Experts say rash of Pride flag vandalism across Ohio points to shifting trend in anti-LGBTQ+ violence

At a remote campground in southern Ohio – miles from the couple’s two-bedroom home in the Cleveland suburb of Brooklyn – Tyler Diamond and his husband, John Fleeman, sat beside a dying campfire.

The pair had just spent a long weekend celebrating Diamond’s 35th birthday with a small group of family and friends. 

But by the early morning hours of June 2, 2024 – when Diamond’s phone pinged with a notification from the couple’s Ring Camera – nobody else was awake.

“I didn’t think anything of it at first,” Diamond said. “Then I see him, this figure. Then I see he’s wearing a mask.”

Stunned, Diamond watched as a person clad in a black ski mask ascended the stairs to his front porch and ripped a rainbow LGBTQ+ Pride flag away from the home’s exterior.

“I see another person running down the driveway and I start yelling for John to wake up. I thought they were robbing the house,” Diamond said. “Then I realize it doesn’t seem like a break-in. It seems more like a hate crime.”

“I’m wondering if they set the house on fire or if they spray-painted the ‘F’ slur on the garage. I’m wondering if the cat is OK,” Diamond said. “It’s just so awful. You don’t really understand the fear until it happens to you.” 

In Ohio – where LGBTQ+ people are not protected from hate crimes based on gender identity or sexual orientation – extremism experts say growing anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment and cultural “turf wars” are likely fueling incidents like the vandalism and theft Diamond and Fleeman experienced.

Now, they are ramping up efforts to track and categorize anti-LGBTQ+ incidents as they occur, revealing a new and concerning pattern of anti-LGBTQ+ violence across Ohio and beyond.

Tracking anti-LGBTQ+ incidents

In 2022, GLAAD, the world’s largest LGBTQ+ media advocacy organization, began tracking anti-LGBTQ+ incidents to help build a fuller picture of anti-LGBTQ+ violence across the country.

Since its launch, GLAAD’s Anti-LGBTQ Extremism Reporting Tracker (ALERT) has documented 2,242 incidents of harassment, vandalism and assault motivated by anti- LGBTQ+ sentiment.

Anti-LGBTQ+ extremism analyst Sarah Moore currently runs the ALERT Desk.

Between June 2022  and June 2023, Moore documented 524 anti-LGBTQ+ incidents across the country. 

Between June 2023 and June 2024, she logged 1,109 incidents – marking a 112% increase in anti-LGBTQ+ violence nationwide.

Since 2022, Moore has also documented more than 325 incidents involving the theft or vandalism of Pride flags and other LGBTQ+-related symbols, including in cities and neighborhoods that have long been considered safe spaces by LGBTQ+ Ohioans.

For the last 17 years, Anthony Meyer and his husband, Tyler Mason, have lived together in Columbus, Ohio’s historic German Village, colloquially called a ‘gayborhood,’ where LGBTQ+ people live, work and raise families in proximity to one another.

Last June, thieves stole dozens of LGBTQ+ Pride flags from the front yards and porches of homes in the neighborhood – including Meyer and Mason’s home.

Because Ohio Revised Code does not include legal protection from hate crimes based on sexual orientation and gender identity, it is not an anti-LGBTQ+ hate crime to steal or vandalize an LGBTQ+ Pride flag. However, perpetrators might be charged with vandalism, theft, or property damage – and some incidents may even meet the threshold for ethnic intimidation.

“Safety is one of your core, basic things that you need to protect. If people don’t feel safe, they can’t function,” Meyer said. “If you don’t put out the fire while it’s small, it’s so much harder to put out when it’s something serious.”

In response to the thefts, he and Mason rallied friends and neighbors, prompting a local flag company to help residents replace the stolen Pride flags at no cost – a community-based response Moore said she is seeing more and more.

“There is absolutely strength in numbers,” Moore said. “If you can get all of your neighbors to put up flags as well, it makes it a lot harder to target one particular household.”

“I know a lot of times people see these as misdemeanors or pranks or things that are of less importance, but they do really inspire this kind of fear, especially in a climate that we’re living in right now,” Moore added. “It can be really scary, but we also want to emphasize that that doesn’t mean that we should be hiding these symbols.”

Nearly two years after Meyer and Mason’s flags were stolen, the perpetrators have not been identified.

In the Northeast Ohio suburb of Cleveland Heights, vandals spray painted over an LGBTQ+ Pride rainbow crosswalk ahead of a busy LGBTQ+ Pride month for the city, which co-sponsors an annual LGBTQ+ Pride festival and recently passed a resolution declaring the city a “safe haven” for doctors and transgender patients who provide or receive gender-affirming health care.

However, Moore said anti-LGBTQ+ incidents are increasingly common in what she called “blue bubbles” – cities, counties or suburbs like Cleveland Heights that vote overwhelmingly Democrat, surrounded by areas that vote overwhelmingly Republican.

“That tends to be because those are the communities where people feel the safest to have their flags out to begin with,” Moore said.

“To me, it’s really telling the story of the literal turf wars that we’re seeing over who gets to control and run the politics of some of these smaller suburbs and the smaller rural towns,” she added. “It’s sort of tit-for-tat, people saying, ‘If you guys are trying to enforce LGBTQ+ inclusive books in our classrooms, then we’re going to come into your suburbs and make a point by burning down your Pride flag.’”

‘Prank’ with an ‘insidious undertone’

In Brooklyn, the vandals returned to Diamond and Fleeman’s home night after night – twice accompanied by four more people, also wearing black ski masks. Sometimes, they appeared to drive a car, while other times they appeared to arrive on foot.

One morning, Diamond checked the Ring Camera app to find the suspects ripping a flag pole away from its mount on the home’s exterior while he slept just feet away on the living-room couch.

In total, Diamond filed six reports with the Brooklyn Police Department, including five reports detailing the theft and vandalism of LGBTQ+ Pride flags and a sixth incident in which the passenger of a slow-moving SUV dropped a small explosive at the end of the couple’s driveway.

In September, the Brooklyn Police Department released a brief public statement announcing they had made an arrest in relation to the repeated incidents of anti-LGBTQ+ vandalism and theft at Diamond and Fleeman’s home.

According to reporting via Cleveland.com, Police Chief Scott Mielke confirmed charges had already been filed against “two juvenile males” in Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court for the thefts. 

“I think there’s a divide between a lot of kids being so open and out in the terms of their LGBTQ+ identity, but at the same time we’re seeing the rise in incel movements, the manosphere movement and the far right radicalization that is is so popular and trendy amongst Twitch streamers,” Moore said.

“People have become so casual about this kind of hatred that it is now essentially a prank amongst some of these younger kids,” she added. “But it does have an insidious undertone.”

Brooklyn Mayor Ron Van Kirk did not respond to three separate requests for comment via official email, but told reporters with News 5 Cleveland the city “[takes] all crime in Brooklyn very, very seriously.”

The Brooklyn Police Department and Police Chief Mielke also did not respond to multiple requests for comment via official email.

Patterns in LGBTQ+ violence are shifting

In 2025, reported anti-LGBTQ+ Pride flag incidents have dropped by about 25% nationally.

“Folks who are putting up Pride flags and drag performers and their audiences are getting smarter, because they have been on the front lines of this kind of hate,” Moore said. 

“Drag performers are also being a lot more cautious about security planning for their events, maybe doing things like not releasing the address ahead of time or only to ticket holders to prevent protests,” she added. “Those kinds of tactics can help reduce some of those incidents.”

However, incidents of violence, harassment and assault targeting transgender people are up by 52% compared to 2024 – and anti-LGBTQ+ attacks and targeted violence against government and elected officials, educators and librarians have also jumped since last year.

“We see the tides shifting towards specifically more attacks on transgender and gender non-conforming people and their supporters and in city councils and school board meetings as well,” Moore said. “Sometimes we even see these cases of cisgender women being mistaken for trans women and being attacked because of that, which is why we say real or perceived identities [when we talk about] targeting.”

Hate crime laws and incident reporting

Overall, Moore said anti-LGBTQ+ incidents are dramatically underreported, calling the incidents she has already verified via the ALERT Desk a “drop in the bucket.”

“So many of these incidents go unreported for so many reasons,” she said. “People might not want to report to law enforcement if they are afraid of forced outing, if they’re not already out. Maybe they’re afraid of retaliation. Maybe it was even law enforcement that perpetrated the attack.”

“Many states don’t have hate crime protections based on gender and sexual orientation,” Moore added. “If these things are happening and they’re being reported, they might be being categorized in ways that will make it impossible to track.”

Last year, during the Ohio House of Representatives 135th session, Rep. Casey Weinstein introduced a bill that would change that by placing crimes motivated by anti-LGBTQ+ bias under the jurisdiction of the Ohio attorney general.

“It will not only provide legal protection for LGBTQ+ individuals, but a dedicated way to solve and deter hate crimes in Ohio,” Weinstein said.

In 2023, one of Weinstein’s constituents reported an LGBTQ+ Pride flag was burned in Hudson, where Weinstein also lives with his family.

“I believe the theft and vandalism of LGBTQ+ pride flags represent not just an attack on symbols of diversity and acceptance, but on the fundamental values of our communities,” Weinstein told The Buckeye Flame. “These flags are powerful symbols of love, identity, and resilience. It’s crucial that we create an environment in our state where everyone feels safe to express who they are.”

The bill – which also would have created a Bureau of Hate Crimes within Ohio’s Attorney General’s office – died before it was ever assigned to committee.

‘I just hope the tide turns’

Diamond and Fleeman’s Brooklyn home has been quiet since the Brooklyn Police Department announced the arrest of the two minor suspects, with no further incidents of vandalism or theft.

But for Diamond, the fear still remains.

In the Southern Ohio community where he was born and raised, few LGBTQ+ individuals talked openly about their lives and identities.

“Nobody was really out [as LGBTQ+],” Diamond said. “Probably because they were afraid of stuff like this happening.”

“I just want this kid to understand that you don’t have to like everybody you meet, but you do have to treat people with respect,” Diamond said – noting the same callous attitude toward anti-LGBTQ+ violence among young people that Moore described. “It just worries me. Like, they might think, ‘Well, I got away with it this time. Let me go beat up the one trans kid at school.’”

“Ohio has its downsides, but there are some really beautiful people here,” Diamond added. “I just hope the tide turns.” 🔥

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Ignite Action

• To learn more about ALERT Desk: GLAAD’s Anti-LGBTQ+ Extremism Reporting Tracker or to report an incident, click here.
• To view the ALERT Desk’s 2024 Executive Summary, click here.
• To find contact information for your Ohio state representative, click here.
• To find contact information for your Ohio senator, click here.
• If you are a young LGBTQ+ person in crisis, please contact the Trevor Project: 866-4-U-Trevor.
• If you are an transgender adult in need of immediate help, contact the National Trans Lifeline: 877-565-8860