| Non-binary flag | |
| Adoption: | 2014 |
| Design: | Four equally-sized horizontal bars: yellow, white, purple, and black. |
| Designer: | Kye Rowan |
The non-binary flag is a pride flag that represents the non-binary community. It was designed by Kye Rowan in 2014.[1] [2]
The non-binary flag consists of four equally-sized horizontal bars: yellow, white, purple, and black. There is no official or agreed-upon proportion (the images in this article are 2:3).
The yellow stripe represents people outside the cisgender binary. The white stripe represents people with multiple genders. The purple stripe represents people who identify as a blend of male and female. The black stripe represents agender people, who feel they do not have a gender.[3] The design of both the genderqueer flag and the nonbinary flag include the colour lavender (purple) in reference to LGBTQ+ history. The word lavender had long been used to refer to the gay community. A 1935 dictionary of slang included the phrase "a streak of lavender" meaning a person who was regarded as effeminate. A different-gender marriage where both parties were assumed to be gay was called a lavender marriage. The Lavender Scare was a moral panic in the mid-20th century, where LGBT+ people were dismissed en masse from their jobs with the United States government. Expressions used by the LGBT+ community are sometimes referred to as lavender linguistics.
Kye Rowan created the pride flag for non-binary people in February 2014 to represent people with genders beyond the male/female binary.[4]
The flag was not intended to replace the genderqueer flag, which was created by Marilyn Roxie in 2011, but to be flown alongside it, and many believe it was intended to represent people who did not feel adequately represented by the genderqueer flag.[5]
During Eurovision 2024, the Swiss singer Nemo, who came in first place, sneaked a non-binary flag into the opening ceremony. Nemo later said "I had to sneak in the flag of my non-binary gender because Eurovision told me I couldn't take it out.".[6] Despite banning the non-binary flag, Eurovision's official Instagram account posted an image of the flag after the contest.[7]
Due to the Unicode Consortium having a blanket policy on not adding any additional flag emojis, an emoji for the non-binary will not be added.[8] A blog post by the Unicode Consortium in 2022 recommended using different coloured heart emojis as an alternative (:), though using squares or circles is equally-common (: ⬜⬛, ⚪⚫).[9]