SAN ANTONIO – The City of San Antonio’s LGBTQ+ Advisory Board held a holiday meet and greet on Tuesday night, weeks after the Texas Department of Transportation denied the city’s request to keep rainbow-colored crosswalks in the pride district.
Before the meeting began, District 1 Councilwoman Sukh Kaur spoke to the board and the audience regarding TxDOT’s most recent decision.
“I understand the item is not on agenda today, but I know many of you must have heard the unfortunate news that we got from the state about having to take action on the crosswalk,” Kaur said on Tuesday night. “That being said, I really want to get ideas from the community, and from the board, on what else that we could do.”
Kaur alluded to a city staff plan to paint sidewalks with the pride and transgender flags.
“What we want the community to know is we want to do even more,” Kaur said. “So, this is our first step to make sure that there is still the (pride and transgender) flag represented on the streets of San Antonio and the first-ever cultural heritage district that represents the LGBTQ+ community in the state, which will stay in effect. That cannot be removed, but we want to do more.”
During the meeting’s public comment section, some members of the city’s LGBTQ+ community expressed their frustrations with local and state government regarding the rainbow crosswalks.
“We anticipated that Gina Ortiz Jones would win the (San Antonio mayoral) election. And we began seeking, long before the election, meeting with her to discuss, specifically, the crosswalks that would ultimately become the Pride Cultural Heritage District,” one speaker said. “Since the election, we reached out to her and her staff to schedule such a meeting, and we’ve been met with nothing. Silence.”
“I have spent so much of my life, far too much, standing at microphones, telling people who actually have power, to use that power. To stand up to authoritarian governments,” another speaker said. “I’m just a regular person. I shouldn’t have to be here talking about this. But they (state and federal governments) come for the crosswalks and then they have precedent to start coming after everything else. That’s always the way that it’s been.”
Echoing Kaur’s earlier comments, the advisory board also said it will seek “community input with regard to the crosswalks.”
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