More Color More Pride: Redefining Queerness for People of Color

We are incredible proud of our friends and family in the Philadelphia region for their continued work in addressing racism and discrimination in queer spaces. Their longstanding advocacy for queer and transgender people of color communities is inspiring and we are humbled to bring that advocacy to our local community, and to uplift their accomplishments as they seek to advance and empower historically marginalized communities.

More Color More Pride, a Philadelphia based campaign that is gaining national traction, aims to recognize nonwhite LGBTQ+ communities as part of the broader pride movement, starting with the most visible and widely-recognized symbol of the LGBTQ+ community. They announced this campaign by raising a new gay-rights symbol: a pride flag with additional black and brown stripes meant to represent individuals of color, a group often overlooked within the LGBTQ+ umbrella.

On a Facebook post written by Juan David Franco, a community activist and member of THE GRAN VARONES, a Philadelphia based storytelling project centering the experiences of the Latinx and Afro-Latinx queer community, about the redesign, "This new LGBTQIA Pride flag, that includes Black and Brown stripes, signifies a renewed dedication to unity and inclusion in the LGBTQ community."

Executive Director of the Philadelphia Office of LGBT Affairs Tierney Hikes shared with CNN that there is a presumption among the gay white community that the rainbow flag already represents everyone, "White people do not know what racism looks like, because that's the definition of racism."

We stand in solidarity with the work being done in order to uplift and empower the queer communities of color and support the #MoreColorMorePride campaign.

#QLatinx #MoreColorMorePride #TheGranVarones