The Mayor of Liverpool is set to raise a new pride flag this weekend to show the city’s intolerance of hate crimes.
Mayor Joanne Anderson will open the Liverpool Loves You event, being held at Liverpool Parish Church, by raising a new progress pride flag, which will incorporate colours and symbols representative of the whole LGBTQIA+ acronym. The event will see faith and civic leaders come together with Liverpool's LGBT+ community and its allies to celebrate the city region as a safe and welcoming place.
Mayor Anderson previously told the ECHO she wanted to “build a better, safer, more inclusive Liverpool, where people can thrive with equal access to opportunity and are treated with dignity and respect.”
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She said: “We can all help achieve this by playing our part in tackling hate crime and ensuring we do as much as we can to celebrate our diverse, much-loved communities – and the Liverpool Loves You event is a great example of that. It was heart-breaking to see the events of last year with a number of the LGBTQ+ community being targeted in our city. We won’t tolerate hate in our city which is why I’m proud to be asked to raise the new Progress Pride flag in May. It’s symbolic of Liverpool being an open, welcoming city and one that stands together in solidarity against hate crime."
But what do the colours mean on the new Progress Pride flag being raised this weekend?
Like majority of flags used to represent the LGBT+ community, there is the incorporation of the rainbow themed colours and although there are many different interpretations of the original colours and what they represent, they more or less all have the same meaning.
Here is what the original colours are most widely known as:
- Red - Life
- Orange - Healing
- Yellow - New ideas
- Green - Prosperity
- Blue - Serenity
- Purple - Spirit
More recently incorporated is the colours of black and brown which is representative of people of colour. Whereas the light blue, pink and white trio symbolises the trans community.
The latest version of the progress flag, which was revealed last year, includes a yellow section with a purple circle inside it to illustrate the intersex community. According to the NHS, intersex is the term used by adults and young people with differences in sex development (DSD) to describe themselves. Sometimes the term is used, while other times variations in sex characteristics (VSC) or diverse sex development is preferred.
DSD is a group of rare conditions involving genes, hormones and reproductive organs, including genitals. It means a person's sex development is different to most other people's. The NHS website explained it happens when you or your child may have sex chromosomes (bundles of genes) usually associated with being female (XX chromosomes) or usually associated with being male (XY chromosomes), but reproductive organs and genitals that may look different from usual. This happens because of a difference with your genes or how you respond to the sex hormones in your body, or both. It can be inherited, but there is often no clear reason why it happens.
