The Progress Pride Flag is the updated pride flag, which acknowledges queer people of colour with the black and brown strips. In addition, the pink, white, and blue are a representation of the transgender flag.

“Chicago is one of the few cities that really embraces their city flag, prominently flown throughout the city,” said Brian Lachman, CLE Flag Project co-organizer. “Clevelanders are passionate about their city. Why do we not have this?”

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The colours represent gender nonconformity (dark orange), independence (orange), community (light orange), unique connections to womanhood (white), tranquillity and peace (pink), dusty pink (love and sex), and dark rose (femininity).

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The organization is looking for a flag that “embodies Cleveland’s spirit of progress and prosperity while representing the diversity and inclusivity of our vibrant community.”

CLEVELAND, Ohio — A volunteer group of Clevelanders recently launched a city-wide competition to redesign Cleveland’s flag, but officials and others have had a range of reactions.

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Hepburn’s design included vertical red, white and blue stripes, with a Cleveland shield in the middle white band. In the shield is an anvil, hammer and wheel to represent the city’s industry, an anchor, windlass and oars to represent the city’s waterways and the year “1796″ when Gen. Moses Cleaveland founded Cleveland.

Council spokeswoman Joan Mazzolini recalled some members felt like “the city has a lot of issues, and the flag is not top of mind.”

Sally Palmer, left and Kristen Fragassi hold an original version of the Cleveland city flag designed by Susan Hepburn.Zachary Smith, Cleveland.com

As Lachman and his team found out, Cleveland does have a flag. The current Cleveland flag was designed by 18-year-old art school graduate Susan Hepburn, who submitted it to a contest hosted by The Plain Dealer in the late 1800s, according to the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History.

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In either case, once the submission period closes on July 19, a CLE Flag-selected committee will review the entries and create a way for people to vote for the winner of their contest.

Word of the contest for a new design does not sit well with Kristen Fragassi and Sally Palmer, who are descendants of Hepburn.

The colours represent people completely outside of the gender binary (yellow), people with multiple genders (white), people whose identity incorporates aspects of male and female (purple), and those who do not identify with any specific gender (black).

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CLE Flag kicked off a public contest at the end of April for Cleveland creatives to design a new flag for the city of Cleveland. Submissions will be open until July 19.

CLE Flag promises at least a $3,000 cash prize to the winner and $1,000 for the second and third-place designs, with additional winnings depending on fundraising.

“We don’t think it’s really an effective flag anymore,” Lachman said. “It’s very literal to the industry that Cleveland was good at back in 1896.”

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The pink represents those who are attracted to the same gender identity, the purple for attraction to two genders and blue represents those are attracted to a different gender.

The three colours of the Transgender Pride Flag represent women and girls (pink) men and boys (blue) and white for those are intersex, transitioning or describe themselves as having an unidentified gender.

The colours represent feminine (pink), absence of gender (white), the combination of masculine and feminine (purple), genders who do not share feminine or masculine traits (black), and masculine (blue).

“Retrofitting a new flag would be a tremendous expense to the taxpayers because it doesn’t seem like people realize that the flag is on every single police officer’s uniform in the city of Cleveland, Fragassi said. “It’s on every marked patrol car. It flies over the police station and City Hall.”

Harsh is unsure about what the process to change the flag would look like and is concerned about the costs of creating and replacing the current flag. But even if a new design does not pass, he thinks it could potentially be adopted as “the people’s flag.”

An article in The Plain Dealer about Cleveland's flag and its designer Susan Hepburn, provided by Hepburn descendants Kristen Fragassi and Sally Palmer.Zachary Smith, Cleveland.com

“It’s up to the community to show up and tell them if they want this or not,” Lachman said. “It’s the responsibility of our team to make sure that we do the proper steps to make sure that the community is engaged with this and gets their vote out.”

In 1978 gay rights activist Gilbert Baker created the first Pride flag with the goal of it being a symbol for everyone. Since then many new flags were created to represent all communities within the LGBTQI+ community.

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Representatives of the group outlined its plans at a City Council caucus meeting earlier this year, receiving mixed reactions.

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The colour red represents life, orange represents healing, yellow represents sunlight, green represents nature, blue represents peace/harmony and violet represents spirit.

Still, Lachman says that he has spoken with the Bibb Administration about presenting new legislation for a flag if there is enough community support.

“It’s a super fun thing to do and think about,” Councilman Kris Harsh said. A self-described amateur vexillographer, or a person who designs or makes flags, Harsh said he would be “shocked if anyone comes up with a flag design that is embraced by well over half the population of Cleveland.”

“This is revisionist history,” says Fragassi, Hepburn’s great-granddaughter. “A very small sample group of citizens have decided that something historical is unattractive and outdated. But they’ve already approached council about this yet-to-be-seen flag becoming the official flag of Cleveland.”

The use of lavender is meant as a combination of pink and blue, symbolizing a mixture of male and female. On the other hand, the dark green is meant to stand for people who identify beyond the gender binary and stand as the opposite of lavender. The white signifies the absence of gender.

The original design submitted by Susan Hepburn in the late 1800s for Cleveland's flag, which was later altered with the additional wording.Zachary Smith, Cleveland.com

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For her submission, Hepburn won 50 silver dollars. The design was then approved by the City Council in 1895 and by Mayor Robert McKisson in 1896, although the mayor added the words “Progress and Prosperity.”

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“Our goal is to educate, elevate and promote the current flag and let people know the rich history behind it,” Fragassi said.

The Colours represent attraction to those who identify as female (pink), the attraction to those who identify as male (blue), and attraction to those who identify as genderqueer, nonbinary, agender, androgynous, or anyone who doesn’t identify on the male-female binary (yellow).

The black represents asexuality, the grey for grey-asexuality and demisexuality, the white for non-asexual partners, and the purple for community.