A straight flag or heterosexual flag is a pride flag intended to represent heterosexuality. Some straight flags represent straight pride, a conservative countermovement to gay pride. There is also the straight ally flag, which is intended to represent allyship by straight people with the LGBT community. Although there are many proposed straight flags, none of them has broad consensus for usage today.[1]
Variations[]
A flag composed of alternating black and white stripes, with a design similar to the rainbow LGBT pride flag, was created to represent straight pride. Several variations of this flag exist. One uses white, grey and black colors, also mimicking the rainbow flag and originating in the early 2000s. Another variation with the male and female gender symbols imposed over its field also exists.[1]
In 2015, the Russian political party United Russia, with then President Vladimir Putin as a member, introduced a straight pride flag to be showcased on Peter and Fevronia Day (also known as the Day of Family, Love, and Faithfulness). The flag features a family of a man, a woman, and three children, accompanied by the hashtag #НастоящаяCемья ("#RealFamily"). This initiative was a response to the legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States earlier that year. The flag has three versions, each representing one of the colors from the Russian flag. One design depicts the family and text in red on a white background, while the other two present the symbols in white on a red or blue field. La Manif pour tous, a French organization opposing same-sex marriage, accused United Russia of plagiarism, as their flag closely resembled the one used by the Russian party, with the only distinction being the number of children. However, Alexey Lisovenko, the deputy head of United Russia in Moscow at the time, claimed that La Manif pour tous' flag creators had approved the design.[1]
In 2019, the American organization Super Happy Fun America organized a straight pride parade in Boston, Massachusetts, in August. Described as a reaction to the "identity politics" of the left, the event drew hundreds of participants and faced opposition from thousands of counter-protesters, significantly outnumbering parade participants. The organization featured a rectangular straight pride flag on its official website. This flag is divided from the upper hoist to the lower fly, with pink at the fly and blue at the hoist, overlaid with interlocked male and female gender symbols in yellow, bordered with black.[1]
In 2021, a social media trend named "super straight" emerged on TikTok on February 21 and subsequently spread to platforms like 4chan, Reddit, and Twitter. Advocates claimed that "super straight" represented a new sexuality describing heterosexual individuals who would not engage in a sexual relationship with transgender people. The originator mentioned creating the term due to frustration with being labeled transphobic. Although described as a transphobic campaign by Insider and The Daily Dot and listed by GLAAD as online hate speech, supporters created an orange and black flag, resembling PornHub's logo. Variations of the flag included the hashtag "#SuperStraight" or intertwined male and female symbols. Some individuals on 4chan used the acronym SS for "super straight," leading to associations with Adolf Hitler's Schutzstaffel logo, which also used SS as its acronym. Consequently, some flags with Nazi symbolism were used by supporters of this trend.[1]
Straight Ally flag[]
A modified version of the alternating black-and-white striped flag is recognized as the straight ally flag, symbolizing heterosexual individuals who stand in support of the LGBT community. This flag merges the black and white straight flag with the rainbow LGBT flag. The rainbow section of the flag may be shaped like an "A" denoting "allies" or an inverted "V". While its precise origin remains unclear, this flag emerged in the late 2000s.[1]