The Pride Flag Denied
And some thoughts on what this flag means to my community
My city flew the Pride flag in June for two years, 2021 and 2022, and then in 2023 they decided not to fly the flag in a stunning display of betrayal that stunned us all, especially since the vote that switched was the vote that proposed flying the Pride flag in the first place in 2021. The council member who switched his vote also spent a whole year revealing new depths to his homophobia on social media, apparently upset that the community was hurt by his decisions and said so.
I went this year to the City Council meeting in which they held the vote to fly the flag in 2024. A collection of people in pink reflective vests stood outside in a huddle; chatting, laughing, clutching Pride flags, ready to walk anyone safely to their car. Inside, it was a haphazard collection of my people in rainbow clothes and makeup, flags flying here too, facing the raised, circular dias where the five councilmembers sat staring us down from behind their microphones. We filled the council chamber, we commented and asked for the flag to fly above City Hall for 90 minutes. It surprised us all how gutted we felt after the “no” vote went through, even though we knew it would happen. Our one queer councilwoman said to the other council members “I wish I could convey to you all what this flag means to us, and how visceral the hopefulness is when we see it flying.” They still voted it down.
I wanted to say many things at the council meeting, but two weeks later what lingers is this statement from my councilwoman. I am going to try and convey what I think the Pride flag means to the LGBTQ+ community, and I will probably do it badly but I’m going to give it a go.
Our feelings about this flag are rooted in how many people, historically, have wanted us dead.
There are a lot of them. We came back from WWII into the seedy bars and back alleys, a secret lest we lose our jobs, our friends, our everything. Those “safe” spaces were raided by cops, which was basically just a way to beat you to a pulp before you lost everything when they outed you in the newspaper anyway. The Mattachine Society and The Daughters of Bilitis formed something to let people know they were not alone - they put out a magazine and fought to get cops out of bars. A modicum of not horribleness in the 1970s quickly gave way to AIDS in the 1980s and if you think you know how many of us died in that, no you don’t. It’s estimated that 2/3 of the Gay population in the 1980s/90s died from the disease, alone in their hospital rooms except for maybe other queer people, after having been disowned by their families. The government did not show up for us, the general populace did not show up for us.
We’re used to people not showing up for us. We have learned to show up for each other - we take care of us.
Things are better now. That is true. But we all know that every single step forward was wrested from the hands of the majority after much blood was spilled, much violence perpetrated against us, much that we loved and valued was lost. We’ve all experienced the subtle shift of the vibes going hostile after saying “my wife” to some shop assistant. Or the shallow sorrow of someone we care for deeply, trying to be supportive but not getting it. We’ve all experienced situations where we wished people would show up for us, where we wished desperately for safety, and it just never materializes. And not everyone is hostile. Most people just don’t care and aren’t willing to disturb their personal peace to bring others to peace with them.
The spaces it does materialize? The places that we know will turn bright when we say “my wife?” The places we know that there are people who will stand toe to toe with us and fight for the peace we so desperately need and have been fighting for, for hundreds of years? Those places fly the Pride flag. A Pride flag says “we take care of each other, and we’re going to take care of YOU.” And to see a Pride flag flying over a government building after all the government has done to passively let us die, is momentous. It says to us that there are formal places of power that care for us where historically we have only been able to haphazardly care for ourselves.
When you elect not to fly the flag, especially after it has already been flown, we don’t think that you will treat us badly when you see us on the streets. We don’t think that you will find us in a back alley or sic law enforcement on us, or even think or talk badly about us in private conversation. We don’t think that you will refuse to serve us at your business. But we do think that when the situation is dire and we need someone to show up for our community, as we inevitably will based on history, you will quietly go back to your middle class life while letting us die in the corners like we usually have to do. If you cannot fly a flag during Pride month, something relatively easy to do, what will you not be able to do when the choices get harder? When we start to die again in large numbers?
If you think I’m being dramatic about all this talk of death, I will tell you that we are still fighting for our lives daily. According to the UCLA Williams Institute, 41% of LGBTQ+ youth and 43% of LGBTQ+ adults are suicidal. 53% of LGBTQ+ adults have been assaulted, with that number going up dramatically if you include verbal abuse or threats. Those numbers go up dramatically as well among people living in communities and families that are not affirming of who they are. We are dying now, in 2024. It is not something relegated to the 1980s. It’s happening in the present.
I want to leave you with one last set of meaningful statistics as I close out my argument. 7.2% of people in this country are LGBTQ+ - more than our entire Veteran population. There are more bisexuals than the population of the state of Georgia. There are more lesbians than farmers in this country. More people are Gay than the entire population of Utah. There are twice as many trans people as there are Cops. If you would fly a flag for a Veteran, like the POW/MIA flag, or institute a special policy for Cops, or feel fine celebrating any of these special groups, please ask yourself why you do not feel the same about the LGBTQ+ population.
If there’s one thing I know we know how to do, it’s to show up and fight for our community. We’ll be mobilizing to fill City Council seats as they come up for reelection with people who will care for us, and we will see you June 2025 to ask you to fly the Pride flag again.