The History of the Polysexual Flag & What It Represents

The Polysexual Flag 

Polysexuality is a sexual orientation which means you are attracted to multiple, but not all, genders (so for example, a polysexual person could be attracted to genders expect men). Authors such as Linda Garnets and Douglas Kimmel say that polysexuality is a sexual identity is used,by people who recognize that the term bisexual reifies the gender dichotomy that underlies the distinction  between heterosexuality and homosexuality, implying that bisexuality is nothing more than a hybrid combination of these gender and sexual dichotomies.” But, bisexual people and scholars my disagree with the notion that bisexuality means that you are only attracted to two genders, and argue that bisexuality is not about being sexually attracted to just men and women, but attraction to different genders as well, including more than two genders.

Polysexuality is different to polyamory (the desire to be in a consenting relationship with multiple people at the same time) or pansexuality, which is attraction to all genders and sexes. It’s a self-identifying term that is somewhat vague because there are a variety of people who use it to describe themselves. Polysexual people may be attracted to people who are, for example, genderqueer or intersex. But, polysexual people do not have to be attracted to non-binary people, though they can be; individuals who identify as polysexual can experience attraction to both binary and non-binary genders. 

The polysexual flag was designed by the  Tumblr user with the signature “Samlin.” The flags design was made public on the blog @fuckyeahpolysexuality on July 11, 2012. Samlin declared that they, as a poly individual, “was greatly saddened by the fact that we don’t have a flag…so I made one 😛 I made it similar to the bi and pan flags since they’re all in under the multisexual umbrella.” -Samlin. The flags colors, pink green and blue, are based on the pansexual and bisexual flags. The flag borrowed the pink and the blue from the bi flag, and replaced the yellow and purple stripes with a green one; the pink stripe represents attraction to female-identifying people, the green stripe represents attraction to non-binary people, and the blue stripe represents attraction to male-identifying people. 

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