#ourbiflag

Michael Page, the flag’s creator, said, “The Bi Pride Flag is the only bisexual symbol not patented, trademarked or service marked.”

No one has been able to find any proof of a copyright or trademark being registered with the appropriate authorities, nor have they found any contemporaneous sources stating that anyone from BiNet USA was involved in the creation process

Flags with simple designs are unlikely to be copyrightable (per Kendra Albert and the US copyright office)

Assuming they even had a claim, this sort of monetization would likely interfere with their non-profit status in a ruinously expensive fashion (per Courtney Milan)

Then BiNet USA apologized for making such a silly mistake and all was well! Thank goodness the internet is such a reasonable and forgiving place.

lol j/k, they continued to double down. Over the course of a few hours it became clear that all tweets from the BiNet USA account were being written by Faith Cheltenham, the current president of the organization. Faith continued tweeting from the BiNet USA account for a few hours, and then without ceremony that 11-year-old Twitter account was deleted.

This was, however, not the end of the saga. Faith retreated to a personal account and proceeded to doxx people who had sent emails to BiNet USA’s corporate contact (redacted by me):

Lauren Beach, a current board member says that the board is “in communication” with Faith and will be issuing a statement clarifying the organization’s response, but in the meantime Cheltenham is still on a tear on various platforms, saying that people misconstruing statements are racists and posting sweet pics with President Obama:

It’s unclear to what degree the rest of the board was involved in this initial decision or the following actions: the member mentioned above says that they were not informed and did not support the idea, and another member liked/retweeted some dissent but hasn’t made their own statement:

Other board members have thus far been silent on the matter.

The board itself is a fraught subject, however: the BiNet USA website lists 9 board members including the president as of 4/29/20:

but further Twitter furore revealed that there were now only six. One left for reasons unrelated to Faith’s tenure (Seth Fischer), two left for reasons unknown (Luigi Ferrer and Brian Dodge), and so the board now stands thusly: Faith Cheltenham, president and chief instigator; Lauren Beach and Ron Suresha (both seemingly not in favor of the kerfuffle per links above); and Juba Kalamka, Denise Penn, and Lynnette McFadzen, none of whom have, as far as I know, spoken publicly on the issue yet. Former BiNet board members Beth Sherouse and Victor Raymond have also spoken out against Cheltenham’s actions:

No one seems to know yet how this will pan (heh) out, but one thing seems clear: it is, and will remain, #ourbiflag