Pansexual

Sexual, romantic, and/or emotional attraction to people regardless of their sex or gender.

Definition

Sexual, romantic, and/or emotional attraction to people regardless of their sex or gender. Often described as "gender-blind" - gender is not a factor in the experience of attraction.

Flag

Pansexual flag · Designer: Jasper V. · 2010

Three equal horizontal stripes: magenta, yellow and cyan. First posted to an anonymous Tumblr account in 2010. The person behind the account, Jasper V., confirmed in a blog post in February 2013 that the design was theirs, which is why older sources describe the flag as having no known designer. The flag has never been replaced. Alternative pansexual designs have been proposed since, none of which has displaced it, and the three-stripe flag is the one in general use.

Colour codes: Pansexual flag
Stripe	HEX	RGB	CMYK	Pantone	Meaning
1	`#FF218C`	255,33,140	C:0 M:87 Y:45 K:0	PMS 213 C	Attraction to women/feminine-identifying people
2	`#FFD800`	255,216,0	C:0 M:15 Y:100 K:0	PMS 7405 C	Attraction to non-binary and all gender-diverse people
3	`#21B1FF`	33,177,255	C:87 M:31 Y:0 K:0	PMS 2925 C	Attraction to men/masculine-identifying people

Full flag history →

Etymology

Greek pan- (all) + sexualis. Note: "pansexualism" (Freud's theory that all behavior is driven by sexual instinct) is an entirely unrelated concept sharing only the prefix.

History

In 1974, Alice Cooper described pansexuality as openness to all kinds of sexual experiences with all kinds of people
1980s-1990s: "pansexual" circulated in queer and kink communities as a term for attraction not bounded by gender
c. 2010 - The pansexual flag appeared online anonymously and spread rapidly through Tumblr
Public figures including Miley Cyrus and Janelle Monae identifying as pansexual in the 2010s brought mainstream visibility

Common myths

"Pansexual and bisexual are the same thing." There is meaningful overlap, but pansexuality emphasizes attraction regardless of gender (gender-blind), while bisexuality acknowledges gender as a dimension of attraction without being limited by it.
"Pansexuality comes from Freud's pansexualism." Entirely different concepts sharing only a prefix.
See the full comparison: Bisexual vs Pansexual.