Pansexuality (often shortened to pan) is the attraction to people regardless to gender. Pansexual people may be described as being "gender blind" showing that gender is not a factor in their attraction to a person.
Pansexuality is often compared to bisexuality or omnisexuality; while those sexualities may be attracted to all or some genders they may feel like the act of being attracted to a certain gender feels different than the act of being attracted to other genders. For example, a bisexual person may feel like the act of being attracted to a woman feels different then being attracted to a man. Bisexual and omnisexual people might also a strong preference for a certain gender. Pansexuality, on the other hand, does not feel any internal difference between genders.
The romantic counterpart is panromantic.
Pansexuality and Omnisexuality are not the same. The difference is in the fact that Pansexuality does not have a gender preference, in fact gender plays no role in pansexual attraction. Omnisexual does have a preference in gender, but gender still does not play an important role in Omnisexual If there is preference, it's not technically pansexuality. Some omnisexual people prefer to say pan because it's more widely known and understood, but if asked to explain, they will explain that they are omnisexual due to the preference. There is an exception to this rule when it come to trauma. Trauma may produce a unintentional lean, but that cannot be helped and doesn't mean that the person isn't Pan.
Flag and Other Symbols
The pansexual flag consists of three stripes, pink, representing attraction to women, yellow representing attraction to non-binary people, and blue, representing attraction to men.
Another common symbol for pansexuality is the P with an arrow and crossed tail. The cross of the tail represents the cross on the symbol for Venus (♀), used to represent women. The arrow represents the arrow on the symbol for Mars (♂), used to represent men. The symbol predates the flag and is still occasionally used today.
Etymology
The prefix pan- comes from the Greek word for "all" or "every".