The Transgender Pride Flag and the Transgender Day of Remembrance
Thursday, November 8th, 2012
by Autumn Sandeen

http://lgbtweekly.com/2012/11/08/the-transgender-pride-flag-and-the-transgender-day-of-remembrance/

Many in the LGBT community aren't aware that there is a Transgender Pride Flag. It's flown at transgender specific events; it can be seen each year at the San Diego Pride festival at the transgender booth. It's a flag that visually symbolizes the T subcommunity of the LGBT community in a manner similar to how the Bisexual Pride Flag symbolizes the bisexual subcommunity, as well as how the Rainbow Pride Flag visually symbolizes the entirety of the LGBT community.

Yet, many of us in the LGBT community and our allies, when seeing the Transgender Pride Flag, have no idea why the flag is flying and what the flag represents.

The Transgender Pride Flag was designed by Monica Helms and first flown in Phoenix, Ariz. in 1998. The flag has five stripes on it – two pastel blue stripes, two pastel pink stripes, and one white stripe. The blue and pink stripes represent male and female; the sex assigned to children at birth. The white stripe represents those who don't fit in that gender binary. That includes those who's assigned sex at birth doesn't match their gender identity; those who's gender expression doesn't match societal sex and gender norms; and those who's gender doesn't align with either male or female societal sex and gender norms.