Sapphic / WLW

An umbrella term for women (and feminine-aligned people) attracted to other women, regardless of whether they also experience attraction to other genders.

Definition

An umbrella term for women (and feminine-aligned people) attracted to other women, regardless of whether they also experience attraction to other genders. Encompasses lesbians, bisexual women, pansexual women, queer women, and feminine-aligned non-binary people. WLW (Women Loving Women) is used similarly.

Flag

Sapphic / WLW flag · Designer: lesbeux-moved, simplified by pride-color-schemes · 14 August 2015; simplified version 25 June 2017

Three horizontal stripes, pink, a pale almost white violet-tinted centre, and pink, with a single lavender violet flower centred on the pale stripe. Created by Tumblr user lesbeux-moved on 14 August 2015 with a realistic pair of violets, and simplified to a single stylised violet by the Tumblr blog pride-color-schemes on 25 June 2017 because the detailed violets were hard to reproduce. No official colour specification has ever been published for this flag. The values shown here are the widely circulated community set sampled from the 2017 artwork; they are community convention, not an authoritative standard.

Colour codes: Sapphic / WLW flag
Stripe	HEX	RGB	CMYK	Pantone	Meaning
Top stripe	`#FD8BA8`	253,139,168	C:0 M:45 Y:34 K:1	n/a	Love
Middle stripe	`#FBF2FF`	251,242,255	C:2 M:5 Y:0 K:0	n/a	The pale, almost white ground the violet is set against
Bottom stripe	`#FD8BA8`	253,139,168	C:0 M:45 Y:34 K:1	n/a	Love
Violet petals	`#C76BC5`	199,107,197	C:0 M:46 Y:1 K:22	n/a	The violet: women gave violets to the women they were courting, a token of sapphic desire
Violet centre	`#FDD768`	253,215,104	C:0 M:15 Y:59 K:1	n/a	The stamen at the heart of the flower

Full flag history →

Etymology

From Sappho (c. 630-570 BCE), the Greek poet of Lesbos whose work described erotic love between women.

History

"Sapphic" in the sense of female same-sex love has been in academic and literary use since the 19th century. Its adoption as a community identity label accelerated on social media in the 2010s alongside "achillean" - functioning as a more inclusive umbrella where "lesbian" might be too narrow, including bisexual, pansexual, and non-binary people without requiring a specific label.