In 2000, Helms displayed her flag for the first time at the Phoenix Pride parade, and it quickly gained traction. She sewed together the panels of blue, pink, and white fabric to create the first-ever transgender flag. One day, in the fog of waking up in the morning, the idea for the flag came to her. In 1999, her friend and fellow activist Mike Page, who created the bisexual flag, encouraged Helms to design a transgender flag. Today, Helms is best known as the “ transgender Betsy Ross” for being the woman to create the trans pride flag. Her experience of loneliness that came with the knowledge of being in the wrong body, from childhood to adulthood, empowers her work today as a trans activist– helping to build a world where no person feels unsafe to be who they are. It wasn’t until 41 years later that she realized she was a woman, and she started her transition. From the early age of 5, she knew something about her was fundamentally different, and she began to pray to God to turn her into a girl. Monica Helms, born in 1951, served in the U.S. It wasn’t until 1999 that transgender activist and navy veteran Monica Helms decided it was about time the transgender community had a pride flag of their own to wave high. Read on to learn more about how the transgender flag we know today became a symbol of progress and pride for the transgender community.Īlthough today we can easily picture the transgender pride flag in our minds– and can even type it in emoji form ?️⚧️ – that was not always the case. Becoming more educated on transgender history and visibility is a great place to start! against the transgender community, it’s more important than ever to grow our allyship for our trans friends. With recent harmful legislation in the U.S.
You likely now recognize the blue, pink, and white trans flag as a symbol for the trans community, but how did this striped flag come to be, and what do the colors actually mean? The transgender pride flag is now a widely recognized symbol, but that hasn’t always been the case.