Of the 134 hate crimes reported last year, 42 targeted LGBTQ people, up from 22 in 2020.
Last year, Utah’s hate crime numbers were higher than they’ve been in at least the last five years, bolstered by a near doubling of race or ethnicity-, gender identity and sexual orientation- and religion-biased offenses. “And also,” Nelson added, “teenagers grow up to be adults.” Is intolerance on the rise? But also that is still indicative of a broader cultural norm and shift.” “It’s a small thing,” Nelson said about his flags going missing, “and it probably was just some dumb teenagers. This, as local and national politicians have passed laws barring transgender girls’ participation alongside other girls in high school sports and proposed adding content warnings to children’s media with LGBTQ content or banning discussion of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or gender-nonconforming people in schools altogether. That flag - and the pole - disappeared in April. This past year, though, the flag went missing.
He thought of it as a signal to anyone who needed to see it that there was a place for LGBTQ people - a community - in the predominantly conservative town.įor years, it stayed in its place on the porch, more often prompting queer people to stop, knock and tell Nelson they appreciated the gesture than it did thefts or any sort of vandalism. While he worried the flag’s location could make him a target, he also liked that it was conspicuous. It was 2016, Donald Trump had just been elected president and Nelson lived at a house along a main road off the highway into the heart of the Latter-day Saint college town.ĭriving by, he said, it’s hard to miss the rainbow banner jutting from a pole on the front porch. When Taylor Nelson first hung an LGBTQ pride flag outside his house in Provo, he said he expected that something would happen to it.