flags

[shatterstripes]

So I started thinking about pride flags. Specifically, the ones for the transgender community

Comments

[growly]

This has nothing to do with anything, but were you at AC? I wanted to meet'cha.

[shatterstripes]

Nah, I didn't make it.

[shatterstripes]

I've just never felt like the faded pastels of most tranny pride flags speak to me. If you put all the various queer-subset pride flags together, they're all bold and loud - except for the t* pride ones, which are almost all these pink/blue/white affairs that whisper their message.

I'M GAY! say the rainbow flags. I LIKE BURLY MEN! the bear flags scream. I LOVE LEATHER! the leather flag hollers. I'm trans, all but one trans flag mutters.

This is a first stab at something that's as celebratory as all the other queer pride flags. It's a quick doodle looking for commentary, not a finished presentation by any means!

[tracerj]

We ARE subdued by nature cause we don't WANT people to sit there and think of all the flaws and everything we feel.

Not all of us.

I very much do want to say, "Look at us, we are proud to have hacked the hell out of our stifling gender cubbyholes, live it or live with it!" In fact, I have often said that. I'm looking for more than acceptance. I'm looking for curiosity, inquiry, understanding, change in others' attitudes.

Subdued is what I was when I hid at home for two years afraid that I'd look bad. I want those two years back, and putting one of these stickers on my car would be a good step toward that. (I'm leaning toward the cool grey field, but mostly because I've always loathed the rainbow as a symbol.)

[shatterstripes]

I was thinking about the Mercury symbol before the phoenix imagery jumped out; it bugs me a lot less than the various hybridizations of Venus and Mars people have made.

I'm not sure it'd work in this one; it feels unbalanced right now, but I feel the fix is to make more refined drawings of the concept than my five-minute scribbles, rather than to add more. The starker a flag, the better. (Brazil and Albany being notable exceptions.)

I probably need to just brainstorm for transformative symbols in general and see what shakes out.

[ff00ff]

This makes me think. Recently Pluto was downgraded to the status of "dwarf planet" and two other dwarf planets were added to the solar system as well. Pluto was only discovered in 1930, so although it, and other outer solar system planets symbols look arcane and runic they're actually pretty recent. I wonder if anyone is, and who has the authority, to come up with two new symbols for the two new dwarf planets.

[eselgeist]

if you're not above appropriating existing imagery, then
i'd suggest the Albanian flag or other
heraldic imagery.

the phoenix is a beautiful iconographic idea. and frankly i'd also suggest
adopting the imagery, rather than any specific version, trans-am,
national, or other generated design. isn't the idea one of
self-determination? how about each makes a personal phoenix? perhaps something cute, perhaps something fierce, perhaps both, etc. slick and
minimal or baroque or rustic, etc.

the idea of it is excellent, and i think your execution of it here,
particularly the tailfeather action, is all Peggy.

[shatterstripes]

I was kinda thinking of the various stylized birds seen on existing nation's flags - and of the assorted Native American imagery, as well, given that the car with the big bird on the front by default is the Thunderbird.

I do like the concept of making one's own personal version! I feel like there's got to be something to propagate the meme with, though; a standard image for the lazy to easily grab and display...

[postrodent]

I have no particular right to say anything about this, but I think you need to simplify it down a little, until it can be easily sprayed on a wall or ballpoint-chiseled into a desk surface. :)

[shatterstripes]

Yeah, simplicity is good for flags. These are first-cut doodles...