A fantastic display of solidarity, this is true allyship #LesbianVisibilityWeek #LVW22 #LWithTheT
BY ELEANOR NOYCE, IMAGES VIA MAYOR OF LONDON’S PRESS OFFICE, GREATER LONDON AUTHORITY
In a pinnacle moment for the lesbian community, Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan has today flown the Lesbian Pride Flag from City Hall to mark Lesbian Visibility Week. Lesbian Visibility Day has been proudly displayed on the calendar since 2008, but in 2020, DIVA publisher Linda Riley founded Lesbian Visibility Week to give the lesbian community the wider recognition it deserves, demonstrating wider solidarity with all LGBTQI women and non-binary people.
On the news, Sadiq Khan tweeted: “We’re proudly flying the Lesbian Pride flag from City Hall to celebrate London’s lesbian communities and their contributions to our city’s past and present”. He also shared a LinkedIn post on how to be an ally this Lesbian Visibility Week, embodying the true meaning of active, authentic allyship.
To say that this is an historic moment is an understatement. Celebrating London’s lesbian communities past and present, to have this flag flown in such a visible location is so important. Flags provide much-needed representation: they’re indicative of identity and are closely cherished by so many amongst the LGBTQI community. The original Rainbow Flag was designed by Gilbert Baker in 1978, with eight coloured stripes indicating hot pink for sex, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sunlight, green for nature, turquoise for art, indigo for harmony and violet for spirit.
Now, flags exist for each and every subsection of the LGBTQI community, from the Pride Progress flag including intersex, as redesigned by DIVA’s intersex columnist Valentino Vecchietti, to the all-important Lesbian Pride Flag. The Labrys Lesbian Flag was designed by Sean Campbell in 1999 and published in June 2000 in the Gay and Lesbian Times Pride issue, and various editions have since been created, from the orange-pink flag as indicative of butch-femme to its five-stripe variant. Today, Sadiq Khan flies the pink Lesbian Pride Flag that has been in wide circulation since 2010 and is generally accepted as an umbrella Lesbian Flag.
A leading capital city, today, the world will look onto London with admiration, inspiration, and importantly, pride. That’s the true meaning of leadership. Thank you, Sadiq Khan. To read about the events we have happening for Lesbian Visibility Week, visit lesbianvisibilityweek.com or follow Lesbian Visibility Week on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
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