The First Step Toward Erasure: Why Removing Pride Flags Should Alarm Us All.

 By Kyle Glozier

Disability/LGBT Rights Activist

I keep seeing posts from no doubt right‑wing groups asking people if they support banning LGBT Pride flags in public school classrooms on Facebook. Most people in the comments obviously say, “yes.” I, on the other hand, keep saying, no — you do not truly support education.

I grew up at a time where civil rights were just being introduced. Yes, we talked about Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and the struggles of the Black community. But even as a kid, I understood something important: civil rights did not begin and end with the 1960s, and they certainly didn’t cover everyone.

Through my involvement with the disability rights group ADAPT, I learned firsthand that the fight for community living and ending the institutional bias in Medicaid isn’t over — not even close. I learned about Ed Roberts and Wade Blank through oral histories, not textbooks. I met Justin Dart Jr., Kempt, and Judy Heumann — names the average student will never hear, even though they shaped the world disabled people live in today.

These leaders weren’t just activists. They were architects of freedom. They fought for ramps, for access, for dignity, for the right to live outside institutions. They fought for the idea that disabled people deserve to be part of their communities, not hidden away.

And yet, despite all that history, despite all that struggle, despite all the progress we’ve made, I keep seeing posts online asking whether Pride flags should be banned in public school classrooms.

Every time I see those posts, I think about the civil rights leaders I grew up hearing about — and the disability rights leaders I met as a kid. I think about sitting in front of buildings, chanting “Free Our People!” I think about how every movement for justice has faced the same tactic: erase the symbols, erase the visibility, erase the people.

When you ban a symbol of inclusion, you are not protecting children. You are protecting prejudice.

When you remove a sign that says “you are welcome here,” you are not being neutral. You are choosing exclusion.

And when you silence LGBTQ+ students by stripping away the one symbol that tells them they are safe, you are not supporting education. That is what’s happening in Tennessee, and those who are supporting this effort are supporting fear, bigotry, and discrimination.

So when I saw the recent image circulating online — showing a Tennessee school board voting to remove Pride flags from all classrooms — I felt that same ache I’ve felt too many times before. The photo says everything: people sitting in silence, some holding back tears, one person standing proudly with the flag that’s now being banned. It’s a snapshot of what happens when inclusion becomes controversial.

That image reminded me of every movement I have ever studied or lived through. Whether it was the civil rights marches of the 1960s or ADAPT activists blocking buses to demand accessible transit, the story is always the same: when progress threatens comfort, people call it “political.” When visibility challenges prejudice, people call it “inappropriate.” And when symbols of belonging appear in public spaces, someone always tries to take them down.

But education is not about comfort. It’s about truth. It’s about courage. It’s about teaching students that diversity isn’t dangerous — it’s human.

When a school board decides that a Pride flag is too much, what they are really saying is that LGBTQ+ students are too much. They are saying that safety, empathy, and representation are optional. They are saying that silence is easier than inclusion.

And that is why I keep speaking up. Because I have seen what happens when people are erased — whether it is Jewish people being sent to concentration camps, disabled people locked away in institutions, or queer students told their identity does not belong in a regular classroom. The fight for visibility is the same fight, just wearing different colors.

So when I say, “No, you do not truly support education,” I mean it. Education without full inclusion isn’t education at all. It’s indoctrination into silence. During the Holocaust, Hitler spread propaganda claiming that Jewish people were inferior to the rest of society. That message didn’t stay in speeches or newspapers — it seeped into schools, into textbooks, into children’s lessons, into everyday conversations inside homes. It taught an entire generation to see their neighbors as less than human.

That’s what propaganda does. It doesn’t just tell people what to think — it tells them who is allowed to exist.

And when I see people today demanding that Pride flags be removed from classrooms, I recognize the pattern. It starts with a symbol. It starts with a message. It starts with a claim that certain identities are “inappropriate,” “political,” or “dangerous.” It starts with the idea that visibility itself is a threat.

But visibility is not the threat. Erasure is.

We’ve seen this throughout history:

• Remove the symbols.
• Remove the stories.
• Remove the representation.
• Remove the people.

Every civil rights movement has faced this tactic. The disability rights movement faced it when institutions hid disabled people away from public view. The LGBTQ+ community faces it when schools try to erase their existence from classrooms. The Jewish community faced it when propaganda taught children to fear and hate their neighbors.

The details change. The targets change. The strategy does not.

When you ban a Pride flag, you’re not protecting children. You’re teaching them that some people should be invisible. You’re teaching them that safety only belongs to certain students. You’re teaching them that silence is the correct response to difference.

And that is not education. That is the first step toward repeating mistakes we swore we would never repeat.

If we want schools to be places of learning, then they must also be places of belonging. If we want students to grow, then they must feel safe enough to be themselves. If we want to prevent the harm history has shown us, then we must refuse to erase the symbols that tell marginalized students, “You matter.”

Because the moment we start banning visibility, we start banning humanity.

We owe it to every student — LGBTQ+, disabled, Black, immigrant, Jewish, or otherwise marginalized — to remember what history has already taught us. Erasure is never harmless. Silence is never neutral. And the moment we start deciding which identities are “acceptable” in a classroom, we stop educating and start indoctrinating. If we want a future where children grow up kinder, safer, and more informed than the generations before them, then we must defend inclusion wherever it appears — even in something as simple as a flag hanging on a classroom wall. Because inclusion is not a threat. It is a promise. And it’s a promise we cannot afford to break.