Exploring the History and Modernity of Queer Flagging

By Grace Johnson | Photos by Olivia Mauldin |

From colors to flowers to jewelry, queer people have used fashion in order to communicate their identities to others within the LGBTQ+ community for centuries. While queerness has become more accepted in our current society, many LGBTQ+ individuals still adhere to some of these methods to signal to others within the community while honoring their history.

One of the most well-known queer flagging traditions is the Hanky Code. It originated during the Gold Rush in San Francisco during the 19th century. Because many of the settlers at the time were men, there was a shortage of women for dance partners, so the men used handkerchiefs to indicate their roles and preferences for dancing. Men who preferred the male lead in the dance wore blue bandanas, while those who took the female part would wear red. 

In times where being open about one’s queer identity often threatened their safety, bandanas and handkerchiefs were widely available for use, allowing queer men to express themselves inconspicuously. This tradition later evolved in the 1960s and ‘70s, where queer men not only used hankerchiefs to signal their roles, but also their sexual preferences and kinks. The colors were rather limited at the beginning, but after the ‘80s, the Hanky Code expanded to include a wide variety of colors and materials. 

While the Hanky Code was typically associated with queer men, queer women have developed the use of colors to help combat femme invisibility. This involved painting their ring or middle fingernails a certain color that traditionally aligned with the Hanky Code. Although two-toned nails have become more popular in mainstream culture, some femmes still use this method to signal their preferences. 

While the use of colors was typically the most prominent form of flagging, it is not the only technique queer people used. For centuries, wearing and referencing certain types of flowers was used to signal one’s identity to others within the LGBTQ+ community. 

In 1892, Oscar Wilde notoriously wore a green carnation on his lapel to a play at a London theatre. This soon became a popular code within the LGBTQ+ community, as gay men would wear a green carnation on the left lapel to signify their identities. 

One of the oldest tokens of sapphic love dates back to the 6th century BCE – the violet flowers. The poet Sappho who lived on the Greek island of Lesbos would often depict women wearing garlands of violets around their necks. Sappho’s depiction of women was so influential that the words “sapphic” and “lesbian” originate from her name. Violets as a symbol of queer love have been used throughout various creative works. The 1927 Broadway play, “The Captive” by Édouard Bourdet follows the story of two lesbian lovers who used violets as a symbol of their love and commitment to one another. Although the play generated a lot of public disapproval, it caused the violet to be referred to as the “lesbian flower”. 

Another purple flower associated with queerness was the lavender. Starting in the late 1940s, thousands of queer people were forced to resign or were fired from their government jobs. The Lavender Scare worked synonymously with the propositions of the Red Scare and McCarthyism in order to incite public fear of homosexual communists. To the government’s dismay, this helped fuel solidarity for the gay rights movement. A month after the Stonewall Riots in 1969, queer rights activists reclaimed the color during a gay power march, donning lavender sashes and armbands. 

Jewelry is another popular method used for queer flagging. This includes earrings, rings, and even carabiners. In the 1970s and ‘80s, more obvious forms of queer flagging were introduced, such as wearing an earring on the right ear to signal queerness. This led to the common cultural phrase called “The Gay Ear.” As this phrase became more widespread in mainstream culture, many queer people would purposely pierce the other side as an act of rebellion against the stereotype. Additionally, some queer men were unfairly targeted during the peak of the AIDS epidemic for simply having a right ear piercing. 

Rings were a common flagging practice used by individuals of various identities and sexualities within the LGBTQ+ spectrum. Starting in the 1950s, queer men wore signet rings on their pinky fingers. Katarina Rolley, a fashion historian, interviewed British lesbians about their fashion statements between 1918 and 1939. Pinky rings were described to be a “specific lesbian symbol,” usually worn on the left hand. As time and culture shift, there is an increasing trend of lesbian flagging by wearing thumb rings. Rings are also used by individuals that identify within the aroace spectrum, and are typically worn on the middle finger. Those who identify as asexual wore black rings while those who identify as aromantic wore white rings. 

A symbol of queerness that has remained prominent in LGBTQ+ culture for decades is the carabiner. At the start of WWII, many women found themselves working in traditionally male-dominated labor forces, which gave rise to a more masculine style for women. Gender non-conforming lesbians, masc women, and butch lesbians began wearing these in order to confront gender roles within fashion. Carabiners are worn by many queer people in our society today, and remain an iconic symbol of lesbianism.  

While there has been a resurgence of queer flagging within the LGBTQ+ community, not all queer people like to assert their identities in this manner. However, just because an individual does not engage in these signals does not make them any less queer. Regardless, many of these signals remain popular within queer culture, asserting the notion that we all have a place within the community to express ourselves.