Aroace Pride Flag: Meaning, Colours & Identity (2026)
The short version
- Aroace meaning: people who are both aromantic (little to no romantic attraction) and asexual (little to no sexual attraction). Sometimes written aro ace, aro-ace, or aroaceflux.
- The aroace pride flag has 5 horizontal stripes: orange, yellow, white, light blue, and dark blue. This is the standard aroace flag colours order.
- It was designed by the Aroaesflags Tumblr collective in December 2018 as a unified symbol for asexual aromantic identity.
- Aroace people can have committed relationships, chosen family, and queerplatonic partnerships. The orientation is about attraction, not lifestyle.
- Aroace sits at the intersection of two spectrums (the asexual and aromantic spectrums, often called "aspec") and is its own distinct identity within both.
We're Delwin and Jimmy, co-founders of Proud Zebra, a queer-owned Canadian small business designing pride pins, patches, and accessories from the Lower Mainland, BC. We started carrying the aroace flag because customers kept asking for it, and because it kept being missing from other brands' lineups.
This post explains the aroace pride flag: its colours, what aroace means, how it differs from asexual or aromantic on their own, and why the community has built such a specific symbol for an identity that's often left out of mainstream pride conversations. It's part of our complete guide to LGBTQ+ pride flags.
What does aroace mean?
Aroace describes people who are both aromantic and asexual. Aromantic means experiencing little or no romantic attraction. Asexual means experiencing little or no sexual attraction. People who identify with both, as a unified and integrated identity, call themselves aroace.
This is distinct from someone who is aromantic OR asexual on its own. Plenty of asexual people experience romantic attraction; plenty of aromantic people experience sexual attraction. The split-attraction model, used widely across asexual and aromantic communities, recognizes that romantic and sexual attraction are separate axes that can vary independently.
"Aroace" is the term that emerged as a single label for the people sitting at the intersection, folks for whom both attractions are minimal or absent, and for whom that combined experience feels like one identity rather than two.
Some aroace folks identify primarily as aroace, full stop. Others use "aromantic and asexual" as two distinct labels held simultaneously. Both are valid; the difference reflects how each person frames their lived experience.
The wider category you'll hear used is aspec, short for "asexual spectrum" or "aromantic spectrum." Aspec covers folks who are gray-ace, demisexual, demiromantic, and many others. Aroace is one specific identity within that broader spectrum.
What do the aroace pride flag's colours mean?
The aroace pride flag has 5 horizontal stripes. The colours and their meanings:
| Stripe | Colour | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 1 (top) | Orange | Community |
| 2 | Yellow | Love and friendship in non-romantic, non-sexual forms |
| 3 | White | The wholeness of aroace identity as its own thing |
| 4 | Light blue | The aroace spectrum |
| 5 (bottom) | Dark blue | The aroace spectrum |
This is the aroace flag, one 5-stripe version, not multiple variants. The designers were explicit that this flag treats aroace as a unified identity in its own right, not just "asexual + aromantic stitched together." The yellow stripe in particular matters: it carries the love-and-friendship-in-non-romantic-non-sexual-forms reading, which most other aspec flags don't make explicit.
How is aroace different from asexual or aromantic?
This is one of the most-asked questions about the identity. Here's the comparison:
| Identity | Romantic attraction | Sexual attraction | Flag (most common) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aroace | Little to none | Little to none | Orange, yellow, white, light blue, dark blue |
| Asexual (only) | Variable, can be any orientation | Little to none | Black, gray, white, purple |
| Aromantic (only) | Little to none | Variable, can be any orientation | Green, light green, white, gray, black |
The takeaway: aroace people occupy both spectrums simultaneously. Someone who's only asexual might still date or fall in love romantically. Someone who's only aromantic might still experience sexual attraction. Aroace folks experience little to none of either.
That's not a deficit. It's an orientation, the same way being gay or bi is an orientation. Aroace people aren't lacking something other queer people have; they're experiencing attraction (or its absence) in their own particular way.
It's also worth saying: aroace identity is not the same as celibacy, abstinence, asexuality-as-trauma-response, or "just hasn't met the right person." Those framings are common misunderstandings the community pushes back on regularly.
To see the visual side-by-side, here are the asexual and aromantic flags as their own identities:
The asexual flag (4 stripes: black, gray, white, purple) belongs to people who experience little to no sexual attraction. Worn on its own, it signals asexual identity without saying anything about romantic attraction. We carry the ace flag across the full Proud Cube range, including the pin shown below.
The aromantic flag works the same way for romantic attraction, in its own colour palette.
The aromantic flag (5 stripes: dark green, light green, white, gray, black) belongs to people who experience little to no romantic attraction. Worn on its own, it signals aromantic identity without saying anything about sexual attraction. The aromantic pin below is part of our full aromantic collection.
Aroace identity sits at the intersection of both, and gets its own dedicated flag (further down on this page) rather than asking aroace people to fly two at once.
Who designed the aroace pride flag?
The aroace pride flag was designed by the Aroaesflags Tumblr collective in December 2018. The collective released it specifically to give people who experience both aromanticism and asexuality a unified symbol, one flag for one identity, instead of asking aroace folks to choose between or layer the aromantic and asexual flags.
The Aroaesflags designers were explicit about the framing in their original post: aroace deserves its own flag because aroace is its own identity, not a stitch-together of two others. The 5-stripe design reflects that, orange for community, yellow for the love and friendship that exist outside romantic and sexual attraction, white for the wholeness of aroace identity, and the two blues for the aroace spectrum.
This kind of community-led, Tumblr-emergent flag design is the same pattern that gave us the non-binary flag (Kye Rowan, 2014), the demisexual flag (anonymous, c. 2010), and many other modern identity flags. The aroace flag joined that lineage in 2018 and has been the community-standard symbol since.
AVEN (the Asexual Visibility and Education Network) and AUREA (the Aromantic-Spectrum Union for Recognition, Education, and Advocacy) are both strong resources for anyone exploring aroace, asexual, or aromantic identity in more depth.
Can aroace people have relationships?
Yes, and the way they do it is one of the most generative parts of aroace identity.
Aroace people build all kinds of partnerships and chosen-family structures. Queerplatonic relationships, often shortened to QPRs, are a common one: deep, committed bonds that aren't romantic or sexual but carry the same level of intentional partnership a marriage might. Two people might co-own a home, raise children, or build a life together as queerplatonic partners without that relationship being romantic.
Plenty of aroace folks also form deep friendships, choose family, live communally, or partner non-monogamously in ways that don't fit traditional relationship escalator scripts. The point isn't that aroace people don't connect; it's that the connection isn't structured around romantic or sexual attraction.
"Hard to find pride flag in a nice looking pin."
ccmskates, on our aroace pride pin set
That review is short, but it captures something we hear from aroace customers a lot: aroace identity is one of the more underrepresented identities even within the LGBTQ+ community, and finding well-designed merchandise for it can be hard. We made our aroace pride pins partly because customers kept asking, and partly because the gap shouldn't exist. Browse the full pride pins collection for the complete range.
AUREA exists for exactly this reason: to advance aromantic visibility and counter the cultural assumption that everyone experiences romantic attraction. They're a strong resource for anyone exploring aroace or aromantic identity.
Frequently asked questions
What does aroace mean?
Aroace describes people who are both aromantic and asexual. They experience little to no romantic attraction and little to no sexual attraction. It's a unified identity term for folks who sit at the intersection of both spectrums and experience the combination as a single identity rather than two separate ones.
What's the difference between aroace and asexual?
Asexual people experience little to no sexual attraction but can still experience romantic attraction (and date, fall in love, partner up). Aroace people experience little to none of either. Aroace is asexual plus aromantic, held together as one identity.
Who designed the aroace pride flag?
The aroace pride flag was designed by the Aroaesflags Tumblr collective in December 2018. It has 5 horizontal stripes: orange (community), yellow (love and friendship in non-romantic, non-sexual forms), white (the wholeness of aroace identity), light blue and dark blue (the aroace spectrum). The collective released it as a unified symbol for aroace as its own distinct identity, not a layering of the aromantic and asexual flags.
Can aroace people be in relationships?
Yes. Aroace people build partnerships, chosen family, queerplatonic relationships (QPRs), and many other connection structures. The relationship just isn't organized around romantic or sexual attraction. Many aroace folks have lifelong committed partners, raise children, and build deep family structures on their own terms.
Is aroace a sexual orientation or a romantic orientation?
Both. Aroace combines two orientations: aromantic (a romantic orientation) and asexual (a sexual orientation). Many in the asexual and aromantic communities use the split-attraction model to describe romantic and sexual attraction as separate axes, and aroace describes the experience of being on the low end of both.
Carrying the flag forward
Aroace identity isn't new, but its visibility is still catching up. International Asexuality Day, founded April 6, 2021 by activists Yasmin Benoit and David Jay, is one of the more recent global pushes to make aspec identities visible. Brands like ours catching up on aroace merchandise is a smaller part of that same project.
If you fly the aroace flag, an aroace signature pin, an aroace bag charm, or one of the more specific identity flags from our complete pride flags guide, you're claiming space for an experience that mainstream queer narratives often skip past.
We've donated $10,219.58 CAD (lifetime, as of 2026-05-13) to LGBTQ+ organizations, including Rainbow Refugee, QMUNITY, Covenant House Vancouver, BC pride societies, and our charity-pin partners (GLSEN, Out on Screen, CBRC, UNYA). See our donations page for the full list. Every order helps that number grow.
Written by Delwin Tan, Co-Founder of Proud Zebra
Published 2026-05-06. Last updated 2026-05-18.
Delwin co-founded Proud Zebra with his partner Jimmy Cheang in late 2020. We're a queer-owned Canadian small business, designing pride pins, patches, stickers, and accessories from the Lower Mainland, BC. We've donated $10,219.58 CAD to LGBTQ+ organizations to date (as of 2026-05-13).
