As part of the True Colours Quilt Along 2025, CQA/ACC is collecting material for quilters who wish to learn more about the challenges faced by all marginalized people and how we can all help to make welcoming and safe spaces for everyone. CQA/ACC invites you to suggest website links to add to our resources by emailing your ideas to membership@canadianquilter.com.
For more than 45 years, rainbow flags have been used to symbolize gay pride, and are flown during Pride celebrations such as Pride Month in June every year. In fact, the rainbow colours have become synonymous with 2SLGBTQI+ communities.
If you dive into research on the design of the Pride flag, you’ll soon find out there are several variations of it.
The original rainbow flag, known as the Gilbert Baker Pride Flag, was designed in 1978 as a symbol of pride for the gay community specifically. It was soon replaced by a simplified version referred to as the Traditional Pride Flag.
The flag used for the design of the True Colours Quilt Along block #11 is the Progress Pride Flag, and the block pattern comes with instructions for making it into the Intersex-Inclusive Progress Pride Flag.
The Gilbert Baker flag designed in 1978 as a symbol of gay pride.
The Traditional Pride Flag, a simplified version of the Gilbert Baker design.
The Progress Pride Flag designed in 2018 by Daniel Quaser.
The Intersex-Inclusive version designed by Valentino Vecchietti in 2022.
The colours in the flags represent themes or communities. For example, in Gilbert Baker’s design, red represents life; yellow, sunlight; green, nature; pink, sex; orange, healing; turquoise, magic; indigo, serenity; and violet, the spirit of gay people.
More colours were added into the Progress flag, designed by Daniel Quaser in 2018, to include underrepresented communities. Pink, light blue, and white stripes represent Trans and non-binary communities; black and brown stripes represent marginalized people of colour; the black stripe recognizes community members dealing with the stigma of, or lost to, HIV/AIDS.
In 2022, the Intersex-Inclusive Progress Pride Flag was created by Valentino Vecchietti, an Intersex artist and activist. She added a purple circle within a yellow triangle to bring more visibility to the Intersex community.
Canada made the Intersex-Inclusive version the official Pride flag of the federal public service, because it represents “persons with diverse sexual orientations and those with gender diverse identities and expressions, whilst also explicitly including the intersex community.”
There are many other Pride flags that represent more specific communities. The Intersex-Inclusive Progress Pride Flag is the most inclusive of all the designs to date.
We invite you to make a Progress Pride Flag block (with the option to add the Intersex-Inclusive section) from the True Colours Quilt Along. The pattern for Block #11 will be posted Wednesday, April 2.
