The Victorian Pride Centre logo has been updated with two new stripes — brown and black — as a mark of respect for diversity and inclusion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander LGBTI people and the LGBTI majority, which is not Anglo-Saxon.

At its last meeting, the board noted the More Colour More Pride campaign, which launched in Philadelphia in June. The campaign includes the redesign of the pride flag to add two stripes representing LGBTI people of colour.

‘Our previous logo was an interim logo the board envisaged would change with the evolving discussion about what the Pride Centre will mean for the Victorian LGBTI community’, said board member Margaret Hansford.

‘In changing the logo, the Board had three thoughts’, Margaret said. ‘First, the LGBTI community has been a major beneficiary of increasing public support for diversity and inclusion. We need to be leaders in continuing to identify and welcome groups who feel, or are in fact, excluded from our community.

‘Second, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander LGBTI people have helped, in no small measure and by their personal and political examples, to build the community and the organisations we have today; and long may they continue to do so. They face severe and ongoing discrimination and oppression and we want our “welcome mat” to have a specific “hello” for them.

‘Third, it is clear that the proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and people of color involved in our community and its organisations is substantially lower than their proportion in the general population. We need to constantly remind ourselves the benefits it provides us are not enjoyed by many others, and we need to send signals we want this to change.’

For further information:

Margaret Hansford

Mobile: 0419 991 251

Email: margaret.hansford@pridecentre.org.au