The bisexual flag, also called the bisexual pride flag, is a pride flag representing

bisexuality Bisexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or Human sexual activity, sexual behavior toward both males and females. It may also be defined as the attraction to more than one gender, to people of both the same and different gender, ...

, bisexual individuals and the bisexual community. According to Michael Page, the activist who created the flag based on a color palette designed by Liz Nania, the pink stripe represents attraction to the same sex, while the blue stripe represents attraction to the opposite sex. The purple stripe, the resulting "overlap" of the blue and pink stripes, represents attraction to both sexes. Page designed the flag to increase the visibility of bisexuals among society as a whole and within the

LGBTQ community The LGBTQ community (also known as the LGBT, LGBT+, LGBTQ+, LGBTQIA, LGBTQIA+, or queer community) comprises LGBTQ individuals united by a common culture and social movements. These communities generally celebrate pride, diversity, individu ...

. He aimed to give the bisexual community a symbol that is comparable to the rainbow flag for the greater LGBT community. The first bisexual pride flag was unveiled at the BiCafe's first anniversary party on December 5, 1998.

Design and colors

Page stated that he took the colors and overlap for the flag from the biangles, symbol of bisexuality. The biangles symbol of bisexuality was designed by artist Liz Nania as she co-organized a bisexual contingent for the

Second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights The Second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights was a large Demonstration (people), political rally that took place in Washington, D.C., on October 11, 1987. Around 750,000 people participated. Its success, size, scope, and hist ...

in 1987. The design of the biangles began with the

pink triangle A pink triangle is a symbol for the LGBT community. Initially intended as a badge of shame, it was later reappropriated as a positive symbol of self-identity. It originated in Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 1940s as one of the Nazi concentratio ...

, a Nazi concentration camp badge that later became a symbol of

gay liberation The gay liberation movement was a social and political movement of the late 1960s through the mid-1980s in the Western world, that urged lesbians and gay men to engage in radical direct action, and to counter societal shame with gay pride.Hoff ...

representing

homosexuality Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or Human sexual activity, sexual behavior between people of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexu ...

. The addition of a blue triangle contrasts the pink and represents

heterosexuality Heterosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or Human sexual activity, sexual behavior between people of the opposite sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, heterosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or ...

. The two triangles overlap and form lavender, which represents the "queerness of bisexuality", referencing the

Lavender Menace Lavender Menace was an informal group of lesbian radical feminists formed to protest the exclusion of lesbians and their issues from the feminist movement at the Second Congress to Unite Women in New York City on May 1, 1970. Members included ...

and 1980s and 1990s associations of lavender with queerness. Page described the meaning of the pink, purple, and blue colors: Since the original design, the purple overlap has been reinterpreted and is now widely understood to represent attraction regardless of sex or gender. The flag is used in different aspect ratios; 2:3 and 3:5 are often used, in common with many other flags. In vexillological terms, the bisexual pride flag is a simple horizontal tricolor. The exact colors given by Page are PMS 226 for the pink, 258 for the purple, and 286 for the blue: : : : The pink stripe takes up two fifths of the flag, the purple stripe takes up the middle fifth, and the blue stripe takes up the other two fifths. The flag has been most commonly oriented with the pink stripe at the top, but both orientations are acceptable. The flag is not

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an sufficiency of disclosure, enabling discl ...

ed,

trademark A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a form of intellectual property that consists of a word, phrase, symbol, design, or a combination that identifies a Good (economics and accounting), product or Service (economics), service f ...

ed, or

service mark A service mark or servicemark is a trademark used in the United States and several other countries to identify a Service (economics), service rather than a product (business), product. When a service mark is federally registered, the standard ...

ed. In 1999, Michael Page established the use of the

trillium ''Trillium'' (trillium, wakerobin, toadshade, tri flower, birthroot, birthwort, and sometimes "wood lily") is a genus of about fifty flowering plant species in the family Melanthiaceae. ''Trillium'' species are native to temperate regions of No ...

flower as a symbol of bisexuality, and in 2001, Francisco Javier Lagunes Gaitán and Miguel Angel Corona designed a Mexican variant of the bisexual pride flag, which is emblazoned with an emblem of a trillium flower.

Licensing controversy

In 1998, Page stated that the bisexual pride flag was "for free public and commercial use" and that it was "not patented, trademarked or service marked". In April 2020,

BiNet USA BiNet USA (officially Bi/Net USA, The Bisexual Network of the USA Inc.) was an American national nonprofit bisexual community whose mission was to "facilitate the development of a cohesive network of bisexual communities, promote bisexual visibil ...

falsely claimed that it was the sole copyright owner of the flag and flag colors, and said organizations and individuals who wished to use the flag for commercial purposes would be required to obtain a license from the organization, despite having nothing to do with the flag's design or creation. BiNet's claim and the resulting controversy were covered by ''

Out Out or OUT may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Films *Out (1957 film), ''Out'' (1957 film), a documentary short about the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 *Out (1982 film), ''Out'' (1982 film), an American film directed by Eli Hollander *O ...

'' and '' LGBTQ Nation'', which cast doubt on BiNet's claim and noted that the flag is not eligible for copyright. BiNet USA ultimately ceased to use the flag on May 8, 2020, opting instead to use a different design.

Other symbols representing bisexuality

Double Moon

Because many bisexuals objected to the use of a symbol based on the

, Vivian Wagner designed the double moon as an alternative way to symbolize bisexuality.

References

External links