Two-Spirit Pride Flag (2021, sirieko)

Overview

To provide a Two-Spirit pride flag with its own distinct color language, centering Indigenous spiritual and cultural meanings rather than building on the rainbow pride tradition. ^[1]

Twitter user sirieko posted the design on 4 July 2021. It departs from the rainbow base that the earlier Two-Spirit flags use, replacing it with five stripes whose meanings are given individually rather than inherited from the Pride flag tradition. The LGBTQIA+ Wiki, which records the design, opens its flag section with the statement that "There is no widely recognized two spirit flag, however there are a few designs", and lists sirieko's as the fourth, after Miigwan's sun-and-moon design of 30 April 2019, 2Sanon's feather-and-circle design submitted to ask-pride-color-schemes on 17 December 2016, and a proposal by snozzzz of lgbtqa-pride-icons. ^[1]

Identity & Context

Represented Identity

Two-Spirit

Subcommunity

Indigenous North American LGBTQ people who hold culturally specific gender/social roles

Movement

Two-Spirit visibility, Indigenous Queer pride

Diaspora Context

North American Indigenous communities

Religious Context

The flag's symbolism explicitly references spiritual dimensions of Two-Spirit identity, 'spiritual capabilities' and 'connection to ancestors'

Racial / Ethnic Context

Exclusively Indigenous North American identity

Creators

The Creator

Attribution notes

sirieko is named by the LGBTQIA+ Wiki only as a Twitter user. The wiki gives no nation, community, pronouns or biographical detail, and no post by the account has been located. Whether sirieko is Indigenous is not stated anywhere in the record. ^[1]

Origin

Place Type

Twitter post

Digital Origin

Yes

Digital origin; no verified physical location.

Posted on Twitter on July 4, 2021 by user sirieko. The original tweet may no longer be accessible. ^[1]

Indigenous Identity Context

Territory

Turtle Island

Language Group

Ojibwe (the source of niizh manidoowag, from which the English term is translated); the flag itself carries no language attribution

Geographic Scope

pan-Indigenous

Colonial State

Canada, United States

Traditional Knowledge Notice

Yes

Affiliation Type

identity_framework

Pan-Indigenous

Yes

This flag departs entirely from the rainbow base. Its five horizontal stripes carry meanings rooted in Two-Spirit experience: LGBTQ+ community membership, ancestral connection, connection to Mother Earth and tribe, the blessing of being Two-Spirit, and spiritual capabilities. It uses no rainbow and no Indigenous iconography. Two-Spirit is an exclusively Indigenous North American identity; the record names sirieko only as a Twitter user and does not state their nation or whether they are Indigenous. ^[1]

Pan-Indigenous in scope. The designer's nation and Indigenous identity are not stated in the record. ^{[1] [1]}

Dates & Chronology

Year Created

2021

Exact date

July 4, 2021

First public use

July 4, 2021

Period in Use

2021–present

The design circulates through wiki documentation. The LGBTQIA+ Wiki records it, and the MOGAI Wiki reproduces that record verbatim. ^{[1] [2]}

The wiki's count of four designs omits others the archive holds, among them a feather-and-circle flag of unknown provenance uploaded to Wikimedia Commons in 2011, Harlan Pruden and Alex Wilson's 2005 design associated with Albert McLeod's organizing, and later flags. The count is the wiki's, not a census. ^[1]

Lineage

Related flags

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

Part of the Two-Spirit flag family but departs from the rainbow-base tradition established by the Zoccole (2005) and 2Sanon (2016) designs. Where those earlier designs placed Indigenous symbols onto or alongside the rainbow, sirieko's flag uses an independent color language with no rainbow element. ^[1]

Colors & Symbolism

Each stripe carries one dimension of Two-Spirit experience: community membership, ancestral connection, connection to Mother Earth and tribe, the blessing of the identity itself, and spiritual capacity. The order runs from white at the top through earth tones to purple. ^[1]

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

These meanings are given in a single paragraph on the LGBTQIA+ Wiki, whose wording is unchanged between captures of July 2022 and September 2024. The MOGAI Wiki carries the same paragraph word for word and labels its own page as content copied from the LGBTQIA+ Wiki, so it repeats the description rather than confirming it. No statement by the designer has been located, so whether the wiki's wording is sirieko's own is not established. ^{[1] [2]}

No official hex values have been published. The original tweet may no longer be accessible. Colors are approximations based on descriptive sources. The SVG uses these provisional values pending verification against the original image.

Design

Aspect Ratio

3:5 · standard

Orientation

horizontal

Stripe Count

5

Layout

horizontal_stripes

Stripes (Top → Bottom)

White, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple

Five equal horizontal stripes.

Five equal horizontal stripes from top to bottom: white, yellow, dark green, blue, purple. No symbols or additional elements.

Five equal horizontal stripes. From top to bottom: white, golden yellow, dark green, medium blue, and purple.

Usage & Adoption

Online Usage

Documented on LGBTQIA+ Wiki, MOGAI Wiki, Taimi Wiki, and other pride flag guides

Current Status

active

Circulates primarily as one variant among several in wiki-style pride flag guides. Has not achieved the widespread commercial adoption or institutional recognition of the 2Sanon design. ^[1][2]

Image Archive

Flag design

Discourse & Debates

• Whether a Two-Spirit flag should build on the rainbow at all. The three designs the LGBTQIA+ Wiki lists before this one either sit on the Pride flag or borrow its structure; 2Sanon's is described there as "typically put over the gay flag". sirieko's uses no rainbow element and no Indigenous iconography, carrying its meanings in the stripe colours alone. ^[1]

Common misidentifications

• Reference pages titled "Two-Spirit Pride Flag" often describe the 2Sanon feather-and-circle design on a rainbow field rather than this one; Mid-South Pride's page of that title describes a flag with feathers and circles and does not mention sirieko. ^[3]

The English term two-spirit was proposed by Elder Myra Laramee in 1990, at the third annual inter-tribal Native American and Indigenous gay and lesbian conference in Winnipeg, as a translation of the Ojibwe niizh manidoowag. It was coined to displace the anthropological term berdache, and has been criticised by communities that already have their own terms and by people who read a binary into it. ^[1]

Footnotes & Citations

Image Sources

Rendering

two-spirit-2021-sirieko

• The 2021 Two-Spirit Pride Flag by sirieko. Five horizontal stripes representing aspects of Two-Spirit identity. This entry is a work in progress, observing OCAP and CARE principles, and seeking Indigenous community review. · SVG reconstruction (approximate hex)