Here at Horrible Shirts, we believe that everyone deserves human rights, no matter who you are. To celebrate pride month, a queer artist on our team created the Peace Sign Pride collection of shirts and crewnecks, found under the LGBTQ tab. This collection of pride shirts was created to represent many different sexualities and orientations in the LGBTQIA+ community. Keep reading to learn more about sexual orientations in the community and our team artist!
There are many different orientations in the community, and each one has a different flag. And for all of these orientations, there is usually an umbrella term coined to be their representative in a way. For example, our Rainbow Pride Shirt is the well-known Pride flag. It’s a staple for the LGBTQIA+ community, and thus a great shirt for an Ally or someone who may not know where they fall in the community. The Rainbow Pride Shirt is also great for people who aren’t out yet but are known to be an Ally. Being an Ally of the LGBTQ+ community means that a person is not part of the community, but is a friend or supportive person of it. Another orientation that is coined as an umbrella term, is Transgender. Being Transgender is when a person transitions their body from one gender to another. Many people who fall under Genderqueer, Nonbinary, or Genderfluid, will call themselves “trans”, a nickname for Transgender, because they all fall under gender identities. Obviously, these are all separate identities and these people all go through different challenges, but they are grouped together most of the time.
Other orientations have what the community calls, spectrums. The ones most well known for this are Asexual and Aromantic. Asexual means little or no sexual attraction, and aromantic means little or no romantic attraction. They are very similar and get confused often. There are many misconceptions about these orientations. Our artist happens to be both asexual and aromantic, so we were able to gain insight. Firstly, a person can be asexual and not aromantic, and vice versa. Each year during pride month there is discourse on whether they belong in the community or not, simply because people don't believe them or think they are straight. But as of recent years, there has been less discourse than before because more people are out and proud! Maybe we’re a little biased because of our artist, but Horrible Shirts thinks that ace and aro people, nicknamed terms for the orientations, are pretty cool!
When asked about the design for the pride collection, our artist said “I wanted it to be a subtle pride flag design, nothing outright saying the name of the orientation. It is easier to hide colors than the whole word.” She went on to explain how many people couldn’t be open about being out fully yet and how she herself loved the idea of subtle pride designs, compared to the more flashy shirts that big corporations have for their June collections. With the New York Pride Parade coming up on June 26th, these Pride shirts are perfect to celebrate yourself and others!
So whether you’re looking for a subtle design, to celebrate your pride this month, or even to support small queer artists, we have it all right here. Go to our LGBTQ tab under Categories to shop for Pride! Happy shopping!