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The recent “progress flag” version of the rainbow flag adds stripes to address marginalisation and exclusion of trans people and people of colour from the rainbow but leaves the common sense of bi exclusion as an unaddressed issue.

The USA-based BiCafe website was launched in 1997 and the flag was launched at its first birthday celebrations, on 5th December 1998.

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Many people have also been wondering, if Team USA is going to use a 13-star flag, why not use the Betsy Ross flag with the stars in a circle?

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Over the years since it has flown from town halls worldwide and given us a code by which to know one another and so helped end bisexual invisibility – including the sometimes controversial trend of “bisexual lighting” to hint at TV characters’ sexual orientations.

In 2020, it was at the centre of internet controversy over its ownership, which ultimately reaffirmed its place as a freely usable symbol for us all.

But the wave of non-geographic bisexual community that growing internet access brought, and the way pixels cost the same whatever shade they are, helped transform that. Today there are a plethora of web graphics using the three colours, as well as lots of bi-coloured accessories to subtly communicate your bi-ness to others. It even lets us question bi-coloured things in popular culture to ask whether we should co-opt them as bi, such as the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic character Twilight Sparkle. This also gave rise to the concept of ‘bisexual lighting’ – lighting someone or something with pink from one side and blue from the other, with the colours blurring into purple in the middle.

The comments in social media circles have ranged from simple curious ity to snark (e.g. "Hey Team USA, it has been a while since we had just 13 states!")

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Wouldn’t the rainbow flag do the job? On the (now closed) website BiFlag.com, Michael wrote that “the vast majority of bi people I have spoken with, feel no connection to the rainbow flag, the pink triangle, the black triangle, the Lambda symbol or the double-edged hatchet. These symbols are viewed as gay and lesbian icons, which was their initial intent.”

Why does the U.S.Olympic flagonly have 13 stars

The “correct” bi flag design is made up of three distinct colour blocks, but sometimes people use a wash of colours from pink to blue via purple.

"One can fly a 13-star flag and it still deserves the same respect that people would give to the American flag with 50 stars," Keim said.

There is a simple reason for that also — the flag shown in the Team USA logo is still a legal flag of the United States of America.

When designing the logo back in 2010, it was determined that in many uses of the logo (clothes, caps, merchandise, etc.), the flag would be so small that it would be impossible to make it look good with 50 stars, that aesthetically, it would look like a mess.

After its launch the bi flag slowly spread as an image around the bi world, including appearing on the back of the programme booklet for the next International Bisexuality Conference, in 2000.

U.S.Olympic flag

But what is important to note is that even as stars are added to the flag, older versions remain official U.S. flags and can still be used in accordance with the U.S. flag code. Kevin Keim, co-author of "A Grand Old Flag: A History of the United States Through its Flags," explained to the Chicago Tribune.

"We use the 13-star, which is an official American flag, on our logo because of sizing," Lisa Baird, the USOC's chief marketing officer recently told the Chicago Tribune.

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The key to understanding the symbolism of the Bisexual pride flag is to know that the purple pixels of colour blend unnoticeably into both the pink and blue, just as in the ‘real world,’ where bi people blend unnoticeably into both the gay/lesbian and straight communities

So there it is. Team USA is using a legal U.S. flag, one that is simply easier to use in small form than one with 50 stars.

Amid all the patriotic cheers for Team USA Olympians in Rio, some have questioned the patriotic accuracy of the logo for the U.S. Olympic Team. Specifically, many people are wondering why the logo only has 13 stars.

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He took the pink, purple and blue that were being used as a bi symbol through a set of overlapping triangles – a pink and a blue triangle overlapping and creating a purple triangle as their intersection. In Germany the same colours were being used in a pattern of crescent moons due to historic associations between the triangle and the Nazi regime making them less socially acceptable a choice of emblem.

Despite this, in the late 1990s and 2000s it was still fairly unknown as a symbol in the wider LGBT scene, not least because in the days when colour printing was so much harder to afford, promotional materials for bi events, groups and projects tended to be in black and white.

While not as famous as the Betsy Ross flag, the flag with the stars in the 3-2-3-2-3 pattern was actually the first official flag of the U.S. beginning in 1777, according to USHistory.org. It was used until 1795 when two stars were added for Vermont and Kentucky.

The flag itself – now easily obtainable online for a few pounds as a small hand-held flag-on-a-stick or as a five foot long fabric sheet – makes a simple and popular cape to wear at LGBT pride events, turning the usual problem of bisexual invisibility on its head by literally wrapping yourself in the flag.

The pink colour represents sexual attraction to the same sex only (gay and lesbian), the blue represents sexual attraction to the opposite sex only (straight) and the resultant overlap colour purple represents sexual attraction to both sexes (bi).

The pink, purple and blue colours that have come to represent the bi community in their stripes were not new back in 1998, but refashioning them into a very simple flag was a bright idea from Michael Page of online chat forum BiCafe (a website which ran for fifteen years until 2012 – sadly gone).

So all of our thanks to Michael, and happy birthday the pink, purple and blue flag this December 5th. (and remember, you can’t have a birthday without a bi).