In turn, it has prompted the community to demand the current board relinquishes its responsibilities to new leadership. A prime example includes the ongoing controversy alleging racist policies and exclusion by the Boston Pride Board of directors. LGBTQ+ organizations that have refused to hear the outcries for inclusion and representation from the Black and Brown, Indigenous, Asian, immigrant, transgender, and women’s communities - and additional further intersectionalities under the rainbow umbrella - have come under fire for their white-centric views and attitudes, serving themselves but not all. It is incomprehensible to turn our backs on those that need the community the most. As a community, we must not forget the people who are still fighting for rights, affirmation, acceptance, and recognition. Pride and the rainbow flag is not a celebratory pastime. Pride was a riot lead by Black and Brown trans women and a black lesbian, Stormé DeLarverie who elicited the crowd to action in the middle of her own brutalization by police at the Stonewall Uprising of 1969. The Progress Flag debate is an exclusionary and ironic practice at best. There are many members of the LGBTQ+ community that are stigmatized, traumatized, and marginalized by society and its own members. Pride is not merely a celebration nor “business as usual,” and we shouldn’t pretend otherwise. Intersectionality is not a concept that can continue to be ignored by the mainstream LGBTQ+ community, especially when most major decision-making within pride organizations is centered on the white, cisgender, and gay experience. I am a designer and I wanted to make a change where I saw there was an opportunity - a positive change, in my mind at least.” “The initial idea was important because I felt like I could bring something to the table when it came to the way the flag was shifting within the community. “When the Pride flag was recreated in the last year to include both black/brown stripes, as well as the trans stripes, included this year, I wanted to see if there could be more emphasis in the design of the flag to give it more meaning,” said Quasar in 2018. Still and rightfully so, adoption of the coined “Progress Flag” has been paramount since its inception. However, the inclusive design to highlight the struggles of the most marginalized within the LGBTQ+ community has also been met with great resistance, especially by some within LGBTQ+ ranks.
His Kickstarter campaign supporting the efforts took off like wild fire with a warm welcome from around the globe. Portland, Oregon-based designer Daniel Quasar gave an inclusive facelift to the original rainbow stripped pride flag in in 2018. Ocasio*/Editor-in-Chief & Publisher, Respectively. When LGBTQ+ Justice Goes Beyond the Rainbow & Why the Progress Pride Flag is Important within that Context A Look at Recent Developments Within Boston Pride (BP)īy: Nicole Lashomb & Graysen M.