Huntington Seaside radiates California cool. The most effective surfers on this planet descend right here every summer season to compete on waves rolling in below its public pier. Convertibles zoom previous towering palms alongside Pacific Coast Freeway. Beachfront owners take pleasure in breathtaking views, and everyone appears to sport a hang-loose angle.
However trans activist Kanan Durham says Surf Metropolis USA and Orange County normally have grown an increasing number of unwelcoming — in some circumstances hostile — for members of the LGBTQ+ neighborhood.
Durham, 32, joined different involved Orange County residents to type the nonprofit group Pleasure on the Pier to push again towards what they are saying is a rising tide of hate right here that’s emblematic of a development seen throughout the nation.
When Huntington Seaside’s conservative-majority Metropolis Council voted final 12 months to ban the show of most flags on metropolis property — together with the rainbow flag, a worldwide emblem of LGBTQ+ delight, unity and self-expression — members of the group took to the pier, waving Pleasure flags in protest.
Late former Huntington Seaside Mayor Shirley Dettloff, middle, joined a protest towards the constitution amendments in January.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Occasions)
Their act of defiance was met with a rebuke of kinds when voters permitted a measure to put in writing the ban into the Metropolis Constitution.
Provided that solely about 26% of registered Orange County voters solid ballots on Tremendous Tuesday in March, Durham worries that many have stopped following native authorities and subsequently could not notice a disaster is unfolding. He’s involved that some will see battles over Pleasure flags as little greater than enterprise as common in an period when no facet of life appears immune from the polarization that defines U.S. politics.
Nobody ought to assume that LGBTQ+ Californians are shielded from prejudice just because they reside in a progressive state the place Democrats maintain sway, he says.
“California is difficult,” says Durham, govt director of Pleasure on the Pier. “There are lots of people who see California as this blue bubble the place these things doesn’t occur. They don’t notice how a lot hazard that marginalized communities face.”
Supporters of the flag ban argue that identity- and issue-based flags are divisive in a metropolis they insist is tolerant and inclusive.
But Huntington Seaside has had a tough time shaking its repute as a haven for racists and far-right extremists.
Within the Eighties, its pier and downtown have been well-known gathering locations for skinheads. Two racially motivated killings within the ’90s prompted the creation of a activity drive to rejoice variety.
Some noticed an enchancment within the metropolis’s race relations as folks of colour turned the bulk in Orange County, however in 2018, police arrested 4 members of a Huntington Seaside-based white supremacist group on expenses of organizing and taking part in riots. In 2022, a number of folks on the town woke as much as antisemitic fliers on their entrance lawns that blamed Jewish officers within the Biden administration for the COVID-19 pandemic.
Huntington Seaside turned the positioning of demonstrations for LGBTQ+ rights after Metropolis Council members voted to cease flying the Pleasure flag and different banners on authorities property.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Occasions)
For those who occur to be LGBTQ+ and reside or work in Orange County communities, Durham says, it’s arduous to not really feel singled out too.
Durham works within the service business in Huntington Seaside and lives a couple of 20-minute drive from its famed seashores. He declined to say the place in Orange County he resides as a result of he’s involved about struggling retribution for talking brazenly about his identification and controversial insurance policies such because the flag ban.
This concern is broadly shared, he says. Some supporters of Pleasure on the Pier have reached out on social media saying that whereas they wish to attend the group’s demonstrations in Huntington Seaside, they fear about being harassed or attacked over their LGBTQ+ identification.
Many wish to become involved however don’t understand how they as people could make a distinction in yet one more spherical of tradition wars, says Jay Garner, a good friend of Durham who has lived in Huntington Seaside since 2019.
Folks want to know how debilitating it may be to always really feel as if you happen to should battle in your proper to exist and be your self, says Garner, who identifies as nonbinary and makes use of they/them pronouns.
“It does weigh on me,” Garner says.
Jessamyn Garner, a nonbinary resident of Huntington Seaside, has skilled hostility, together with verbal abuse whereas strolling on the road, due to their queer identification.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Occasions)
Garner, 32, works because the advertising and communications director for the Orange County chapter of YIMBY Motion, a nonprofit that advocates for reasonably priced housing. They describe themselves as butch in look — short-cropped hair, button-down Oxfords. Wanting completely different may be dangerous, even in a seaside city that comes throughout as laid-back, they are saying.
“I can’t go downtown as a result of I get harassed,” Garner says. “Strolling down the road, I’ll get heckled by any person who’s simply driving by. … They’ll yell ‘dyke!’ I strive to not escalate, since you by no means know which individual goes to show violent.”
Hate crimes towards LGBTQ+ folks in Orange County — and throughout California and the U.S. — have skyrocketed lately.
The Human Rights Marketing campaign, a nonprofit advocacy group, has declared a “state of emergency” for LGBTQ+ People as a result of tons of of payments have been launched in state legislatures that focus on gender-affirming healthcare, faculty textbooks that painting queer identification in a constructive mild, drag exhibits and the flexibility of trans People to make use of restrooms, play on sports activities groups or acquire driver’s licenses that match their gender identification.
In September, the Orange Unified College District unanimously permitted a measure requiring faculties to inform dad and mom if a pupil asks to be recognized or addressed as a gender that’s completely different from the one they have been assigned at beginning.
California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta has condemned related “compelled outing” insurance policies permitted final 12 months by faculty boards in Temecula and Murrieta, calling them dangerous to the security and well-being of transgender and gender nonconforming youth. Temecula’s faculty district additionally banned all banners besides the U.S. and state flags.
When Huntington Seaside Councilmember Pat Burns launched the flag ordinance final 12 months, he portrayed his metropolis as one the place “we’re all equal.”
“Our flags that we’ve got, that characterize our authorities, are what’s vital to unify us,” Burns mentioned throughout a packed listening to on the ordinance.
Not everybody has heeded his unifying message.
Huntington Seaside Metropolis Council members take heed to feedback in regards to the proposed Metropolis Constitution amendments, which voters permitted.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Occasions)
Durham recollects his shock when somebody at a council listening to in December shouted “pedophile” when he stood to precise dismay in regards to the flag ban and different insurance policies. He says he’s additionally obtained violent threats on social media.
Garner has attended a number of hearings with Durham.
“It’s arduous to listen to this sort of rhetoric from individuals who I contemplate to be my neighbors, part of my neighborhood,” Garner says.
Different teams have responded to the hostility in their very own methods. Viet Rainbow of Orange County, a corporation centered on “fairness, therapeutic, pleasure and social justice” that serves the Asian American neighborhood, has organized “Know Your Rights” workshops for LGBTQ+ college students and promoted self-defense and private security coaching on its Fb web page.
Like many who’ve felt compelled to talk out towards hate, Durham mentioned he by no means supposed to turn into a voice for LGBTQ+ rights in Orange County. Within the few years since he transitioned, he has principally saved his life journey to himself, as a result of he is aware of that not everybody embraces transgender People.
“I stayed within the closet lengthy, lengthy after I knew I used to be trans — for over a decade,” he says. “I didn’t wish to lose buddies. I didn’t wish to lose household. After I got here out, I did lose buddies. I despatched my household a letter, and so they simply went radio silent.”
Durham says town’s resolution to bar displaying the rainbow flag serves as a reminder of how unwelcoming components of Orange County may be for LGBTQ+ folks.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Occasions)
Durham got here to know Huntington Seaside whereas rising up within the Bay Space. His household visited twice a 12 months to spend time with kinfolk.
“I noticed how fantastic Orange County may be, and I fell in love with it,” he says. “I actually suppose the bulk of people that reside right here aren’t hateful.”
He factors to the truth that in 2021, town took steps to embrace the LGBTQ+ neighborhood, most notably by flying the rainbow flag on metropolis property throughout Pleasure Month.
The conservative majority that voters elected to the Metropolis Council in 2022 ushered in a dramatic shift — approving, for instance, the creation of a guardian advisory board to display screen kids’s books for sexually express content material and block the acquisition of latest publications that members deem inappropriate.
Council members who again the library measure have mentioned they’re solely attempting to guard kids.
Whereas the cruel phrases of supporters have attracted probably the most consideration, many residents who’ve spoken out at latest hearings have voiced opposition.
“On one hand, we’ve got extra allies in Orange County than ever earlier than, which equates to affirming neighborhoods, companies, faculties and employers,” says Peg Corley, govt director of LGBTQ Heart Orange County, a nonprofit advocacy and neighborhood service group in Santa Ana.
“Alternatively, there are pockets of Orange County, like Huntington Seaside, the place the Metropolis Council majority is targeted on turning again the clock to the Nineteen Fifties,” she mentioned.
A scene on Huntington Seaside in 2020.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Occasions)
Solely federal or state flags may be flown on metropolis property in Huntington Seaside.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Occasions)
Corley says the overriding message the council has despatched to queer residents, staff and guests over the past 12 months is, “Go spend your LGBTQ+ {dollars} elsewhere.”
Durham says Pleasure on the Pier received’t quit.
Constructing on the momentum generated by its occasions final 12 months, the group plans to host its second Pleasure celebration later this 12 months on the Huntington Seaside waterfront. Durham says there are plans to rent additional safety to make those that attend really feel protected.
Standing exterior Metropolis Corridor, Durham unfurls his personal rainbow flag, which is so large it billows round him whereas he talks about the necessity to get extra folks concerned within the battle to guard LGBTQ+ rights and freedoms in Orange County.
“We can not get previous this level in our historical past with out becoming a member of fingers with as many individuals as attainable,” Durham says.
“That is about greater than a chunk of cloth.”
