Did you know...
People who are neuro-diverse* are 3-6 times more likely to identify as part of the LGBTQIA+ community
** Neurodiversity = people with a diagnosis of/similar to ASD, Tourette's, ADHD, etc
Of the LGBTQIA+ community...
75% experience discrimination or bullying
39% have experienced depression in the past 12 months (2020-21), compared to just 6.2% of the general population
60.2% have felt unsafe or uncomfortable at secondary school in the past 12 months
27.3% say LGBTQIA+ young people have never been mentioned in a supportive or inclusive way in their schooling
40.8% have experienced verbal harassment or assault in the past 12 months based on their sexuality or gender identity
9.7% have experienced physical harassment or assault in the past 12 months based n their sexuality or gender identity
Of trans and gender diverse youth...
74% experience abuse due to their identity
75% will experience depression, compared to just 15% of the general population
But...
when leaders, e.g., teachers or managers, use inclusive language, experiences of transphobia are reduced by 50%
(Statistics from 2020-21 sourced from Minus18, @thequeeradvocate , and spectrumnews.org)
Over the course of Mardi Gras (5-6th March)*, we posted a poll to our Instagram stories asking people how they identified...
86% of respondents identified as part of the LGBTQIA+ community, and
17% identified as both LGBTQIA+ and neurodivergent
These are some astounding statistics - showing that whilst society has come a long way in being acceptance and equitable towards the queer and intersex community, there is still much that needs to and can be done.
AmeCare is passionate about being an organisation that empowers people to feel safe and part of a community that not only accepts, but embraces them.
So, because education + knowledge = power + understanding, I decided to put together a 'master post' of sorts for people to reference, and educate themselves and others on how to be a more welcoming and equitable society.
** For those of you unfamiliar with it, the formally-known "Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras" occurs annually and is a celebration for people in the LGBTQIA+ community. The first Mardi Gras march was a major civil rights milestone beyond the gay community. Up to 3,000 people marched in an incident-free parade in 1979. (Learn more about Mardi Gras History)
Today, everyone has individual and personal values as to why they participate in Mardi Gras and what it means to them, but it essentially known as a festival that provides the platform to be yourself authentically, celebrate who you are without judgement, and come together as a community.
In 2022, the festival started on Fri 18/2/22 and ended on Sun 6/3/22.
In 2023, the festival will be on a global scale for the first time in the form of "World Pride".
** At the end of March is the International Transgender Day of Visibility - occurring on March 31st each year. We will post more about this closer to the date, but you can find out more information about this on Transgender Victoria's website
** Another resource is the Victorian Pride Centre - Australia's first LGBTQIA+ community hub, and one of the largest in the world
Something we can do to help create a more inclusive society, is use gender-neutral pronouns.
When you're meeting someone, don't assume their gender based on how they look.
Refer to the person with they/them pronouns until they tell you their preferred pronouns (how they would like to be referred to)
Create a safe space for people to feel comfortable with their own identity
Gender neutral language
Instead of... | Try this... |
"Hi guys" | "Hi everyone" |
"Hey boys and girls" | "Hey pals / folks" |
"Mr / Ms / Mrs" | "Mx" |
"Husband / Wife" | "Partner" |
"Ladies and gentlemen" | "Distinguished guests" |
"Men or women" | "Everyone" |
"Lady/man" in the red shirt | "Person" in the red shirt |
Even if most queer people identify with the rainbow flag itself, many also desire to fly their own particular flag alongside it. Because...
representation matters!
More inclusion and more visibility is always a reason to celebrate.
The "Flag that started it all" or the "Gilbert Baker" Pride Flag
It goes back to 1977-78, when the artist Gilbert Baker, an openly gay man and a drag queen, designed the first rainbow flag. He was urged by Harvey Milk, one of the first openly gay elected officials in the U.S., to create a symbol of pride for the gay community.
Baker decided to make that symbol a flag because he saw flags as the most powerful symbol of pride. Inspired by Judy Garland's "Over the Rainbow," these colours flew at the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade celebration on June 25, 1978.
Baker saw the rainbow as a natural flag from the sky, so he adopted eight colours for the stripes, each colour with its own meaning:
hot pink for sex
red for life
orange for healing
yellow for sunlight
green for nature
turquoise for art
indigo for harmony, and
violet for spirit.
(Source)
The 6-colour pride flag
The 6-Color Pride Flag is one of the most well-known and used LGBT flags throughout history.
In1979, the community landed on this six-color version, which was hung from lampposts in San Francisco.
This flag includes the colors red, orange, yellow, green, indigo, and violet on it.
Hot pink wasn´t included in the fabrication of these flags, simply because the fabric was hard to find.
(Source)
The Philadelphia Pride Flag
In 2017, Philadelphia took a bold step toward LGBTQ representation with the introduction of the Philly Pride flag, adding two new stripes — brown and black — to the top of the rainbow.
The new flag was meant to recognize the legacy of that activism, and anchor inclusion as an essential part of Philly Pride.
(Source)
The Transgender Flag
Monica Helms, a trans woman, designed this flag in 1999, and it was first flown at a Pride Parade in Phoenix a year later.
The light blue is the traditional color for baby boys
Pink is for girls
The white in the middle is for those who are transitioning, those who feel they have a neutral gender or no gender, and those who are intersex.
Monica purposefully designed the flag so that, no matter how you hold it, it looks the same - and it will always be correct, symbolising the trans community finding correctness in their own lives.
(Source)
The Non-Binary Pride Flag
(Source)
Nonbinary is a term used by people who reject the idea of a gender binary (male/female).
Nonbinary people may identify as both man and woman, they may identify as genderless, or they may alternate between gender identifications over time.
Created by 17-year-old Kye Rowan in 2014, this flag was a response to nonbinary people feeling improperly represented by the genderqueer flag. This symbol was not to replace the genderqueer flag but sit beside it as an option
The colours each symbolize a different subgroup of people who identify as nonbinary.
1. Yellow signifies something on its own or people who identify outside of the cisgender binary of male or female.
2. White, a colour that consists of all colours mixed together, stands for multigender people.
3. Purple, similar to the lavender colour in the genderqueer flag, represents people who identify as a blending of male and female genders.
4. Black, or the absence of colour, signifies those who are agender or who feel they do not have a gender.
The Non-Binary Trans Flag
Because people whose gender doesn’t match the sex they were marked at birth can be considered to be transgender, it follows that people who are nonbinary may also identify as transgender.
For example...
If you were marked “male” at birth but you identify as having nonbinary gender, then your gender now doesn’t match the sex you were marked at birth. Of course, because gender identity is personal identity, there is no right or wrong way to identify.
Naturally, transgender people can identify as nonbinary too, particularly if they don’t want to be defined by the traditional male/female binary.
Given these multi-layered identities, the term “nonbinary trans” and “trans nonbinary” are rising in popularity.
Genderqueer Flag
A genderqueer person does not subscribe to conventional gender distinctions but still identifies with neither, both, or a combination of male and female genders.
The term genderqueer is similar to nonbinary, but has a slightly different meaning and is best considered an umbrella term to cover any identity that isn’t cisgender.
Though genderqueer is a broadly inclusive term, many people who identify as nonbinary feel that the term does not apply to them directly.
Marilyn Roxie, an advocate, and genderqueer writer, designed the genderqueer pride flag in 2010-11, with the colours:
Lavender, created from a mix of pink and blue, which have traditionally stood for men and women, expresses queer identities and androgyny.
Chartreuse/Green, the inverse of lavender, symbolizes those who identify outside the gender binary of male or female.
White, represents identities that aren’t in the gender binary (e.g., gender neutral and agender) as well as the third gender.
The Intersex Flag
(Source)
The flag was designed in 2013 by Australian bioethicist and researcher Morgan Carpenter. It intentionally features nongendered colours that celebrate living outside the binary -
the colours of purple and yellow are used as intentional counterpoint to blue and pink, which have traditionally been seen as binary/gendered colours.
The circle is unbroken and unornamented, symbolising wholeness and completeness, and our potentialities. The intersex community is still fighting for bodily autonomy and genital integrity, and this symbolises the right to be who and how they want to be.
The Flag for the Asexual Community
Formalised in 2010, the flag represents members of the asexual, or “ace”, community – people who generally don’t feel sexual attraction or desire.
Asexuality, like all genders, is a spectrum with:
•a total lack of sexual attraction (asexual)
•Fluid between asexuality and feeling sexual attraction (greysexuals, or ‘grey ace’)
•Not experiencing sexual attraction unless they have a deep emotional connection with someone, as opposed to celebrities or eye-candy (referred to as demisexual and/or greysexual or ‘grey ace’)
(Source)
The Bisexual Pride Flag
Designed by Michael Page in 1998, the flag was inspired by an older symbol of bisexuality: the "biangles," two overlapping pink and dark blue triangles.
The various colours represent attraction to multiple genders.
The top 40 percent of the flag is pink – alluding to the pink triangles, which was later adopted by AIDS activist group ACT UP as a badge of solidarity and pride in the 1980s
The middle 20 percent is purple – an allusion to "purple menace" (or "lavender menace") another slang term for bi+ folks.
The bottom 40 percent is blue – added both because it reflects multiple genders overlapping, as well as make a bit of a joke on the gender binary.
The Pansexual Flag
A pansexual is not limited in sexual choice concerning biological sex, gender, or gender identity.
They will often refer to themselves as gender-blind, explaining that gender and sex do not determine their romantic or sexual attraction to others.
The pansexual pride flag was created by an online pansexual community in 2010, representing pansexuality's interest in all genders as partners.
The colours represent the different gender groups that pansexual people may be attracted to…
•Pink represents those who identify as female.
•Blue represents tools that identify as male.
•Yellow represents individuals that identify anywhere in the gender spectrum or beyond.
The Flag for the Lesbian Community
Created in 2010, the..
•The top red stripe represents "gender non-conformity”
•The orange stripe below that is for "independence”
•Next, the light orange stripe honors "community,
•Followed by white symbolizing "unique relationships to womanhood”
•Pink for "serenity and peace”
•Mauve for "love and sex," and lastly,
•Magenta for "femininity."
(Source)
The Gay Men Pride Flag
The Gay Men’s Pride Flag is another lesser known pride flag. It features different shades of green, blue, and purple.
This updated flag is inclusive of a much wide range of gay men, including but not limited to transgender, intersex, and gender nonconforming men.
(Source)
The Modern Pride Flag, or The Progress Pride Flag
This new flag seeks to take Philadelphia's inclusive approach a step further.
Daniel Quasar, who identifies as queer and nonbinary, designed this flag in 2018.
The white, pink, and light blue reflect the colors of the transgender flag, while the brown and black stripes represent people of color and those lost to AIDS.
Intersex columnist and media personality Valentino Vecchietti proposed a design that builds on this - a purple circle superimposed over a yellow triangle as an homage to the intersex community.
(Source)
The Absrosexual Flag
An abrosexual person has a fluid sexual orientation and may experience different sexual orientations over time.
They may be one sexuality today and be another tomorrow. The timeframe to change an abrosexual individuals’ sexual orientation doesn’t matter, and it could be hours or years before they identify as different sexuality.
The abrosexual flag was created by Mod Chad of pride flags-for-us after an anonymous Tumblr user requested it. It is also thought that the flag and the term originated on DeviantArt in 2013 and later gained recognition on Tumblr.
The abrosexual flag is made up of five colors, thought to mean:
“Green represents a queer attraction, the fade to white is for the in-between stage of attraction shifting, and pink is for the actual shift itself. Also, the colors match that of watermelon, which could be a fun pun on the /fluidity/ of our orientation.”
More flags & their meanings (e.g., polysexual, agender, aromantic, and more)
Flag definitions:
Heterosexual Ally Flag
The flag equivalent of "I support LGBT people, but no homo," this makes everyone feel included at Pride marches, even if they're celebrating other people's sexualities.
Cisgender or 'cis' – an adjective that describes a person who identifies as the gender they were assigned at birth.
- latin word that means the opposite of trans
- does not mean heterosexual
- is not an acronym so does not need to be written in all-caps
- is not an insult or slur
More information around terminology and gender expression:
Be an ally...
- learn about pronouns and how to use them
Instagram - Blair Imani & Ty Deran : https://www.instagram.com/reel/CZXPkP3ppPu/
- stay up to date & share your learnings with others
More information around terminology and gender expression:
- call out discrimination when you notice it
- tell your mates that you support them!
If you have any feedback or suggestions about the content of this post, please let us know! We are always keen to learn more!
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