons · reconstruction