"The Progress Pride flag centers the experiences of trans, Black, and Brown members of the LGBTQ+ community," Coleman says. James Coleman, who was recently elected as the first openly LGBTQ person on the South San Francisco City Council, tells the paper he's "proud" of his colleagues on the council for voting in favor of flying the Progress flag. As Commission Director Tanya Beat tells the Bay Area Reporter, "We are inviting people to, I think, learn what the Progress flag is and have reason to fly it because it is all about equity and inclusion." Photo: Daniel Quasarįor 2021, the San Mateo County LGBTQ Commission has spearheaded an effort to get cities across the county to adopt the Progress Pride Flag in place of the rainbow flag. The rightward pointing pattern is meant to symbolize the need for forward motion in LGBTQ civil rights and social justice. In 2018, Portland-based designer Daniel Quasar created the Progress Pride Flag, which includes black and brown stripes in a chevron pattern meeting the horizontal rainbow strips, to symbolize the Black and brown members of the queer and trans communities, as well as the white, pale blue, and pink stripes of the Trans Pride Flag. But in recent years, the rainbow flag was deemed by a new generation of LGBTQ activists to be insufficiently representative of the diversity in the community, and various revisions to the flag were proposed. San Francisco was the birthplace of the rainbow flag, designed and sewn by the late Gilbert Baker and first flown in the June 1978 Gay Freedom Day Parade on a float featuring Supervisor Harvey Milk. San Francisco flew the Progress flag for a couple of days this month, but in June the rainbow flag will be the only one flown. Across San Mateo County, including in South San Francisco, city and county flagpoles will be flying the Progress Pride Flag in place of the traditional rainbow Pride flag, in recognition of greater inclusivity.