Elected officials in Culver City and around Los Angeles came to a ceremony celebrating the raising of a new Pride Progress Flag at the Culver City High School campus to show support for the many gender and sexuality-based communities that its students may be a part of. 

The Pride Progress Flag is a modernized version of the more recognized rainbow flag that people associate with the Pride movement. The flag has the same rainbow base but also includes a multi-striped triangle on its left side that has colors representing intersex and transgender communities while also acknowledging the racial diversity among LGBTQ+ people.

Culver City School Board Member Triston Ezidore — who is the county’s youngest elected official and thus youngest LGBTQ+ elected official — came up with the idea, but calls it a “group effort.” He felt using the Pride Progress flag over the traditional flag was important because it represents a wider range of communities that the district wants to ensure feel seen at their schools.

“We want to make sure that we are recognizing every single person no matter how they identify,” Ezidore told Westside Voice. “I think for a long time, the standard rainbow pride flag has been very representative of some, and with the [Pride Progress] flag, we are representing our trans brothers and sisters and our asexual community and so on.”

Other officials around Los Angeles were supportive of the idea, with some sending representatives to the events while others appeared personally. District Attorney George Gascon and County Assessor Jeffrey Prang each gave remarks at the event while representatives from the offices of State Senator Lola Smallwood-Cuevas and Assemblymember Issac Bryan made appearances to demonstrate support.

Prang, who is gay, recalled his younger years in a different California and reveled in the progress that has been made in the state since those times. He also called on the image of the Confederate battle flag flying proudly in some Southern states and the detrimental effect it has on marginalized communities as a demonstration of the power of an act as small as flying a flag.

“Flags are more than just pieces of fabric,” Prang said. “They are emblems of identity and community, and they speak to our values.”

Gascon addressed the students who were watching the ceremony, saying that they were in the midst of a monumental movement despite the recent progress toward acceptance. He referenced the recent ban of pride flags by the Downey City Council as an example of the continued pushback against the acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community despite California’s image as a progressive, tolerant state.

“For many of us,” Gascon said, “It has been not only an erosion of progress but also of rights.” 

Local figures also came to the event, with Culver City Mayor Yasmine-Imani McMorrin, Vice Mayor Dan O’Brien, and Councilmember Freddy Puza also attending the event. Wearing a T-shirt reading “Say Abortion,” Mayor McMorrin reiterated the importance of showing support for marginalized communities. 

“Any time that we can do that, it’s meaningful,” McMorrin said of supporting representation.

Puza is also the first openly LGBTQ+ Culver City council member, and he first gave his thanks to supportive parents of LGBTQ+ children for their courage and strength to stand up for the rights of their kids. He also gave special recognition to LGBTQ+ and non-binary people of color.

“They are faced with ridicule and are political fodder, and it’s not fair,” Puza said of the black and brown non-binary community. “Their lives are worthy, and we have to remember everything that they bring to the table.”

After these remarks, officials gathered around the flag pole in the lawn of the school’s campus where the new Pride Progress Flag was raised and now hangs with the United States Flag and California State flag.

Photo by the author.