Bigots in the Utah cities of Providence and North Logan celebrated the first day of Pride Month by leaving anti-gay and white supremacist messages in front of homes with pro-LGBTQ+ displays.

North Logan homeowner Ryan Thorell, whose family displayed pro-LGBTQ+ signs outside of their home, found several posters stapled to nearby utility poles facing his house — the posters said “White power,” “man plus woman,” and had homophobic slurs, he told KSL-TV. He called the signs “very targeting and inflammatory,” and said that he took down 17 similar signs around his neighborhood, each facing homes that had LGBTQ+ flags and signs outside.

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“I just looked at [the transphobic flyer] and thought I’m not giving this to people.”

“It made me feel like our community is under some sort of attack,” he told the news station. “It made me nervous for the kids in my neighborhood. It’s one of the most affected community groups of our youth in our state. And these kids are very vulnerable to this sort of thing.”

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Meanwhile, Providence resident Dayne Teigeler and his neighbors found numerous Ziploc bags containing rocks and pamphlets entitled, “It’s okay to be white,” and “Straight Pride.” Both phrases are used as reactions to anti-racist and racial justice advocates as well as LGBTQ+ Pride events, respectively.

Some of the Ziploc bags were thrown into neighbors’ yards, and others were found in the street. The pamphlets and aforementioned posters both contained URLs leading to the same website of a white supremacist organization.

“It definitely sounded like a more coordinated effort that this was to be done all at once,” Teigeler said. “Maybe because it is the start of Pride Month, that effort was stepped up by this organization to do this, and several places were hit all at the same time.”

The North Park police chief said it will investigate the incident with the Cache County Sheriff’s Office. Officers are now seeking images to help identify the perpetrators. The county attorney’s office will decide whether to file charges.

“This kind of thing does not divide us,” Teigeler said. “It makes us come together to come against this kind of hate speech and this kind of feeling in the community, as we want our community to be a safe spot.”

Over the past year, GLAAD’s ALERT Desk tracked 208 incidents specifically targeting Pride flags and other symbols of the LGBTQ community, down 25% from the desk’s 2023-24 data.

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