Ask HN: Have you added a Pride flag in your logo?

[spike_protein]

As a small startup, I’m considering adding a Pride flag to our logo for inclusivity.

Would this be seen as a genuine gesture or as performative marketing? Could it have an impact—positive or negative—on how people perceive the company?

[johng]

My opinion, 99% of anything like that is almost always performative. It's done to make someone up top, or the person in marketing or the people around the table who decide to do it, to feel a little better inside. A warm and fuzzy.

If you really want to do something good for X group of people... just make sure your business runs well and treats EVERYONE properly. That's it.

No need to advertise it. Work on the core aspect of being good and doing your job right. That's what everyone wants anyway.

[krapp]

It would be seen as performative marketing, which it would be, because it has no effect on "inclusivity" whatsoever, and because marketing is what logos are for. That your primary concern seems to be PR implies the support isn't genuine.

If you want to support the gay community, support the gay community in ways that actually matter. A rainbow on a logo doesn't matter.

[ano-ther]

Your company logo should stand for itself and not be cluttered with other logos. Over time, you fill it with meaning (your offerings, the quality of service, personality and so on). As a result, people start associating your logo with you and you are building a brand.

Once you start adding other logos, they will bring associations that you cannot control. This will dilute your brand.

Think about when you want to signal inclusiveness (eg, in employer branding) and highlight it there. Then it will become part of your general brand without the need to give up your distinct logo.

[PaulHoule]

Nothing is inclusive unless it is inclusive to the majority of people.

I have no problem with "gay", "lesbian", "bisexual", "transexual" and other identities, but I don't like LGBTQIA+ (or whatever it is today) as a label because I believe that label erases the individual identities involved. In fact, labels in general tend to obscure reality, see [1] [2] [3].

As an activist I've seen that the strategy of taking the most radical position on every issue and putting up the tallest flag just doesn't work -- people get disengaged and stop going to your protests.

When I saw "I" added to that list I was hoping it was "Incel" (talk about people who "can't be heterosexual") but, no, it is Intersex -- some Intersex people feel violated by the same surgeries that help transgender people feel whole.

I was annoyed, as a foxworker, that "two spirits" was added to this list without consulting me. I certainly do contact female fox spirits but I also contact male fox spirits too and the gender of them doesn't concern me so much as the interspecies difference. I don't see any reason why I should buy into the reductivist gender paradigm of the day or dislike the Harry Potter books any more than I did when they came out.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisexual_erasure

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men_who_have_sex_with_men

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queer

[johng]

I'm so out of touch. This is the first time I've even heard the term Foxworker, Fox Spirits. And while I've seen the term intersex, never in this context.

I have a lot of learning to do.

[PaulHoule]

See https://cup.columbia.edu/book/the-cult-of-the-fox/9780231133...

[swah]

Not gonna lie it does sound like an elaborate joke even after a few re-reads. No matches for "foxworker" on Reddit...

[razille]

Be cautious with this, as the newest iteration of the flag, the "Progress Pride" design, is considered by some in the community to represent misogyny and homophobia.

If you are going to add a Pride flag to your logo, the traditional rainbow one would be less controversial.

[PaulHoule]

Here's a sympathetic article on the new flag

https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/the-progress-pride-flag?srslt...

in which I can still pick out some problems I have with the flag and the movement in its current state:

   ... the brown and black ones represent marginalised People of Colour (POC) communities

This fits a pattern of declaring that certain groups of people are allies without the consent of those groups. "People of Color" is problematic enough because it conflates black people with hispanic and indigenous people who don't necessarily see themselves as aligned. One thing I learned early in my career as an activist is that black people, in particular, don't want to be told what they are supposed to think or feel about things from people outside their community.

Not only does this alienate people directly, but if you drink that Kool-Aid you're going to avoid doing the long and hard work of reaching out to people, being present for their struggles, learning about them, and compromising that actually creates allies.

Since there are so many people who fly that flag who will treat you like an an enemy if you agree with only 70% of what they say, I'd be afraid that if I flew today's Pride flag, tomorrow somebody will bitch me out for flying the wrong flag so I want nothing to do it.