Leather pride flag

Black and blue stripes, one white stripe and a red heart: the flag of the leather, kink and BDSM community.

What the colours mean

Black Often read as leather.
Blue Often read as denim.
White Often read as honesty in relationships.
Red heart Often read as love.

Where it comes from

The leather pride flag was designed by Tony DeBlase and first presented on 28 May 1989 at International Mr. Leather in Chicago. One of the original flags is held by the Leather Archives and Museum in Chicago.

What the colours mean

DeBlase deliberately gave no meanings: he wrote that he would leave it to the viewer to interpret the colours and symbols. The readings above are the ones most often given by the community, not his.

Who it represents

The flag stands for the leather, latex, kink and BDSM community. It is not a sexual orientation or a gender identity flag, and people of every orientation and gender fly it. Its heart is also the reason the first polyamory flag used a pi instead.

Questions people ask

What do the leather flag colours mean?

Officially nothing: Tony DeBlase left them to the viewer. Black is often read as leather, blue as denim, white as honesty and the red heart as love.

Who created the leather pride flag?

Tony DeBlase, who presented it at International Mr. Leather in Chicago in May 1989.

Is the leather flag an LGBTQ+ flag?

It represents the leather, latex, kink and BDSM community rather than an orientation or a gender, and people of every orientation and gender fly it.

In the glossary

Sex-positive

Other pride flags

Polyamory flagBlue, red and dark purple with a white chevron and a gold heart, and the older flag with a pi it replaced for many.Bear pride flagSeven stripes in the colours of bears' fur, with a black paw print, for the bear community.Transgender flagLight blue, pink and white, in a pattern that reads the same whichever way up you fly it.Rainbow pride flagThe first pride flag, designed in 1978, and still the one most people mean by the pride flag.Progress Pride flagThe rainbow flag with a chevron that brings people of colour and trans people to the front.Bisexual flagPink, purple and blue, with the purple where the other two overlap.Pansexual flagPink, yellow and blue: attraction regardless of gender, with a stripe for people outside the binary.Asexual flagBlack, grey, white and purple, chosen by the asexual community itself in 2010.Demisexual flagThe asexual flag's colours, rearranged around a black chevron.Aromantic flagFive stripes from green to black, with green chosen as the opposite of romance's reds and pinks.Genderfluid flagFive stripes for a gender that moves: femininity, the absence of gender, the mix, all genders and masculinity.Agender flagSeven symmetrical stripes, with black and white for the absence of gender and green for non-binary genders.