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The City of San Antonio raised the pride flag on City Hall Monday morning in honor of Pride month which is celebrated throughout June across the world.
The pride flag, in the style of San Antonio’s official city flag with the Alamo inside a star, now waves atop City Hall below the American flag and above the Spurs flag.
This year marks 50 years since San Antonio’s first organized pride celebrations were held in 1976. It’s also the fifth year that the flag has flown atop City Hall.
“For five decades, our community has continued to stand strong and speak out and show up in courage, love, and pride,” said Michael Rendon, chair of San Antonio’s LGBTQIA Advisory Commission. "San Antonio has shown that visibility matters and raises the pride flag that sends a message to every LGBTQ person: you are welcome here, you are loved here, and you are valued here.”
Members of San Antonio's LGBT community, city council members, city staff, and Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones, the city’s first openly gay mayor, gathered on the steps of city hall. Jones said displaying the flag was a powerful reminder that people are seen by their city.
“I think it's also a powerful reminder and affirmation over the course of their life, all the progress they have seen,” she said. “Some of that, unfortunately, being wiped away, but all the more necessary to remind young people, in particular, of how far we've come, how much progress we have lost, unfortunately, just within these short last couple of years, and the importance of continuing to resist.”
Pride celebrations are anchored to the June 1969 Stonewall Riots in New York City which saw the first gay pride marches held the following year. This year, however, raising the flag comes at a time when pride celebrations across the country face scaling back due to funding cuts fueled by political pressure.
In 2025, San Antonio designated Main Avenue as the Pride Cultural Heritage District. A few months later, cities across Texas were mandated to remove rainbow crosswalks under the direction of Gov. Greg Abbott or risk losing highway funding.
The City of San Antonio found a workaround. After the crosswalk was removed, the city instead installed rainbow sidewalks along two blocks of Main Avenue.
“We installed these sidewalks that said, ‘hey, you know, a little bit of malicious compliance, we'll do exactly what you said, but you ain't said nothing about these sidewalks,’” District 2 Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez said. “it's things like that. We're going to have to continue to be strategic. We're going to have to continue to be creative and thoughtful about every step we take,”
San Antonio’s pride parade will be held on Sat. June 27.
