Traffic passes Liam Yesko’s rainbow painted home in Haltom City, Saturday, June 6, 2026. Yesko painted his Haltom City house to support the LGBTQ community during Pride month after Gov. Greg Abbott required cities to remove all rainbow crosswalks.
Smiley N. Pool/The Dallas Morning News
When Liam Yesko learned Dallas and other Texas cities were forced to paint over rainbow crosswalks, he was dumbfounded.
The order from Gov. Greg Abbott made little sense to Yesko, a 35-year-old corporate trainer who wondered how a rainbow could be considered offensive. “It’s such a small thing that hurts no one,” he said.
Rainbow crosswalks might be disappearing, Yesko thought, but no one could stop him from painting his own house on a relatively busy road in Haltom City, a largely blue-collar suburb of Fort Worth. He collected donations, spent $700 on supplies and invited friends and strangers over on a recent weekend to paint a rainbow over his home’s beige and white stone.
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“Nobody would expect to see a rainbow house here,” Yesko said. “We’re just a little suburb, but pride is for everyone.”
The LGBTQ community celebrates its culture and identity every June with parties, parades and festivals, but this year’s Pride comes against a backdrop of growing opposition. Republicans in Texas and across the country have sought to roll back rights. Public support has fallen, and financial sponsorships of the celebrations have dwindled.
Given the political environment, members of the LGBTQ community say the celebrations feel particularly necessary and poignant this year.
Organizers for the Dallas Pride parade chose the theme “Rainbows don’t wash away” as a direct response to what they called a “rising tide of challenges.” The parade drew about 60,000 revelers downtown earlier this month.
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“During good times, we celebrate how far we’ve come. When we’re under attack, we double down,” said Lee Daugherty, 47, a founding member of Dallas Pride. “We are not going anywhere. You cannot erase us.”
Related: ‘Rainbows don’t wash away,’ Dallas Pride Festival paints downtown with color, community
‘Targeting people for who they are’
Pride began in 1970 to mark the first anniversary of the violent police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a New York City gay bar, and has since expanded to Dallas and cities worldwide. Dallas first celebrated Pride in 1972 with a small parade.
Yesko, who started a Facebook page for his house, said the push to remove rainbow crosswalks is the latest in a movement to silence gay and transgender voices and an attempt to deflect attention.
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“They are targeting people for who they are instead of focusing on real problems,” he said. “LGBTQ people don’t ask for very much. We want the right to live a peaceful life like everyone else.”
His home, a rainbow speck on an otherwise beige thoroughfare off State Highway 121, is his attempt to do so. On weekends in June, Yesko has invited the public to take photos with his house, which is surrounded by empty lots and a handful of small businesses and gas stations.
Yesko envisions turning his home into a gathering spot for LGBTQ families and anyone else looking for a safe place, which he worries is becoming rare.
One visitor, he said, was a young transgender girl whose public school teachers are required by state law to use the name and pronouns assigned at birth. When she saw the house, the girl’s mother cried.
Youngsters pass Liam Yesko’s rainbow painted home in Haltom City, Saturday, June 6, 2026. Yesko painted his Haltom City house to support the LGBTQ community during Pride month after Gov. Greg Abbott required cities to remove all rainbow crosswalks.
Smiley N. Pool/The Dallas Morning News
Laws targeting gay, transgender youth
In recent years, Texas lawmakers passed a slate of new laws targeting gay and transgender rights, including forbidding schools from teaching about sexual orientation or gender identity, banning LGBTQ student clubs, imposing restrictions on drag shows and regulating what bathrooms transgender people can use in schools and government buildings.
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Conservatives say the laws aim to protect women and children and correct an imbalance driven in recent years by left-leaning groups. Jonathan Saenz, an attorney and president of the conservative advocacy group Texas Values, said the debate over transgender athletes competing in women’s sports is in part responsible for the backlash.
“People felt like it went too far,” Saenz said. “I think what’s happening is a direct response to the extremists in the LGBT movement.”
Public support for LGBTQ rights has dipped following two decades of growth, according to a new Gallup poll. Roughly 62% of Americans say they consider gay or lesbian relationships morally acceptable, down 8 points from 2022.
Last year, Abbott directed the Texas Department of Transportation to remove rainbow crosswalks, citing safety issues and opposition to political ideologies on roadways. A rainbow crosswalk on Cedar Springs Road in Oak Lawn, the historic heart of Dallas’ LGBTQ scene, was among those removed. Houston, Austin and San Antonio also removed rainbows.
“Texans expect their taxpayer dollars to be used wisely, not advance political agendas on Texas roadways,” Abbott said at the time.
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Cedar Springs Road y Oak Lawn Avenue, Dallas.
Elías Valverde II/Staff Photographer
Since then, the LGBTQ community and allies have found workarounds. Oak Lawn United Methodist Church and Oak Lawn Branch Library painted rainbows onto their steps. The Cedar Springs Merchant Association, a collection of businesses in Oak Lawn, is painting rainbows onto bike racks, commissioning murals by LGBTQ artists on the sides of buildings and developing a pocket park with plants, seating and accent lighting.
A handful of Republican-led states have sought to rebrand Pride. Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt proclaimed this Life Month, “ensuring the unborn are protected from conception to birth.” Indiana and Tennessee named June Nuclear Family Month to celebrate families made up of “one husband, one wife and any biological, adopted or fostered children.” Utah and Arkansas called it Fidelity Month, which emphasized fidelity to faith, country and family.
Texas has not issued such a declaration, but at least one city, Fate, about 35 miles northeast of Dallas, proclaimed June Nuclear Family Month. And Abbott last week praised the Texas Rangers, the only Major League Baseball team that does not host a Pride event, for declining to do so.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott speaks at the Texas GOP convention in the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston Friday, June 12, 2026.
Melissa Phillip/Houston Chronicle
‘Place for queer and trans joy’
One Pride event in Denton came under fire. Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is running for U.S. Senate, sued the city of Denton to block plans for gender-neutral changing rooms at a Pride swim party, saying they violated the new bathroom law. The nonprofits hosting the party, Pridenton and OutReach Denton, called the lawsuit frivolous and noted they had already changed the fliers for the event.
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Related: Paxton sues city of Denton over plans for ‘Big Gay Swim Day’
The University of North Texas also dropped its longtime sponsorship of Pride events in Denton, citing a new state law that prohibits programming related to race, gender or sexual orientation.
Angelica Fraga Escalante, a 32-year-old organizer for Pridenton, said those actions were disappointing, but they ultimately invigorated the LGBTQ community and Pride.
The organization’s annual celebration, Night Out, drew a record 700 people to the Quakertown Civic Center, and rain cleared up just in time for the swim party. That night, a half dozen protesters marched outside the fence as families swam a few hundred feet away.
“We have to be brave and bold,” Fraga Escalante said. “Despite everything that’s happening, there is still a place for queer and trans joy.”
Related: Attitudes toward same-sex marriage and transgender issues are shifting, Gallup poll shows