Part 4a of my #Pride #vexillology series: The original lesbian flag, now more widely used as “butch” lesbian flag.

The labrys lesbian flag was created in 1999 and features a labrys, a type of double-headed axe, superimposed on the inverted black triangle, set against a violet background. The labrys was a weapon used by the Amazons of mythology. In the 1970s it was adopted as a symbol of empowerment by the lesbian feminist community. Women considered asocial by Nazi Germany for not conforming to the Nazi ideal of a woman, which included homosexual females, were condemned to concentration camps and wore an inverted black triangle badge to identify them. The color violet became associated with lesbians via the poetry of Sappho.

In recent years, since the introduction of the “lipstick lesbian” and “sunset” flags, the labrys flag has been more widely used to represent the “butch” lesbian community in order to differentiate themselves from the “lipstick” lesbian community. #grownostr #TIL