Progress pride flag flew in San Diego, but its colors don’t represent pedophiles

Pride Month is over but online misinformation about June LGBTQ+ celebrations in the United States persists. 

One video, which shows the progress pride flag unfurling from a tower in Balboa Park in San Diego, is being mischaracterized on Instagram as evidence that "San Diego loves pedophiles." 

"So great to know that is what San Diego stand for and represents," a July 9 post says. "The flag represents MAPs minor attracted persons aka pedophilia!!"

This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

The video appears to have been first shared July 7 by San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria. 

"Happy Pride, San Diego!" Gloria tweeted. "The Progress Pride Flag is now flying from the California Tower in @BalboaPark! Pride is a time to celebrate love and progress while acknowledging how far we still have to go." 

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The flag features the red, yellow, green, blue and purple horizontal stripes of the rainbow flag but also includes white, pink, blue, brown and black diagonal stripes forming a triangle.

None of the colors represent attraction to children. 

We’ve previously written about this flag — which incorporates the transgender pride flag into the more traditional rainbow flag — and inaccurate claims that it celebrates pedophiles.

The transgender pride flag, created in 1999 by U.S Navy veteran Monica Helms, features pink, blue and white stripes. The blue stripes represent traditionally masculine colors and the pink stripes represent traditionally feminine colors, according to the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group. The flag’s white stripe represents people who are transitioning, intersex or nonbinary, meaning they identify as neither a man nor a woman.  

The progress pride flag, pictured in the San Diego video, also features brown and black stripes. It was created in 2018 by artist Daniel Quasar in an attempt to build upon the Philadelphia pride flag, which added black and brown stripes for people of color. 

"The trans flag stripes and marginalized community stripes were shifted to the Hoist of the flag and given a new chevron shape," wrote Quasar on his website. "The arrow points to the right to show forward movement, while being along the hoist edge shows that progress still needs to be made."

We rate claims that San Diego flew a flag representing pedophilia Pants on Fire!