Did you know there was such a thing as the transgender flag?

It — perhaps fittingly — is blue and pink, the traditional baby colors representing male and female.

Also, if you weren’t aware, last Wednesday was the international Transgender Day of Remembrance.

Here’s a description of the holiday by NBC News:

Three years after a Massachusetts jury acquitted William Palmer on murder charges in the death of 23-year-old Chanelle Pickett, who was killed Nov. 20, 1995, another black transgender woman was found dead in nearby Allston, a suburb of Boston. Rita Hester, 35, died Nov. 28, 1998, after being stabbed 20 times.

Across the continent, San Francisco-based transgender activist Gwen Smith was surfing America Online. “I was talking in a chatroom that evening that Rita Hester was murdered, and when I talked to people about it, they said they had never heard of the Chanelle Picket murder,” Smith told NBC News. “It made me realize we really weren’t looking at the issue of people getting killed.”

Hester’s murder led to Smith creating the Remembering Our Dead web project, where candles are lit beside digital obituaries for murdered transgender and gender-nonconforming people. Then the next year, in 1999, Smith created the first Transgender Day of Remembrance.

This year, the somber annual event is 20 years old, and it continues to draw attention to the worldwide epidemic of anti-transgender violence.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” Smith said, quoting George Santayana.

Word’s gotten ’round:

In honor of #TransWeek and Transgender Day of Remembrance, @PhillyLGBTgov will raise the trans flag at City Hall on November 20.

Join us in celebrating our trans community and honoring the memory of those whose lives were lost to transphobia, anti-trans violence, and suicide. pic.twitter.com/Xd346KnlOG

— City of Philadelphia (@PhiladelphiaGov) November 18, 2019

The Transgender Pride Flag was flown at the state Capitol today as part of Transgender Day of Remembrance https://t.co/0mR7ukRSyn pic.twitter.com/QKDyBCBLgO

— kcranews (@kcranews) November 21, 2019

Up north:

The transgender flag was raised at the B.C. Legislature for the first time to commemorate the Transgender Day of Remembrance on Nov. 20. “This moment is long overdue,” said Premier John Horgan #bcpoli pic.twitter.com/ABwYOwsWNB

— CBC British Columbia (@cbcnewsbc) November 21, 2019

And across the pond:

We are flying the flag today for Transgender Day of Remembrance🏳️‍⚧️We are proud of our vibrant and diverse LGBT+ communities in Camden. We stand together with our communities to challenge and call out inequalities and discrimination #WeMakeCamdenProud pic.twitter.com/lx0ZNCsD5M

— Camden Council (@CamdenCouncil) November 20, 2019

The trans flag is flying over the @foreignoffice today on International Transgender Day of Remembrance, honouring the memory of those killed as a result of transphobia #TDoR2019 🏳️‍⚧️ pic.twitter.com/skDzKaLaXP

— FCO FLAGG (@FCOflagg) November 20, 2019

But there’s at least one place where it didn’t receive an exclusively warm welcome: Iowa.

…Where it was, incidentally, raised.

Republican Skyler Wheeler voiced his opposition to the flag waving in the breeze at the state capitol.

Speaking to The Iowa Standard, he had this to say:

“It’s another way that the Rainbow Jihad continues to give those of us who don’t agree with them a finger in the eye and push their beliefs on us.”

He compared it, in a sense, to religion:

“How would the Rainbow Jihad react if we were trying to fly the Christian flag over the state Capitol? The Rainbow Jihad is not OK with simply living their lives.”

Skyler called it egregious aggression:

“They are so hellbent on pushing their beliefs on us that they would go so far as to fly that flag over the state Capitol. It’s one of the most egregious acts of political aggression I’ve ever seen.”

The flag was flown courtesy of advocacy group Iowa Safe Schools.

Executive Director Nate Monson told Iowa Starting Line it’s a message of love and light:

“Doing something like having a flag flying over the Capitol is a message and a beacon to youth that we serve across the state that they are accepted, they are loved.”

Last month, Iowa Safe Schools approached the state’s Department of Administrative Services in the pursuit of a display. Last week, subsequently, the group ran it up the pole.

As is the convention, it remained there for 3-5 minutes.

Nate called it progress in the area of “acceptance and equality.”

As for those who spoke out against the public display, Nate found their positions “ugly” and “disturbing.”

In his view, state legislators should be unanimously affirming that people who identify as the opposite sex “are Iowans too, and they’re part of the fabric of what makes this state so great.”

But, as reported by The Hill, state Rep. Dean Fisher plans to submit legislation limiting what kind of flags can wave over the capitol:

“I’d sure like to know the history of who else has been able to fly their flag over the Capitol, but I think it’s kind of disappointing that we’re doing it. I’m preparing a bill to specify that, as far as the official flag poles, it would only be the United States and Iowa flags, and we’ll see where that goes.”

At the moment, it seems to me, the transgender issue exists in a curious place among other Left-embraced concepts which contradict one another.

It’s an interesting clash on the same side of the social aisle: The notion of transgenderism violates the idea that gender is a social construct. It demands, rather that one is born with gender embedded within them. The social construct position is, itself, just a few years old. Has it been fully eclipsed?

There are surely many more arguments to be had on the topic, in court and the court of public opinion.

And they aren’t relegated to the older generation: You may be surprised to learn that Skyler is 26 years old.

Personally, I don’t understand the flag mentality, in general. But that’s just me.

What do you think should be the criteria met by any banner that flies on public property?

I look forward to learning, in the Comments section.

-ALEX