Lesbian

Lesbian is the term for a gay woman. The term is also sometimes used by nonbinary people who prefer women.

History
The word lesbian comes from the name of the Greek island Lesbos, the birthplace of the poet Sappho (the origin of the word sapphic). The use of lesbian to mean gay woman or female homosexuality dates back to 1732.

Romantic and sexual relationships between women go back far in human history, including to ancient times.

Flag
At present, there have been at least sixty four different lesbian flag design proposals.

The earliest flag to represent lesbianism is the original rainbow flag, created by Gilbert Baker in 1978 to represent the entire LGBT community. In 1999, Sean Campbell introduced the first flag design specifically for lesbians, with a white labrys and a black triangle on a purple background. In 2010, Wordpress blogger Natalie McCray announced her proposed design for a lipstick lesbian flag, using a design plaigarized from Fausto Fernós' 2008 cougar pride flag. McCray's lipstick lesbian flag is not intended for all lesbians, just lipstick lesbians, meaning all other kinds of lesbians are excluded. Variations upon this stolen design have since become very popular on Tumblr.

There were a large amount of alternate lesbian flags made around 2018, one of those flags was the orange and pink version, created by Tumblr user Sadlesbiandisaster on out before June 6, 2018. The color meanings are as follows: Dark orange is for gender non-conformity as many lesbians are gender non-conforming. Orange is for independence from men and individuality. Light orange is for community. White represents unique connections to womanhood, and how lesbians are all connected to womanhood in their own unique ways. It encompasses trans and non-binary lesbian experiences, and butch and femme experiences with womanhood. Light pink represents serenity and peace. Pink represents love and sex. Dark pink represents femininity. A five stripe design was created for the purpose of more easily producing merchandise with it. According to polls conducted by @lesbianflag on Twitter a large amount of people prefer this design for the lesbian flag. This is one of the more commonly used lesbian flags on the internet. Another flag design is by Tumblr user Apersnicketylemon. The color associations are as follows: purple for non-binary and trans lesbians (also to represent how violets were historically given between women to represent their love), pink for lipstick and femme lesbians (and to represent the beauty of feminine love), grey for aspec lesbians (and to represent the difficulty to navigating a 'grey area' of society). and blue to represent butch lesbians and gender nonconformity.

At present, there is no clear consensus about which lesbian flag design to use.