Ask not for whom the Progress Pride flag flies
How the Progress Pride flag became a political symbol
When President Joe Biden hosted the White House’s Pride event earlier this month, he went beyond just ROYGBIV.
Staging for the largest Pride event in White House history included a Progress Pride flag hanging from the White House balcony and a stage backdrop with black, brown, light blue, and pink stripes in addition to the traditional Pride flag colors.
“Happy Pride month. Happy Pride year. Happy Pride life,” Biden said.
Released in 2018 by designer Daniel Quasar, the Progress Pride flag includes colors specifically for trans, Black, and brown people arranged in a forward arrow meant to illustrate “that progress still needs to be made,” Quasar said, according to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, which acquired a bespoke applique version of the flag.
Before the White House, the Progress Pride flag has flown at NASA Headquarters, Stonewall National Monument, and worn as a bodysuit by Christina Aguilera during her performance of “Beautiful” at L.A. Pride in 2022, which was iconic. It’s become the default flag for many celebrating Pride this month, a statement of solidarity with marginalized groups within the LGBTQ community and a political symbol.
The flag has been criticized in subreddit forums for gay men and elsewhere as ugly and overly complex. Flag design is characterized by elements inside cantons and horizontal or vertical stripes, but certainly not diagonal ones forming an arrow. It’s unusual and unique, breaking the norms of traditional flag design, and it triggered the cons.
A campaign fundraising email sent Tuesday from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis showed an image of Biden at the White House Pride event in front of the flag and asks, “When did we start accepting this as the norm?”
During his remarks at the White House, Biden couched Pride in American terms, flanking the Progress flag between two U.S. flags and saying queer people “set an example for the nation and, quite frankly, for the world. We all move forward when we move together with your joy, with your pride lighting the way, so today, let us proudly remember who we are: the United States of America.”
DeSantis countered in his fundraising email that Biden was flying the Progress Pride flag “equal to our American flag” and called out the transgender activist who apologized after posting a topless photo at the event (politicians who use influencers, beware, as I reported in this subscriber-only story last month). Biden and DeSantis have different views of the flag, and it’s also a change from former President Donald Trump’s approach to the LGBTQ community in his last campaign.
People forget, but Trump was the first U.S. president to enter office supporting same-sex marriage (or at least, not oppose it), and during the 2020 campaign, he sold rainbow-colored hats and shirts. At the time, progressives criticized the merch as disingenuous and hypocritical (I’d go so far as to call it “camp”), but this year, his online campaign shop offers no such thing.
Like a company that donates to anti-LGBTQ politicians rebranding its Twitter avatar to a rainbow logo, a Pride-themed MAGA hat is no reflection of Trump’s record on LGBTQ issues during his time in office (hint: it wasn’t good), but it at least represented lip service towards queer voters that Republican campaigns aren’t interested in similarly courting this year. The times have changed.
A Gallup poll this month suggests conservative panic over drag queens and transgender people is working: the percentage of Americans who believe gay or lesbian relations are moral fell to 64% from from 71% last year. The silver lining for queer Americans, though, is that a declining majority is still a majority. Cultural warriors saber-rattling at rainbows are fighting a battle they lost.
The message of Progress Pride — that the diverse communities of LGB and TQ+ are stronger together and that Pride is for more than just white bros who can put on a backwards baseball cap and pass as straight — speaks to the political realities of the moment. But could the partisan fight over its message also create an opening in the middle?
While Progress Pride flags are the standard in Washington, D.C., 200 miles north in New York City, Rockefeller Center went with a standard Pride flag for its famous Lower Plaza. It’s a must-see mecca for tourists visiting from across Middle America, and in the context of this year’s Pride, the Gilbert Baker design looks almost… dare I say it… traditional. The display seems less of a pointed political statement than it is a reflection of mainstream values. Love is still love and Pride is always progress.
Have you seen this?
What’s your type? Try these tests to pick the perfect font for you. [The Washington Post]
Scientific journal Nature says no to publishing A.I.-generated images and videos, calling out their lack of “integrity.” The journal, however, will allow text created using large language models, provided their use is documented. [Artnet News]
Ron DeSantis’ deepfakes of Trump and Fauci are a kind of “racist realism.” The A.I.-generated images camouflaged themselves among real news photos. [Fast Company]
I’m really interested to hear you mention the Rock Center Pride flags. They had so much visual impact because there’s so many flags there and the flags were made with such high quality - and a coordinating decal on the ground. I wondered if it was symbolically excluding the communities represented by the new flag, but the simpler flags looked better and “warmer” but a flag isn’t really meant to be decorative - familiar maybe. I’m not done figuring out how I feel about this. I took some pictures to reflect on it. The sound of all the flags whipping around was amazing.