It was the Saturday of Elevation Utah Gay Ski Week. Matt stood at the top of Park City Mountain’s Home Run, surrounded by friends, rainbows and unicorns. He paused for a moment and smiled up at the flag one of his buddies waved overhead. The flag caught a brief gust and billowed out in all its ROY G. BIV glory just as the Summit Pride Parade pushed off down the mountain.
Parents and kids on Bonanza lift cheered. Skiers stopped to whoop and clap as the procession made its way down Home Run.
“The pride parade at PCM is always an empowering experience,” Matt said. “I get very emotional just to be visible and together with my community doing something I love.” He added, “I think it’s important for the sport of skiing — to be seen as inclusive.”
That sense of inclusion is signified by the pride flag.
“It’s the unifier, the identifier,” Matt said. “It says we’re not ashamed and we’re not afraid.”
Flags are more than fabric. They’re a symbol. A declaration of belonging. When we let our freak flag fly, we celebrate our non-conformity, our otherness and our willingness to simply be who we are. The LBGTQ+ pride flag might be the ultimate freak flag — a symbol of living your life fully in the open — of refusing to hide.
Except now, there’s a Utah lawmaker who wants to ban it.
According to a story in The Salt Lake Tribune, state Rep. Trevor Lee introduced a bill supposedly about “neutrality” that would permit Nazi and Confederate flags to be displayed for “historical education” in Utah schools and public buildings, while pride flags would be outlawed.
Oh, I get it. It’s OK to teach about hate, but not about love.
The bill hasn’t passed — yet — and it’s unclear what support it has. But the fact that it’s being proposed in the first place speaks volumes. I don’t believe in banning history, but banning hatred and discrimination is another story.
Digging a little deeper, I learned this isn’t the first time Rep. Lee has targeted LGBTQ+ visibility. In 2022, he amplified a post declaring Pride Month “satanic.” And last year, he posted a meme suggesting that public school teachers are influencing children to change their gender identity. He even went so far as to tag Utah Gov. Spencer Cox in the post.
Let’s get real: This is about erasure — not education or “neutrality.”
I shared the story on my Instagram and one of my gay friends was quick to comment. He agreed the pride flag should be allowed, but felt the headline exaggerated the issue. “Nobody is advocating for Nazi flags to fly outside schools,” he said.
In a perfect world, or at least the one that existed a month and a half ago, I might agree. But right now, banning a symbol of inclusion while allowing one of persecution seems like just one more horrific WTF in our now-daily litany of whatthefuckifications.
I asked my friend how he reconciles the freedom to be himself with a government that’s trying to erase him. He said he doesn’t base his existence on a flag. He doesn’t feel that he’s being erased.
He said, “Being gay is a tiny part of who I am.”
Matt agreed.
“I may be gay, but I’m also a lot of other things — an athlete, a successful professional, an uncle, a brother. It’s less about the actual flag than about the fact that I can be who I want to be — and be gay.”
Hey, nobody should have to fly a freak flag — but we should all have the right if we want to. For many people, the pride flag represents diversity, equity and inclusion — which seems precarious in the broader movement to end DEI altogether.
If banning the pride flag really is about “neutrality,” what does it say when the government starts to decide which identities and histories are preserved — and which are erased? First, they ban the pride flag. What’s next, individuality itself?
After the Summit Pride Parade, Matt and dozens of other skiers gathered on the deck at Mid-Mountain Lodge. There were no bans. Just sunshine and rainbows and free-flowing good vibes. Love is love, baby. Imagine what would happen if we all let our freak flag fly. We might just make the world a better place.