A Darker Trans Flag

CW: talk about the abuses towards trans people

The trans flag is a bright, shining symbol of something we want trans lives to be. The light colours associated culturally with children invoke the idea of gender as something that can be played with, something to enjoy. When I see it, it makes me think of those who have been lucky enough to have an early awareness of the possibility of transitioning, accepting parents and access to things like puberty blockers, letting them be who they are from an early age. It reminds me that I'm fighting to create a world where that is the norm, not the exeption for trans youth.

But right now, it is the exception, and for many of us, that's not how the experience of being trans goes at all. For many of us, living as our true selves came at a significant cost. Family and friends may have abandoned us. They may have convinced us, for some period of time, that we were mistaken. We may have had decades of not understanding why things didn't feel quite right, because we didn't see representation of our experiences until later in life. Many of us have experienced acts of violence from hateful strangers, or worse, those close to us. Our voices are routinely silenced, our existance described as a threat, and in many countries we're currently facing quickly escalating legislative actions trying to make our existance illegal. In many others, we already are.

Existing as trans is not yet the easy road we'd love to see it be. While I think the beautiful, vibrant, bright colours are exactly the banner to march under, to the world who we want to be as a group,many of us don't really feel represented by it. A friend of mine was lamenting the fact that he didn't feel like his transness was accurately represented by it, and I jokingly knocked together this flag. He immediately said that this was a much better representation for him.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I wanted to make this available to everyone. We're still marching under banners that represent the umbrella terms and ideas, but pins and other visual indicators of who we are as individuals are increasingly showing themselves and I want this to be among the options for people to use.

According to wikipedia, Monica Helms, the creator of the transgender pride flag that we all know said this about the colors: "The stripes at the top and bottom are light blue, the traditional color for baby boys. The stripes next to them are pink, the traditional color for baby girls. The stripe in the middle is white, for those who are transitioning or consider themselves having a neutral or undefined gender."

In a similar vein, on this flag there are dark blue stripes for masculinity, and dark pink for femininity. The deeper colors represent the many trans people who found themselves late in life, the struggles overcome, and the complexity of self love. The Black represents identies that don't fit the binary, whether that's identifying somewhere in between, fluctuating, no gender at all, or something completely outside of the binary model. I chose black for the same reasons as the deeper blue and pink, and also as a nod to the fact that transgender/gender-nonconforming BIPOC have been, and continue to be, a driving force in the fight for recognition and rights and unfortunately are the victims of the majority of anti-trans violence.


To the extent possible under law, Liam Woodard has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to Dark Trans Flag. This work is published from: United States.

last edited: 2024/01/12 fixed links and made some clairifying tweaks to text.