For the second time in two years, one of North Vancouver’s rainbow crosswalks has been defaced with hateful messages targeting the LGBTQAI2S+ community during Pride Week.
The graffiti, which was sprayed on the crosswalk at 14th Street and Lonsdale Avenue around 4 a.m. on Aug. 2, is being roundly condemned by the North Shore Pride Alliance and City of North Vancouver.
The message appeared to mimic biblical language, although the words themselves aren’t in the Bible.
Pride Alliance founder Chris Bolton said he’s gone through something akin to the stages of grief since he learned of the vandalism.
“We just had this huge high with Pride and we did so much hard work and we did so much outreach, and we spread so much joy and love. And it almost feels like a little bit of a death yesterday,” he said. “I’m really hurt. It brings me back to that eight-year-old at Ridgeway Elementary school being told that I was wrong, and I don’t belong.”
Mayor Linda Buchanan issued a statement addressing the hate screed.
“For someone to deface the city’s rainbow crosswalk at the end of Pride Week comes as a reminder that Pride is still very much a celebration and a time to bring awareness to continued inequities and discrimination,” she said. “I am deeply saddened and angered by these events. It is not who we are as a community.”
Buchanan said she believes the city’s residents overwhelmingly believe in love and equity and that efforts to undermine that are “unacceptable.”
“We will not be deterred from creating a safe and welcoming community for all people. It is clear we as a community have more to do to advance inclusion. This work starts with education, so that no one acts out of ignorance,” she said.
Bolton said he has been incredibly grateful for the city’s support and fast response getting the crosswalk first cleaned up and making plans to permanently repaint it.
He said he’s considering holding a fundraiser to help cover the costs.
“Because why should the city have to pay for some ignorant jerk?” he asked.
Fighting bigotry and hate
From the broader community, Bolton said the most supportive thing they can do is confront hate in any form it arises.
“You have to make a difference where you are. That’s what it is. If you see anybody being othered or discriminated against, you have to stop it dead in its tracks,” he said. “And that goes for LGBTQ issues, it goes to the BIPOC community. It goes for everybody. Like, we should all just be able to get along.”
North Vancouver RCMP Sgt. Peter DeVries said investigators are following up on leads, including speaking with business owners in the area who may have surveillance footage. But he said police are looking for any potential witnesses, people with dashcam footage from the area around that time, or anyone else who knows about the incident to come forward.
In 2019, the City of North Vancouver was the first municipality on the North Shore to install a rainbow crosswalk as a symbol of welcoming and inclusion.
In 2021, the District of North Vancouver’s rainbow crosswalk outside Lynn Valley Village was defaced with hateful language just days after it was unveiled. No one was ever arrested.
Bolton said he’d like to see someone held accountable but, beyond that, it’s important to communicate to the person responsible that LGBTQAI2S+ people are no threat.
“I still believe you have to be sitting at the table to make a change,” he said. “The only way we can make change is to inform people, and the only way we can inform people is by shedding light onto this darkness.”
Apart from organizing events for the North Shore Pride Alliance, Bolton does readings of kids books for the North Vancouver City Library as his drag persona Conni Smudge, which he describes as “Fred Rogers but a little bit more glamorous.”
Bolton said he’s noticed a trend from American conservatives creeping north – accusing LGBTQ people and their supporters of attempting to “groom” kids into their lifestyle. They miss the point entirely, he said.
“It’s exactly the antithesis of what we’re about because I don’t want anyone to be anyone that they’re not,” he said.
“The idea of someone being able to make me straight …” he said bursting into laughter “is about as possible me making somebody who’s straight gay. Like, hello. That’s not the way it goes.”
The resurgence of hate and baseless accusations of preying on children has been reminiscent of life in the 1980s and '90s “when there was no space for queer people,” Bolton said.
But he said he believes it’s a last ditch effort from a group of people who now see the rest of society leaving their bigoted worldview behind.
“That’s why they’re starting all these little fires everywhere because they’re so desperate. But baby, it’s already done,” he said.
