Community members replace a Pride flag that was torn down at an Appleton home on June 25, 2025 | Photo by Andrew Kennard/Wisconsin Examiner

APPLETON – Last week, toward the end of LGBTQ Pride Month, a crowd gathered outside the home of Benji Roe and Alex Frantz, where a Pride flag had reportedly been vandalized in late May. 

In a press release, the advocacy group Citizen Action of Wisconsin said “their flag reading the word ‘HUMAN’ in pride colors and its mount was ripped out of the side of the home and torn off of its flagpole.” 

“The flagpole had been bent, and the mounting bracket irreparably damaged,” Roe said at a press conference Thursday evening. “While we are grateful that no further property damage occurred, this incident reminds us that safety and dignity are still privileges not equally shared by all. This wasn’t just vandalism. This was a message.”

A local organizer told the Examiner that isn’t an isolated incident in the area, and speakers at the press conference talked about the impact of Pride flags on LGBTQ people. During the press conference, a new Pride flag went up at Roe and Frantz’s home.

“So today, on the 10-year anniversary of the federal legalization of same-sex marriage, we raise a new flag,” Roe said. “Not just in defiance, but in honor of all of those who have suffered because of hate, here in our community and everywhere that hate still exists.”

Police deemed what happened to Roe and Frantz a targeted attack, according to Citizen Action. 

Reiko Ramos, statewide anti-violence program director for the group Diverse & Resilient, which has a program that serves LGBTQ survivors of violence, shared a story at the press conference about a youth seeking the help of someone flying a Pride flag outside his home. 

“Complete strangers, they had never met,” Ramos said. “But they knew that his home was a safe place, that they could knock on their door. They were fleeing from their family, because they were experiencing domestic violence as a result of their identity… This youth actually knocked on the door and said, ‘I don’t know you, but I think you might be someone that I can ask for help.’” 

“And that is how this young person got connected to our services,” Ramos said. 

Mary Bogen, chairperson of the advocacy group Hate Free Outagamie (HFO), went to the press conference at Roe and Frantz’s home. She said she lives down the street.

“There’s a lot of people within this area that have had their Pride flags ripped down or had their houses vandalized for displaying pride flags,” Bogen said.

Bogen said that in some cases, she’s heard from people at Hate Free Outagamie events that they know who is responsible for stealing their Pride flag but don’t feel comfortable reporting it to the police. 

Bogen told the Examiner that  the LGBTQ+ community in Appleton is strong and thriving but that their resilience shouldn’t be necessary to walk down the street. 

“We often face open hostility, whether at a recent vigil we held for victims of the Pulse shooting or simply leaving a Pride event,” Bogen said. “People scream slurs from cars, film us for harassment, and sneer as if bigotry is a civic pastime. And too often, it’s done under the banner of a certain kind of patriotism. This isn’t just incidents, it’s a pattern. We refuse to accept it as normal. Our community deserves safety, respect, and the freedom to exist without fear. That’s why Hate Free Outagamie is working to establish a Trans Sanctuary in Outagamie County.”

In September 2023, the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors voted to become a sanctuary for transgender and non-binary people, and Dane County made a similar decision earlier that year, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. 

Under the Milwaukee resolution, if the state of Wisconsin passes a law “that imposes criminal or civil punishments, fines, or professional sanctions on any person or organization that seeks, provides, receives or helps someone to receive gender-affirming care such as puberty blockers, hormones, or surgery, the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors urges the Milwaukee County Sheriff to make enforcement their lowest priority.”

Vered Meltzer, a local alder and reportedly the first openly transgender individual to hold elected office in Wisconsin, said there is “still so much work to be done in Appleton to make things better, but we are the ones who build the world into the community that we want it to be.”