Pride Flags
If you thought there was just one flag (the rainbow), you'd be wrong. There isn't even just one rainbow! Diversity for us is about recognising and celebrating all the wonderful and colourful shades of identities within the community (and outside), and also recognising the intersectionality of many of these identities with others.
So, you've had a good look at our photie with some of our Pride Run flags in, and you've had a guess, looked them up on Wikipedia, found that their LGBT Portal doesn't have them all, searched further afield, and you think you've cracked it. So how did you do? Did you get the right number of flags for a start? ;)
Let's have the picture again so we can talk about them:
Okay, from left to right (because the leftmost one has the answer written on it):
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EFR's club flag. You'll see this at races, Prides up and down this country and others, various community fairs and stalls, and at our Pride Run.
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Aromantic
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Genderfluid
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Rainbow
We're into the mash-up now, but it's still just about clear which order they're in so we'll continue:
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Trans
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Polysexual
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Agender
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Asexual
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Pansexual
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Intersex
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Genderqueer
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Non-binary
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Bisexual
Eventually we'll develop this page to add definitions to these labels, but for now google is your friend so use it ;)
The most important thing to note is that all of these labels mean slightly different things to different people, so you'll find different explanations of each online, and when you meet folk who identify with them, they'll probably have slightly different ideas from each other. And for a bunch of these labels there may be a knock-on effect on people's third-person pronouns, so check out our pronoun page too!
And the flags... there are often several flags for each label for historical reasons and some of them have shifted between labels, so when someone tells you the Genderqueer flag is the non-binary flag, well, it is. It predates the current non-binary flag and has only partially relinquished the label so some people identify it differently and that's all cool :) And you'll find plenty of folk who describe the same thing and then give it different labels, and that's all cool too!
There are dozens and dozens of other identities and flags, including (but definitely not limited to, and in no particular order) Lesbian, Demi-boy, Demi-girl, Akoisexual, Bear, Fat, Leather, BDSM, Master/Slave, Age, Polyamorous, Bigender, Drag, Straight Allies... and all of them are valid and awesome, and we love everyone who identifies with them and all the ones we've missed.
Intersectionality: you will have noticed by now that there are a few different types of identity listed above - the largest goups being sexualities and gender identities. You will have also realised by now that they're not exclusive, and you may identify with several of them. It's amazing how a bit of research into the different identities within the community leads you into self-exploration and the discovery that you're a whole mix of identities. At EFR we're firm believers that the the various gender, sexuality etc. spectra are actually multi-dimensional matrices (probably including the time dimension too), so there may not actually be much point in trying to pin yourself down too firmly.
And all of these can apply to anyone. Every body type, whatever sex you were assigned at birth, whatever body parts/genitals/secondary characteristic you have/don't have/want to have/don't want to have, whatever height you are, weight you are, disabilities you may have, however rich/not rich you are, whatever your politics, ethnicity, country of birth, eye/skin colour, language(s) you speak... you get the (19-dimensional) picture...