If you’re new to the LGBTQ community, you may have questions about what that pansexual flag looks like and who it is supposed to represent.
What Does Pansexual Mean?
There has been an increase in the number of people identifying as pansexual, also called omnisexual, within the LGBTQ community recently. Why is this?
Sex is not always straight and simple. Some people experience it differently than others. There are many ways to define sex, from chromosomes to internal genitals, external genitals, hormones, skeletal structure, and how you see yourself.
There are further proof that sex presents along a spectrum because there are intersex people. Of course, gender is even more complicated because it entails how someone can interact in society.
Thus, the more you understand how human biology works, the harder it becomes to accept the socially constructed gender binary. Because neither sex nor gender are binary, acknowledging the extensive gender spectrum enables attraction to all genders. This seems like a good step forward.
What is the Pansexual Flag?
The pansexual flag was designed to have three colors that are frequently recognized. The top stripe is a bright salmon-pink color, sitting atop a strip of canary yellow. The final stripe is of bright blue color that rounds off the design of the flag.
In 2010, an online pansexual community called for a distinction between pansexual and bisexual identities. The design for the flag was intentionally created with those distinctions in mind.
The bisexual flag is represented by two overlapping stripes of pink and navy blue. They create a small purple strip where they merge and represent the bisexual attraction to two different genders. But the bisexual flag, unlike the pansexual flag, is only represented in this single world.
What Does the Pansexual Flag Represent?
The three colors in the pansexual flag represent three different gender groups a pansexual individual is attracted to. The pink stripe represents those who identify as female, the blue stripe represents those who identify as male, and the yellow stripe stands for all of the people who identify somewhere along or beyond the gender spectrum.
Suppose a person identifies as pansexual. This person may be interested in men or women, as well as nonbinary people, transgender people, intersex individuals, gender nonconforming (GNC) folks, or anyone else.
Who Does the Pansexual Flag Represent?
The pansexual flag represents anyone who identifies with a pan-sexual orientation. A distinction you should know that pansexuality does not determine your gender identity. People who identify as male or female can be pansexual. People who identify as transgender, intersex, nonbinary, genderfluid and gender nonconforming (GNC) can also be pansexual.
That’s because pansexuality describes a person’s sexual orientation, meaning who you prefer romantically. Pansexuality does not describe how you see yourself along the gender spectrum.
The pansexual flag can represent a polysexual identity as well. The difference between poly- and pan-sexuality is found in the meanings of their respective prefixes:
“Pan” comes from the Latin word for “all”, which refers to the pansexual orientation toward all genders. Meanwhile, “poly” comes from the Latin word for “many.”
This illustrates the idea that not all polysexual people are drawn to every gender. But they are attracted to most or some of the gender identity spectrum.
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