London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s official account shared a modified version of the Pride flag on Sunday, and many people had strong opinions about it.
The new flag design is based on the Progress Pride flag, using the familiar six-striped rainbow as the background with an added chevron featuring the colors of the transgender Pride flag as well as brown and black stripes.
The London version featured another chevron on the opposite side with black and brown stripes and the colors of the bisexual Pride flag, creating an hourglass shape in the middle with the rainbow. Notably, the intersex symbol, often found at the center of the chevron of the Progress Pride flag, was not included in this design.
Khan shared the image on the Transgender Day of Visibility and disabled comments on the post.
Despite the disabled comments, people still had much to say about the Pride design.
Many responses were unsupportive, while others simply made jokes.
The creator of this version of the flag is unknown, but this is not the first time that Khan has shared it on social media. In 2020, he posted a different picture of it during Pride Month.
This is not the first occasion where a city government has modified the Pride flag. In 2017, the city of Philadelphia added black and brown stripes to the six-striped rainbow flag, a decision that inspired Daniel Quasar to create the Progress Pride flag a year later.
