U.S. Navy veteran, author and creator of the original pink, blue and white transgender flag is leaving her country because of anti-LGBTQ persecution.
“We are worried there’s a possibility something could happen where we end up getting arrested just for being who we are,” Monica Helms, 74, told the Bay Area Reporter earlier this year.
Helms was born in Sumter, S.C. and grew up in Arizona, as reported by the National Veterans Memorial & Museum. Following previous members of her family, she served the U.S. Navy from 1970 to 1978, a time when being openly transgender or gay in the military could mean a dishonorable discharge.
Helms’s military service while unable to come out as transgender led to her activism and advocacy for transgender rights. In 1999, she created the pink, blue and white-striped flag after a conversation with the creator of the bisexual pride flag.
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Helms’ flag, five horizontal stripes of two light blues, two pinks and one white line in the center, would go on to represent transgendered persons. The light blue is for the stereotypical color for a baby blue, the pink for the stereotypical color for a baby girl and the white for anyone who is transitioning, intersex or identifies outside of the gender binary. In 2000, she flew the flag at the Phoenix Pride Parade and donated it to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.
Author of the 2019 autobiography “More Than Just a Flag” and founder of the Transgender American Veterans Association (TAVA) in 2003, Helms lives in Georgia with her wife and has continued to give voice to transgendered rights. TAVA organized the first Transgender Veterans March to the Wall in 2004 and was the first trans group to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery.
Helms also served as a delegate to the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston, the first openly trans individual elected from Georgia.
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But anti-trans legislation in Georgia and across the country encouraged Helms and her wife to start a GoFundMe in early 2025 to raise funds to move overseas.
And the couple is not alone. According to a Williams Institute poll, nearly half of all trans adults in America have considered moving out of their state or the country.
Erin in the Morning, which first reported Helms’ plight to leave the country, assesses Georgia to be a “high risk area for transgender.”
“We will not abandon our activism,” Helms wrote in her GoFundMe.
According to Erin in the Morning, 22-year-old trans woman Hannah Kreager of Arizona may be the first trans person to leave the U.S. and seek asylum in Canada after she filed an asylum claim in early 2025.
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Rebecca Barnabi
