Although not officially recognized by the U.S. government, July has been deemed Disability Pride Month to commemorate the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in July just 35 years ago. The legislation prohibits discrimination and protects the employment and transportation rights for the tens of millions of people in the U.S. living with a disability.
Shortly after the ADA was signed into law, Boston held the first Disability Pride Parade. Disability rights advocates in Massachusetts organized to celebrate the passing of the protective legislation and to mark the beginning of a new era of change for the disability community. Other cities followed suit in the subsequent years, with New York City holding its first parade in 1993. In the Midwest, the Chicago Disability Pride Parade has been held since 2004.
It's been decades since the ADA was passed, but people with disabilities continue to be marginalized by ableism in a society that still holds many harmful assumptions regarding people with disabilities. During Disability Pride Month and throughout the year, it's crucial to acknowledge the barriers, challenges and prejudices that people with disabilities face while also celebrating the significant contributions of individuals with disabilities.
To help celebrate Disability Pride, disabled writer Ann Magill created a flag to serve as a visual representation. The most recent colorful rendition of her disability flag, unveiled in October 2021, shows a straight diagonal banner of five colors on a dark background. This current version is an update of Magill's original design of a banner with zigzag lines. She created the flag with the community and for the community, and waived all copyright claims in 2019 when the first flag debuted.
There are a multitude of disabilities and the disability experience is highly varied, yet the flag is intended to encompass the most recognized types of disabilities. Flags can raise awareness and serve as symbols of solidarity, pride and acceptance, such as the various LGBTQ+ flags and the Juneteenth flag.
Displaying pride with a flag specific to their experiences may help empower some individuals with disabilities. "For a fledgling social movement like disability pride, having a flag to fly is valuable," says John Loeppky, a freelance disabled journalist. We have a long way to go before disability justice is acknowledged on an actionable scale, but the disability flag is a way to get there. The flag represents an acknowledgment, within the disability community and outside of it, that we're here, loud and proud of our identity."
What is the origin of the disability pride flag?
Before Magill's Disability Pride flags were released, there was the "Flag of Overcoming" designed in 2017 by Eros Recio, a Spanish dancer with Down syndrome. The flag displays the colors of the medals awarded during the Paralympic Games — gold, silver and bronze — to represent physical, mental and sensory disabilities.
In 2019, Magill released her debut version of a disability pride flag. She created the banner after attending an event honoring the 20th anniversary of the ADA. The celebration was held in the basement and on the grounds of an independent living center. She was disappointed that the display of disability pride wasn't held in public and decided to create a flag for folks who are proud to be disabled. The original zigzag design created a strobe effect on computer and phone screens, which potentially worsened symptoms for individuals with visually triggered disabilities, including epileptic seizures and migraines.
The current disability pride flag was unveiled in 2021 and serves as an updated version of Magill's original flag. After receiving feedback from people within the disabled community on how to create a more inclusive and accessible banner, Magill released a new and improved disability pride flag in 2021. Insight from people with photosensitivity helped drive the visuals behind the 2021 version of the disability pride flag. It's only fitting that the new flag's design was a collaborative effort. After all, a common motto in the disabled community is "Nothing about us, without us."
The revised disability pride flag has been well-received by the disabled community. "The disability pride flag allows us to acknowledge that being disabled is complicated, which can be a challenge in a society that caters to able-bodied folks," says Jordan LeVan, founder of The Apraxia Foundation. "It's crucial to let others with disabilities know that they can be proud of who they are. When we're able to accept ourselves, we can then move on to disability pride, which the flag represents."
What is the meaning of the disability pride flag?
The flag features a straight diagonal banner of five colors on a dark background — a slight yet meaningful evolution from the original design. The amended flag displays stripes to represent solidarity among the various sub-communities of disabled people. According to Magill, the diagonal contrasts with the vertical walls and horizontal ceilings that keep disabled people isolated.
The diagonal, straight band of stripes showcases cutting across barriers that disabled people face and is meant to allude to the idea of light cutting through the darkness. The parallel stripes are placed from the top left, known as the "canton" or place of honor, to the bottom right corner, or the "fly," representing the wider world. To LeVan, the disability pride flag's intends to convey there’s nothing wrong with having a disability.
What do the colors on the disability flag represent?
The 2021 disability flag was designed to include all six standard international flag colors to signify that the disability community is wide-reaching. According to Magill's Reddit post, the warm and cool colors were grouped separately on either side of a white band to “lessen the chance of a flicker effect when scrolling online, lessen a nausea trigger for those who suffer from migraines and separate the red and green stripes for those with color blindness.”
The colors have different luminosity and radiate from the brightest in the center towards darker shades in the exterior stripes, which helps people with color blindness distinguish the stripes, even in grayscale.
“The newest design of the disability pride flag is important as it highlights multiple experiences and identifies diversity in the disability community with different colors representing various disabilities,” LeVan says.
Here's what the colors symbolize, in order of appearance from top to bottom:
- Green is for sensory disabilities.
- Blue represents emotional and psychiatric disabilities.
- White stands for non-visible and undiagnosed disabilities.
- Gold is for neurodiversity.
- Red represents physical disabilities.
The stripes are displayed on a faded charcoal black background which commemorates and mourns disabled people who’ve died due to ableism, violence, negligence, suicide, rebellion, illness and eugenics. The dark background also represents rage and protest against the mistreatment of the disabled community. According to the creator’s statement, black is also a connection to the pirates’ Jolly Roger flag, a general symbol of rebellion.
