MONROE, CT — Among the flags flying with the Stars and Stripes in front of Monroe Town Hall this week is a flag with light blue, light pink and white stripes. It is the Trans flag, which debuted in 1999. It has been raised for Transgender Awareness Week, an annual event that ends on Sunday, Nov. 19.
“Last year, Ken Kellogg raised it for one day,” Janice Persico said of the first selectman. “This year he agreed to raise it for the entire week. That was a nice gesture. Having raised a transgender person, it gives me hope that we will continue to be a town that loves and accepts all people.”
Persico, who recently won a two-year-term on the Monroe Town Council, is the mother of a transgender child, who came out as a boy and is now age 18.
“Even for us, it was a struggle dealing with this for the last few years, but seeing the flag lets me know we can love our neighbors as we are,” she said. “We are stronger together and can lift each other up. The transgender community needs people to support them.”
According to the Outright International website, the Trans flag was “conceived by Monica Helms, an openly transgender American woman,” in 1999.
“The light blue and light pink symbolize the traditional colors for baby girls and baby boys, respectively,” it says, “meanwhile, the white hue represents movement members who identify as intersex, gender-neutral, or transitioning.”
“According to Helms, the flag is symmetrical, so ‘no matter which way you fly it, it is always correct, signifying us finding correctness in our lives,’” the site says.
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