Having witnessed one attempt after another by the current administration to erase LGBTQ+ people, I’m no longer OK with being a quiet gay.
WorldPride marched through DC for Pride month, in defiance of Trump
WorldPride, The global festival promoting LGBTQ+ visibility, held it’s anniversary parade in D.C.
I’m embarrassed to admit that I’ve never bought a pride flag, much less displayed one, in my 60-some years. I’ve been gay for all those years, and openly, publicly so for almost all of them, but have never flown the rainbow flag.
But recently, lost in thought on my front lawn here in a small town in central North Carolina, I looked up at the American flag I fly from the front porch. Five years ago, I wrote why I decided to hang the Stars and Stripes, reclaiming it as a flag of all the people, not just some. I remember thinking I was making a statement about inclusion, equality under the law and, yes, patriotism. No one, no political party, should hold the U.S. flag hostage.
When people ask me where I live, I proudly tell them, “It’s the house with the Stars and Stripes. You can’t miss it.”
A friend’s flag helped me find a reason to show my pride
Then, my neighbor and friend Pier Carlo Talenti, also a gay man, posted a photo of his charming cottage with a big pride flag hung on the front porch, seeming to wave at anyone passing by. He wrote, “For the first time ever, I’m flying a Pride flag.” And then he went on to tell us why.
Talenti was angry that the Department of Defense had decided to rename the USNS Harvey Milk, erasing the gay civil rights leader from the Navy vessel that has borne it since 2021. Milk was assassinated in 1978 because of his sexual orientation; Talenti was sure the announcement of the change had been made specifically to coincide with Pride Month. “So petty and hateful,” he wrote.
He added, “I need my neighbors who … represent a broad political spectrum (to understand) that there’s a gay man living and working here and making their community better. America belongs to all of us.”
In just a few hours, dozens of his friends and neighbors had commented, all of them echoing this one: “I support this message.” A friend in Washington, DC, added, “Maybe a few of your friends will even join you.”
Well, it didn’t take long. A Louisville friend posted, “We’ve never flown flags either until now. We’ve got one, too.”
That’s when I went online and purchased what’s known as the “Progress Pride Flag,” which includes five half-size stripes in an arrow shape representing trans and nonbinary individuals, marginalized communities of color and those living with HIV/AIDS on top of the traditional rainbow flag. That particular flag makes a clear statement in support of everything the Trump administration has tried to erase.
Trump administration trying to erase LGBTQ+ community
President Donald Trump and Republicans have made their own statement on the LGBTQ+ community. It started with Trump’s anti-transgender attacks, central to his reelection campaign in 2024.
Once back in the Oval Office, he called on Congress to pass a bill stating that there are “only two genders” and signed an executive order in January halting federal funding for hormonal and surgical intervention for trans minors.
Erased.
Then, Trump fired members of the Kennedy Center Board of Trustees, became chairman and canceled all the events planned to celebrate LGBTQ+ rights for June’s World Pride festival in the nation’s capital.
Erased.
Not having done enough damage, Trump has now banned transgender people from serving in the military. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that he’d scrub the name of the USNS Harvey Milk, who served as a Navy operations officer on rescue submarines during the Korean War then went on to become the first openly gay man elected to public office in California.
If all that wasn’t enough, the administration announced plans to end a suicide hotline explicitly created for LGBTQ+ youth.
Why haven’t I flown a pride flag before?
But it made me wonder why I had never done this before. I have been writing about LGBTQ+ issues for decades: books, columns, public talks. I’m no shrinking violet (one of the seven colors in the rainbow flag, and one of many more on some of the newer variations). My identity is no secret.
Still, I had my reasons for not identifying my house. I live not far from Ku Klux Klan country, and in recent years KKK members have visited our town, white robes flowing and Confederate flags flying. They’ve made threats. They’ve left abhorrent literature on people’s front porches. A 2019 invasion frightened many in town, especially my Black and Brown neighbors, who witnessed a hate they thought belonged to another time.
I’d been fearful, too, and did not want my house to become a target. As a journalist, I’d already faced a home invasion from a reader who stalked me online for months, finally deciding to confront me by trying to break down my front door. This was in 2018, just before five journalists were killed in Annapolis, Maryland.
There was another reason, too, which has only congealed for me. Over the years ‒ decades ‒ I’d changed. At one time, I had enthusiastically and regularly marched in San Francisco Pride, but I hadn’t participated in years. I’d once lived in the Castro District (one of this nation’s gay meccas), but I’d moved to the suburbs and then to North Carolina. I had once been single, but I’d married my husband and committed to our two dogs.
My god, I even got rid of the flashy fake diamond stud that I’d sported for many years.
Was it just age, my older self not being as out there as my younger one? Or had something else happened, and I just wasn’t “that kind of gay” anymore? I wasn’t even sure what that meant, but it seemed I’d become the kind of gay who didn’t hang a pride flag from his front porch.
Well, I am again. Like Talenti and other friends, it’s time for me to step it up. Having witnessed one attempt after another by the current administration to erase LGBTQ+ people, I’m no longer OK with being a quiet gay. It’s time to be a more visible and vocal member of our community ‒ to be counted and to be seen.
I’ve said for many years that I refuse to let fear drive how I live, not realizing I’d already succumbed in this very important way. I think of others in the LGBTQ+ community who live lives at much greater risk than I do, thanks to their sexual identity and the color of their skin, and I know that I need to step into the light on behalf of those who must still live in the shadows.
That’s why I’ve hung the pride flag on my front porch, for everyone to see. It’s a beacon in these dark times. Now, when people ask me where I live, I tell them, “It’s the house with the pride flag. You can’t miss it.”
Steven Petrow is a columnist who writes on civility and manners and the author of seven books, including “The Joy You Make” and “Stupid Things I Won’t Do When I Get Old.” Follow him on Threads: @mr.steven.petrow
