Local community members reflect on anti-queer sentiment across Orange County.

At the Orange City Hall, a Pride flag has sat in a storage cabinet since last June, when city officials refused to hoist the banner onto their flagpole.

The flag was a gift from Nancy Brink, Chapman University’s Director of Church Relations, and served as a message: the people in Orange want the flag flown, an action that would not cost the city anything and would also serve as a symbol of unity for the local LGBTQIA+ community.

Despite hundreds of testimonials from community members, the council majority did not support the action, and the flag has collected dust ever since.

Brink said the Chapman community will continue the fight next year, long before Pride month. When asked how she felt about the flag sitting in a storage cabinet, Brink laughed and said she was grateful that at least it wasn’t in the trash.

“(The council) learned to be dismissive without being terribly rude, but it was like, ‘Really?’” Brink said. “It’s such a small thing, I find it ironic that people think it’s a big thing. Other towns in Orange County do this without thinking.”

To Brink’s point, at least nine cities fly the Pride flag during Pride month in Orange County. Santa Ana was the first city to fly the flag at city hall in 2015, and since then, Aliso Viejo, Anaheim, Costa Mesa, Fullerton, Garden Grove, Huntington Beach, Irvine and Laguna Beach have followed suit. 

Arianna Barrios, the Orange City Council member for District 1, which includes Chapman, brought up the topic of flying the Pride flag for Pride month this summer on three separate occasions over a three-month period, but to no avail. 

“I was not wholly surprised by the actions of the majority, but I was disappointed that some of it took a really political tone as if this was some type of political action,” Barrios told The Panther. “That was really disappointing because it wasn’t about politics. It was about people.”

Stephanie Wade, co-chair of the Lavender Democrats, an organization that fights for equal rights and opportunity for LGBTQIA+ people in Orange County, instead argues that the Pride flag is a strong political message that is necessary in every city across Orange County.

“You’re damn right it’s political,” Wade said. “It’s political in saying, ‘You may not agree with my lifestyle, but what I’m telling you, is that I have equal rights with you’ … Yes, it’s going to upset some people. Good. I want to bring their hatred and prejudice to light, and I want them to confront why it's so horrible that we are coming together and saying we don’t want to discriminate against (the LGBTQIA+ community).”

Barrios argued the city ordinance about flag-flying is perfectly worded to allow council discretion to hoist the Pride flag: “City facilities are required to display the national, state, and the optional city flag, or other flags of respect as approved by the City Council, at all city facilities, parks or properties.”

At the June council meeting, not only did the council majority voice opinions against raising the banner, but members also discussed the potentiality of revisiting the ordinance to make the wording more specific against other flags being flown, Barrios said.

Other Chapman community members were present at the meeting, including husbands Zac Graycen, the administrative coordinator in the Attallah College of Educational Studies, and Chris Graycen, an administrative assistant in the provost’s office, who Brink said had the idea to bring the flag to the meeting.

Wade described how refusing to simply fly the Pride flag exposes the deep-rooted, systemic homophobia found in the county.

“Initially, I think, ‘It’s just symbolism,’ but, when you find resistance to this kind of basic symbolism, you uncover the homophobia,” Wade said. “When people have opposition to (flying the Pride flag), they don’t think they are being homophobic, but that’s exactly what they’re being … The fact that you don’t want to ruffle the feathers of the homophobes, that’s the systemic part.”

Orange County is no stranger to homophobic and transphobic intentions. Wade, a former Marine infantry officer, openly identifies as a transgender woman and often faces harassment due to her identity.

Wade told The Panther how she was leaving the Anaheim City Hall when a stranger verbally harassed her. The stranger’s voice was amplified with a microphone as she was crossing a street.

“This person read me as transgender, from afar, and decided that it was appropriate to say these things to me and to try to humiliate me,” Wade said. “That’s a mark of how much homophobia and transphobia there still is in the community. This stuff happens to trans people all the time.”

Wade also recently co-wrote an op-ed for Voice of OC regarding two transgender women who were attacked by strangers, harassed by Huntington Beach police officers and nearly faced felony charges after engaging in self-defense. District Attorney Todd Spitzer dismissed the case shortly after Wade’s piece was published on the heels of 10 months of investigation.

Beatriz “Betty” Valencia, who earned her Ph.D. in leadership studies from Chapman and openly identifies as gay, has also experienced homophobia in the city of Orange.

Valencia ran for city council in 2018 and came in third for two open city council seats, which were filled by council members Kimberlee Nichols and Chip Monaco, who still currently hold the seats. 

A month after the election, the council was considering an appointment to fill the vacant seat left by former council member Mark Murphy, who was elected as mayor in 2018. In the December 2018 meeting, a man pulled out a knife in the council chambers after speaking in opposition of Valencia’s potential appointment and was quickly arrested by Orange police officers.

Valenica, who was ultimately not appointed, would have been the first gay member of the historically-conservative council.

Wade pointed to Valencia as an example of the needed diversity in local government.

“That’s why it’s important for the Lavender Democrats that every city in Orange County fly the Pride flag,” Wade said, “Because the history of transphobia and homophobia is so profound.”

However, Barrios said the fight isn’t over. She plans to bring up the topic again in the new year, well before Pride month, to attempt for a fourth time to convince the council of the flag’s importance with widespread community support.

“I think there’s been a real change in Orange County over the last decade,” Barrios said. “There’s a real understanding that, when you’re talking about symbols like the Pride flag (and) what that means to a disenfranchised or marginalized community …  I know that so many of my friends and family, even my children who are LGBTQIA+ and or LGBTQIA+ allies, that it is so important to them.”