Protect Rainbow Flags and Crosswalks: Stop LGBTQ+ Erasure

Everywhere we turn, our enemies are coming for us: our bathrooms, our passports and our marriage licenses. Now, our rainbows are being stolen from us, too — in schools, workplaces, statehouses, municipal buildings, federal property, military bases and even crosswalks. It's outrageous.

Rainbow crosswalks and Pride flags are powerful, public declarations that LGBTQ+ people belong; they show that communities are proud, inclusive and welcoming. In a time of rising hate crimes, anti-trans legislation and increasing efforts to push LGBTQ+ people out of public life, visibility is not only powerful — it's critical to our safety.

For LGBTQ+ people, rainbow crosswalks and Pride flags are how we know we are safe. Removing them doesn't create neutrality — it creates erasure. In this moment, when LGBTQ+ people are under relentless attack across the country, silence from businesses and politicians who claim to support us is not neutrality — it's complicity. And let's be clear: rainbow crosswalks and Pride flags don't pose a threat to safety or "welcoming environments" — bigotry does.

We won't go back. Join HRC and send a strong message that we won't stay quiet on the sidelines while anti-equality forces continue their mission to erase LGBTQ+ people and force us back into the closet.