Two-Spirit Nonbinary Pride Flag (2016 Tumblr documentation)

Overview

The submitter's stated preference is the closest thing to a reason on record, and it is about the base rather than the emblem: they would rather see it on the nonbinary or transgender flag, because Two-Spirit "is meant to be a gender identity" and the rainbow field might lead people to read it as a sexuality. ^[1]

This version was documented on 17 December 2016 in a composite image an anonymous person submitted to the Tumblr blog ask-pride-color-schemes. The image held four designs: one more complex, pre-existing Two-Spirit flag, and the same two-feather-and-circle emblem placed on three existing fields, the rainbow, the transgender flag and the nonbinary flag. The submitter described the emblem as something already circulating online. ^[1]

Identity & Context

Represented Identity

Two-Spirit

Subcommunity

Two-Spirit people who also identify as nonbinary

Movement

Two-Spirit visibility, Indigenous Queer pride, nonbinary visibility

Diaspora Context

Indigenous communities across the Canada and United States border

Racial / Ethnic Context

Two-Spirit is Indigenous-specific. Use of the term by non-Indigenous people is inappropriate. ^[4]

Two-Spirit is a modern pan-Indigenous umbrella term rather than one uniform precolonial identity. It can concern gender, sexuality, spirituality, cultural role or responsibility differently by Nation and by person, Nations have their own terms, and not everyone the term might cover uses it. ^[4] The woman-and-man reading of the two feathers is the submitter's own account of this emblem and does not define Two-Spirit experience generally. ^[1]

Creators

Associated Figures

Attribution notes

The designer is unknown. The composite image submitted to ask-pride-color-schemes on 17 December 2016 shows this version alongside the rainbow-base and transgender-base versions and a fourth, more complex design; the submitter described the emblem as "an alternative one I've see around the Internet" and made no claim of authorship for any of them. ^[1] The blog's preservation post of 29 January 2017 records "Designed by: Unknown". ^[2] The submitter is conventionally called 2Sanon in later guides, a shortening of their own "This is the Two-Spirit anon", and those guides print the nickname as a designer's username. The record supports calling them the submitter and commentator, not the designer.

Origin

Place Type

Tumblr submission

Digital Origin

Yes

Origin Type

first_documentation

Physical Origin Status

unknown

Digitally documented. No place of design is recorded, and none is inferred from the submitter's own identity, so this entry carries no map location. ^[1]

Documented in a submission to the Tumblr blog ask-pride-color-schemes on 17 December 2016, alongside the rainbow-base and transgender-base versions. No place of design is documented. ^[1]

Indigenous Identity Context

Territory

Turtle Island

Geographic Scope

pan-Indigenous

Colonial State

Canada, United States

Traditional Knowledge Notice

Yes

Affiliation Type

identity_framework

Pan-Indigenous

Yes

Two-Spirit is a modern pan-Indigenous English umbrella term, first proposed by Elder Myra Laramee at the Third Annual Inter-tribal Native American, First Nations, Gay and Lesbian American Conference in 1990 as an alternative to the colonial term berdache. ^[4] It is not one uniform precolonial identity, Nation-specific roles and terms vary widely, and not every Indigenous LGBTQI+ person uses the label. The Nation and language fields are left empty here because the designer of this flag is not known. The anonymous person who documented it wrote as a Lakota person, which is their identity rather than the flag's. ^[1] No design holds pan-Indigenous authority.

Two-Spirit is Indigenous-specific and pan-Indigenous in scope. No Nation affiliation is recorded for this flag, because its designer is unknown. ^{[1][4] [1][4]}

Dates & Chronology

Earliest located documentation

December 17, 2016

Creation Bounds

17 December 2016 is the date of the Tumblr submission that documents this version, not a date of creation. The emblem it carries was already circulating by then, and the submission establishes only that the nonbinary-base version existed on that day. ^[1]

The rainbow-base version is far more widely reproduced. This one is documented in the original submission, in the receiving blog's DeviantArt file of 25 December 2016, and in the preservation post of 29 January 2017. ^[1][2][3] Flags of the World notes that the emblem "can be used on other Pride flags" and points at the submission for examples, but illustrates the rainbow, Progress, New Progress and transgender versions rather than this one. ^[5]

Lineage

Direct predecessors

Nonbinary Pride Flag

Related flags

Indigiqueer / Two-Spirit Flag (cedar-maw), Two-Spirit Pride Flag (2005, Zoccole), Two-Spirit Pride Flag (2016 Tumblr documentation), Two-Spirit Pride Flag (2021, sirieko), Two-Spirit Pride Flag (Patrick Hunter)

Sibling flags

Nonbinary Trans Flag (2026, cirrus42)

The base is Kye Rowan's Nonbinary Pride Flag of 2014, which supplies the four bands and their meanings. The emblem is not from a flag: it was already circulating when the December 2016 submission documented it, and its origin is unknown. This version is not a child of the rainbow-base flag. The rainbow, transgender and nonbinary versions arrived in one submission on one day, each placing the same emblem on a different existing field, and nothing in the record gives one of them priority over the others. Other Two-Spirit flags, Art Zoccole's of 2005, the 2021 sirieko design and Patrick Hunter's of 2024, are separate designs rather than relatives of this one.

Lineage tree

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

Ancestor

Nonbinary Pride Flag

This record

Two-Spirit Nonbinary Pride Flag (2016 Tumblr documentation)

Colors & Symbolism

The Two-Spirit emblem on a nonbinary field. The submitter's stated reason for that pairing is that Two-Spirit "is meant to be a gender identity", which the nonbinary flag says and the rainbow flag does not. ^[1]

Two white feathers with black tips, bound beneath the circle

The submitter's explanation: the two feathers "represent woman and man". ^[1][2]

Circle above the feathers

The submitter's explanation: the circle "represents unity in one". ^[1][2]

The four bands are Kye Rowan's and carry the meanings Rowan published for the Nonbinary Pride Flag in 2014: yellow for gender outside the binary, white for people who are many or all genders, purple for the mixture of female and male, black for agender. Those meanings belong to the base flag, not to whoever placed the emblem on it. ^[6] The woman-and-man reading of the feathers is one anonymous person's account of this emblem, given from a Lakota perspective in 2016, and is not a definition of Two-Spirit experience. ^[1]

The four band values are Kye Rowan's published Nonbinary Pride Flag palette, and the 5000 by 3000 rendering of 25 December 2016 carries them unchanged. ^[6][3] The band Rowan calls black is dark grey, #2D2D2D, not #000000; the emblem's outlines are true black, which is why both appear in the table. The file shown here cannot be used to measure any of this: it is a 424 by 308 lossy WebP whose bands read #F6EC32, #F7F7F7, #9655C8 and #2C2C2C, each a few steps off under compression.

Design

Aspect Ratio

3:5 · standard

Ratio Notes

The December 2016 rendering is 5000 by 3000 pixels, which reduces to 3:5 and agrees with the standard production ratio shown here. ^[3] The copy shown here is a different shape: a 424 by 308 WebP, a ratio of about 1.38 to 1, which is a property of that file rather than of the design.

Orientation

horizontal

Stripe Count

4

Layout

horizontal stripes with center symbol

Stripes (Top → Bottom)

Yellow, White, Purple, Black

Center Symbol

Two white feathers with black tips, bound beneath a circle

Four bands of equal depth carrying the same emblem as the other versions from the same submission, centred and reaching from the yellow band into the black. The feathers cross at the binding and splay downward, white along the shaft and solid black over the lower third; the circle sits above the binding as an open ring with a light spiral inside it. ^[3]

The base is the four-band Nonbinary Pride Flag, unaltered. The emblem is drawn in white and black and is not tinted to the bands it crosses. ^[3]

Four equal horizontal bands, yellow, white, purple and black. At the centre, two white feathers with black tips hang crossed beneath a white circle outlined in black, bound where they meet.

Usage & Adoption

Online Usage

Tumblr, where it was submitted and later reissued ^[1][2], DeviantArt, where the receiving blog published its rendering ^[3]

Current Status

documented variant; circulation beyond the source blog not established

What the sources establish is documentation, not adoption. This version appears in the December 2016 submission, in the receiving blog's rendering of 25 December 2016 and in the preservation post of 29 January 2017. ^[1][2][3] Flags of the World records that the emblem can be used on other pride flags and illustrates several, but not this one. ^[5] No organisational use, manufacture or photographed use of the nonbinary-base version has been located.

Discourse & Debates

• Whether anonymous, online-made Two-Spirit designs carry the standing of flags made within Indigenous Two-Spirit organisations. ^[7]

Common misidentifications

• This version is often described as a later variant of the rainbow-base flag. Both were in the same submission on the same day. ^[1]
• 2Sanon is a nickname for the anonymous submitter, formed from their own "This is the Two-Spirit anon", and is widely printed as the name of the designer. Authorship of the emblem is not established. ^[1][5]
• The submission is sometimes said to show four designs by one person. Three of the four place one emblem on three existing flags, and the fourth is a separate, more complex design that predates the submission. ^[1]

Two-Spirit, also written Two Spirit, 2S and two-spirit, is an Indigenous-specific term adopted in 1990 to replace the colonial term berdache. ^[4]

Footnotes & Citations

Image Sources

Rendering

lossy 424 by 308 archive copy of uncertain origin