Two-Spirit Leather Pride Flag
Indigenous Pride Flag ·
The 1989 Leather Pride Flag's nine stripes with its red heart enlarged, moved to the centre, and charged with two bound feathers. The Wikimedia Commons file dates the work to 28 March 2024 and credits it to boy Chris (Christopher Hammel) of the Leather boys of Houston, "for the Two-Spirit individuals of the LGBTQIA+ community." [1] Two-Spirit is a specific Indigenous North American identity; the record does not state the designer's relationship to Two-Spirit communities, nor where the flag was made. A companion Non-Binary Leather Pride Flag was uploaded by the same account six minutes earlier. [2]
Key facts
- Designer
- boy Chris (Christopher Hammel)
- Created
- Wikimedia Commons upload
- Documented
- Documented online 2024 to the present
- Aspect Ratio
- Not standardized
- Ratio Notes
- No ratio is published by the designer. The Commons file is a 1562 by 947 canvas that the flag does not fill: a 12 pixel black band runs across the top and a 3 pixel band across the bottom, separated from the artwork by white margins, which reads as export chrome rather than design. The flag proper occupies x 12 to 1547 and y 26 to 928, so 1536 by 903, about 1.70:1. That is neither 3:5 nor the canvas ratio of about 1.65:1. The outer black stripes measure 86 and 87 pixels against roughly 100 for the interior stripes, so the raster appears slightly clipped top and bottom. [1]
- Stripes
- 9
- Represented Identity
- Two-Spirit
Status Variant
Archive categories Indigenous Pride Flags · Subculture Pride Flags
Overview
The Commons file page states the flag was created "for the Two-Spirit individuals of the LGBTQIA+ community." [1]
boy Chris (Christopher Hammel), founder and president of the Leather boys of Houston, made the flag on 28 March 2024. It entered the public record four days later, when the Wikimedia Commons user Leatherheart uploaded it as 'own work' with the design credited to Hammel. [1] A Non-Binary Leather Pride Flag crediting the same designer was uploaded by the same account minutes earlier, so the design is one of a pair of leather-flag adaptations Hammel made that March. [2]
Identity & Context
- Represented Identity
- Two-Spirit
- Subcommunity
- Two-Spirit people in leather and kink communities
- Movement
- Leather pride
- Racial / Ethnic Context
- Two-Spirit is an exclusively Indigenous North American identity. This entry does not establish the designer's relationship to Two-Spirit communities, and says so rather than implying one.
- National Context
- United States
Creators
Attribution
- Primary Designer
- boy Chris (Christopher Hammel)
- Organization
- Leather boys of Houston
Attribution notes
The Commons file page credits the design to "boy Chris (Christopher Hammel), Founder & President of the Leather boys of Houston"; the lowercase "boy" follows leather-community naming convention. [1]
The same record names someone else as the file's author. Its Source field reads "Own work", its Author field reads Leatherheart, and its licence box is written in the first person: "I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publish it under the following license." [1] The file's structured data goes further from the prose rather than closer to it: the creator statement carries no value at all, qualified only with the role photographer and the author name string Leatherheart, and never names Hammel. Its "original creation by uploader" statement was written by a bot an hour after the upload, derived mechanically from the Own work template, so it is not a second witness. [1] Nothing located establishes whether Leatherheart is Hammel, someone who rendered Hammel's design, or another person authorised to upload it.
The organisation's own site does not confirm the title given on Commons. Its only archived capture, from 28 December 2023, says the group was "Re-established in December 2023 for the Houston LGBTQIA+ Community" and lists "President: boy Christopher Hammel", without "Founder". [3] No statement from Hammel about this design has been located.
Origin
- Digital Origin
- Yes
- Origin Type
- not documented
- Physical Origin Status
- Creation place not documented.
Where the flag was made is not recorded. Houston enters the record only through the Leather boys of Houston, the organisation the designer is associated with, which is not evidence of where he drew it. The file carries no location metadata. The design's earliest located publication is Wikimedia Commons, 1 April 2024. [1]
Indigenous Identity Context
- Nation
- Not documented
- Territory
- Not documented
- Cultural Area
- Not documented
- Language Group
- Not documented
- Geographic Scope
- Not established
- Traditional Knowledge Notice
- Yes
- Affiliation Type
- identity_framework
The Commons file page, the design's only direct documentation, credits the flag to boy Chris (Christopher Hammel) of the Leather boys of Houston, dates it to 28 March 2024, and says it was made "for the Two-Spirit individuals of the LGBTQIA+ community" and represents "the spirit of the Two-Spirit individuals in the leather/kink communities in North America & around the world." [1] Two-Spirit is a specific Indigenous identity. The source does not document the designer's relationship to Two-Spirit communities, Indigenous Nation affiliation, community consultation or community adoption, and this entry records that rather than filling it.
The Commons description states the flag's intended audience, Two-Spirit people in the LGBTQIA+ and leather and kink communities. That is a statement of audience. It does not establish the designer's Indigenous affiliation, consultation with Two-Spirit people, adoption by any Nation, or authorisation of any kind, and no such classification is recorded here. [1] [1]
Dates & Chronology
- Year Created
- Exact date
- Wikimedia Commons upload
- Documented
- Documented online 2024 to the present
- Creation Bounds
- The Commons file gives 28 March 2024 as the date of the work and was uploaded on 1 April 2024 at 11:51:09 UTC. [1] The creation date is the uploader's statement; no independent source confirms it. No later use has been located.
No manufacture, sale, display, or organizational adoption of the flag has been located.
Lineage
- Direct predecessors
- Leather Pride Flag
A leather-community derivative, filed against the Leather Pride Flag of 1989 because its design derives from that flag and not from any Two-Spirit design. The field reproduces the leather flag's nine stripes exactly; the two changes are the heart, enlarged and moved from the upper hoist corner to the centre, and the device on it, two bound feathers and a circle. [1]
That device resembles the two-feather motif widely attributed to 2Sanon and carried by the 2016 Two-Spirit flag. No located statement connects the two designs, so the resemblance is recorded as a resemblance and not as a source. The 2005 Zoccole design is a same-identity comparison for the same reason. [1]
The Non-Binary Leather Pride Flag is a companion from the same day by the same hand: the same nine-stripe field, the same central-heart treatment, a different device, uploaded six minutes earlier. As uploaded, its description carried the identical credit, to boy Chris (Christopher Hammel). [2] It is a companion in a short series, not a parent or a child of this flag.
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
- Two-Spirit Leather Pride Flag
Colors & Symbolism
| Colour | Hex | Meaning | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Black | #000000 | Stripes 1, 3, 7, 9 | Measured from the Commons source JPEG; the sampled patch returned this value at 100 per cent purity. [1] |
| Violet-blue | #2900B2 | Stripes 2, 4, 6, 8 | Measured from the Commons source JPEG at 100 per cent purity. Noticeably more violet than the blue in many Leather Pride Flag renderings. [1] |
| White | #FFFFFF | Centre stripe | Measured from the Commons source JPEG. [1] |
| Heart red | #E10101 | Central heart | Measured from the Commons source JPEG at three points on the heart, each returning this value at 100 per cent purity. Not #FF0000. [1] |
This flag has no official digital palette. Color values shown are approximate.
No statement of the color or element meanings has been located beyond the stated purpose. The Leather Pride Flag's own designer, Tony DeBlase, declined to assign meanings to its elements, so this derivative inherits none.
Measured from the Commons source file rather than from any published specification; no palette has been issued for this design. Each sampled patch returned a single value at full purity, so these are the file's exact fills rather than JPEG averages. [1]
Design
- Aspect Ratio
- Not standardized
- Ratio Notes
- No ratio is published by the designer. The Commons file is a 1562 by 947 canvas that the flag does not fill: a 12 pixel black band runs across the top and a 3 pixel band across the bottom, separated from the artwork by white margins, which reads as export chrome rather than design. The flag proper occupies x 12 to 1547 and y 26 to 928, so 1536 by 903, about 1.70:1. That is neither 3:5 nor the canvas ratio of about 1.65:1. The outer black stripes measure 86 and 87 pixels against roughly 100 for the interior stripes, so the raster appears slightly clipped top and bottom. [1]
- Orientation
- horizontal
- Stripe Count
- 9
- Layout
- horizontal_stripes_with_center_charge
- Stripes (Top → Bottom)
- Black, Blue, Black, Blue, White, Blue, Black, Blue, Black
- Center Symbol
- Red heart, centred, charged with two white, black-tipped eagle feathers bound at a circle
Measured from the uploaded artwork (1,562 by 947 pixels; the flag proper inside its presentation frame measures 1,536 by 903, about 1.70:1): nine equal horizontal stripes in the 1989 Leather Pride Flag's order, with the heart spanning roughly the middle third of the flag's height. No published construction specification has been located. [1]
Nine horizontal stripes in the Leather Pride Flag's order, black, blue, black, blue, white, blue, black, blue, black, with the red heart enlarged and moved from the upper hoist corner to the centre and charged with two bound feathers and a circle. Measured from the Commons file. [1]. The designer's sibling upload states a rule the centred heart departs from: "The heart, which is a symbol of unconditional love, traditionally is placed in the corner of the flag at a 45 degree angle. Here, it is centered & tilted to 35 degrees, again breaking the rules of conformity." That is written about the Non-Binary Leather Pride Flag, not this one, and no equivalent statement accompanies this design. [2]
Nine equal horizontal stripes, black, blue, black, blue, white, blue, black, blue, black, the arrangement of the 1989 Leather Pride Flag. At centre, a large red heart carries two white, black-tipped eagle feathers, quills crossed and bound at a small circle. The image shown is the artwork uploaded to Wikimedia Commons in April 2024. [1]
Usage & Adoption
- Online Usage
- Wikimedia Commons (the design's publication venue) [1]
- Current Status
- Published online; no documented use located
The design is documented through its Wikimedia Commons publication. No photographed physical use, manufacture, sale or organisational adoption has been located in the sources used for this entry. Neither this file nor its companion is used on any Wikimedia project. [1][2]
Image Archive
Source file
Discourse & Debates
Common misidentifications
- The companion Non-Binary Leather Pride Flag now reads "boy Scout (Christopher Hammel)" on Wikimedia Commons. The uploader wrote "boy Chris" there, as on this file; the scene name was changed on 4 June 2026, more than two years later, by an unregistered account. The current page text is not the uploader's attribution. [2]
The designer's name is styled 'boy Chris', with the lowercase 'boy' of leather-community naming convention, on the Commons file page. [1]
Footnotes & Citations
Sources and footnotes 3 sources
Image file page
- 1. File:Two-Spirit Leather Pride Flag.jpg. Leatherheart (uploader); design credited to boy Chris (Christopher Hammel). Wikimedia Commons (2024-04-01). Accessed 2026-08-16
The design's only direct documentation. Carries the credit to boy Chris (Christopher Hammel), the 28 March 2024 work date, the intended-audience statement, the Own work declaration naming Leatherheart as author, and the CC BY 4.0 licence. Upload 1 April 2024 at 11:51:09 UTC; file 1562 by 947, sha1 6aeb4d4c1e809c3a10d4fa1148af95aec1fef2ef.
- 2. File:Non-Binary Leather Pride Flag.jpg. Leatherheart (uploader); design credited to Christopher Hammel. Wikimedia Commons (2024-04-01). Accessed 2026-08-16
The companion flag, uploaded by the same account six minutes earlier on 1 April 2024 at 11:44:53 UTC with the same stated creation date and the same credit to boy Chris (Christopher Hammel). Released under CC0 rather than CC BY 4.0. Its description was altered by an unregistered account on 4 June 2026 to read "boy Scout"; the first thirteen revisions all read "boy Chris".
Organizations
- 3. Leather boys of Houston. Leather boys of Houston. Accessed 2026-08-16 · Archived version
The organisation's own site, read from its only archived capture, 28 December 2023. Says the group was "Re-established in December 2023 for the Houston LGBTQIA+ Community" and lists "President: boy Christopher Hammel". It does not use the word Founder and does not mention any flag. The live domain is now a parked lander.
Image Sources
- Rendering
- two-spirit-leather-2024
- Credit: Leatherheart · Wikimedia Commons · verifiedCC BY 4.0. Uploaded by the Commons user Leatherheart; the file page credits the design to boy Chris.
- The file as uploaded to Wikimedia Commons on 1 April 2024, 1562 by 947. The flag does not fill the canvas: black bands of 12 and 3 pixels run across the top and bottom outside white margins, and the flag proper measures 1536 by 903. [1] · Credit: Leatherheart, CC BY 4.0; design credited on the file to boy Chris (Christopher Hammel) · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 4.0, attribution required