The gay men's Pride flag has seven horizontal stripes: three greens, white, and three shades of blue and purple. A Tumblr designer called gayflagblog released it on July 10, 2019. The greens stand for community, healing and joy, white includes trans and non-binary men, and the blues stand for love, fortitude and diversity.
| Designer | Tumblr user gayflagblog |
| Released | July 10, 2019 |
| Stripes | 7 horizontal (a 5-stripe version was released alongside it) |
| Colors | Green, teal, mint, white, light blue, purple, indigo |
| Also called | Vincian flag, ocean gay flag, MLM flag |
What does each stripe on the gay men's flag mean?
Bates College's guide to LGBTQ+ flags gives the clearest stripe-by-stripe list:
- Green: community
- Teal: healing
- Mint: joy
- White: non-cisgender gay men
- Light blue: pure love
- Purple: fortitude
- Indigo: diversity
Sources word the single stripes a little differently, but they agree on the three groups. The San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus describes them this way:
"The green and turquoise colors represent community and healing."
The chorus's guide to Pride flags goes on to say white represents gender nonconforming, transgender and non-binary people, and that blue to purple represents love, diversity and fortitude.
Why is there a white stripe on the gay men's flag?
The white stripe is there so trans men, non-binary people and gender nonconforming people are inside the flag from the start, not added later.
According to Wikipedia's entry on gay men's flags, the stripe is an iteration of part of Monica Helms' design for the transgender Pride flag, and it includes people who are transgender, intersex, gender nonconforming or non-binary. The same entry describes the designer as a disabled trans man.
That makes the stripe the most important design decision on the flag. Most people look at the greens first. The white is the argument.
What does MLM mean, and who does it include?
MLM stands for men loving men. In the community it works as an umbrella, and it covers:
- gay men
- bi and pan men who love men
- trans men who love men
- non-binary people who relate to the term
People in our own comments have asked us where the MLM flag is, and this is the flag they mean. The word exists because "gay" alone does not describe everyone it holds. A bi man in a relationship with a man is MLM without being gay, and he does not have to pick a side to be counted.
The numbers show why that matters. Gallup's 2025 survey of 13,454 US adults found 9% of adults are LGBTQ+, and that 17% of LGBTQ+ adults say they are gay. Gay, lesbian and transgender adults each make up between 1% and 2% of all US adults, while bisexual adults make up about 5%. A flag for men who love men covers more people than the word "gay" alone suggests.
Where did the gay men's flag come from?
For most of its history, gay men's visibility was carried by the rainbow. Rainbow flags first flew at the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day parade on June 25, 1978. The rainbow Pride flag was made for the whole community, and for decades gay men had no widely used flag of their own.
The attempts came online and they came in stages:
- 2016 or 2017: a designer known as Hermy published an early design through the Pride-Flags account. Sources give different dates and platforms for this one.
- October 9, 2018: a design by Valentin Belyaev was published on the Russian site VK.
- July 10, 2019: gayflagblog released the seven-stripe and five-stripe flags, and that is the one that stuck.
Nobody voted on it, and no organization approved it. People picked it up and kept flying it.
Why was the gay men's flag controversial?
The flag had a rough start, and we would rather say so than leave it out. The chorus's guide says it was later accepted by the community despite early controversy.
Two arguments did most of the damage. A 2021 post on Beyond MOGAI Pride Flags lays them out:
- Who made it. Many people believed the flag came from a transmedicalist blog, because that blog had reposted an earlier flag in a way that made it look like its own. The post calls this baseless and says the blog made neither flag.
- Whether it copied the sunset lesbian flag, which was proposed in 2018. The post argues it was inspired by that flag rather than copied, and that the flags influenced each other.
That post is a community blog rather than an archive, so treat it as one informed account. Early Tumblr flag history is hard to document, and the record has gaps. What is not in dispute is the outcome: the design with a white stripe for trans and non-binary men is the one the community kept.
Who buys the gay men's flag, and when?
We can answer that one from our own orders. Between November 2025 and October 2026, Pride Palace customers ordered 208 gay men's Pride flags. June was the biggest month, at 51. But 157 of the 208, or 75%, were ordered outside June, and November 2025 (25 flags) outsold every month except May and June.
These flags are not only going up for a parade. Part of the reason shows up in what customers tell us. In our post-purchase survey of 484 customers, one described what gatherings at a sports club are like when they attend with their husband:
"Paddle mates that I talk to during practice will walk past my husband and I with barely a hello or possibly a handshake and that's about it."
That is ordinary, everyday distance, with no slur or scene in it, and it does not stop on July 1. A flag on a porch says something for you on the days you are tired of saying it yourself.
The flag is one of 33 Pride flags in our collection, and our guide to every Pride flag sets it next to the others. All sales benefit LGBTQ+ charities.
Frequently asked questions
Who designed the gay men's Pride flag?
The current flag was released by a Tumblr user called gayflagblog on July 10, 2019, in seven-stripe and five-stripe versions. The account is anonymous. Wikipedia's entry describes the designer as a disabled trans man.
What do the colors of the gay men's flag mean?
Bates College lists the seven stripes as green for community, teal for healing, mint for joy, white for non-cisgender gay men, light blue for pure love, purple for fortitude and indigo for diversity. Sources agree on the overall groups and vary slightly on single stripes.
What does MLM mean?
MLM stands for men loving men. It is a community umbrella term that covers gay men, bi and pan men, trans men who love men, and non-binary people who relate to it. It describes who someone loves, and it does not replace anyone's own label.
Is the gay men's flag the same as the Vincian flag?
Yes, the 2019 design is sometimes called the Vincian flag. The designer and some users call it the ocean gay flag. We could not verify where the name Vincian comes from, so we are not going to guess.
Does the rainbow flag still represent gay men?
Yes. Rainbow flags have been flown for gay men and the wider LGBTQ+ community since 1978. The 2019 flag is an addition, not a replacement, and many gay men fly the rainbow, the seven-stripe flag, or both.
Is there a five-stripe version of the gay men's flag?
Yes. Five-stripe and seven-stripe versions were released together on July 10, 2019. The five-stripe version uses the same color range with fewer bands.
Do bisexual and pansexual men use this flag?
Some do, and some fly the bisexual or pansexual flag instead, or alongside it. Nobody polices this. A flag is a way of saying where you belong, and the choice belongs to the person flying it.
Last updated: November 9, 2026
