Rainbow crosswalks are a common sign of inclusion and pride around the world, but the Trump administration claims they are a danger and wants them destroyed. When Florida was the first to comply, removing the rainbow crosswalk painted in 2017 as a memorial to those lost in the Pulse nightclub shooting, Orlando residents quickly showed they wouldn’t tolerate the erasure and colored the crosswalk back in with chalk. Now, police are guarding streets across the state and a symbolic battle is playing out on the asphalt.
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This cultural back-and-forth started when Secretary of Transportation Sean P. Duffy sent a memo to all governors launching a “SAFE ROADS national initiative” to focus on road safety including “consistent and recognizable traffic control devices including crosswalk and intersection markings.” Duffy asks the states to “ensure compliance with Federal statutes and regulations.”
He specified LGBTQIA+ pride as the scapegoat for traffic accidents on X on July 1: “Taxpayers expect their dollars to fund safe streets, not rainbow crosswalks. Political banners have no place on public roads.”
Taxpayers expect their dollars to fund safe streets, not rainbow crosswalks.
Political banners have no place on public roads. I’m reminding recipients of @USDOT roadway funding that it’s limited to features advancing safety, and nothing else. It’s that simple. https://t.co/hA5FBsVFXO
— Secretary Sean Duffy (@SecDuffy) July 1, 2025
The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) issued its own memo to Florida municipalities with an order to remove rainbow crosswalks or risk funding. Cities and towns are responding differently—some complying, others resisting—but in Orlando the situation became a national symbol of the government’s crackdown on LGBTQIA+ inclusion.
Orlando Commissioner Patty Sheehan, an Orlando city commissioner representing the district where the Pulse nightclub is located, told Watermark Out News that she was alerted after the fact that the memorial crosswalk had been repainted black and white on August 21. Sheehan said that the city followed all FDOT rules properly when installing the crosswalk.
Florida State Senator Carlos Guillermo Smith said, “They did not get approval from the city. They just vandalized the site overnight, in the middle of the night, and they did it in the middle of the night because they know what they did was wrong.”
“I’m in a state of shock that the state would continue to lower and lower and lower, but I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised,” he continued.
The rainbow crosswalk was APPROVED by FDOT years ago to honor the 49 + enhance pedestrian safety for those who come to pay their respects.
You looked survivors in the eye + promised they would never be forgotten– then betrayed them for political ambition.
They won’t be erased. https://t.co/mJ8jCUU32X pic.twitter.com/J15YaIT39v
— Senator Carlos Guillermo Smith (@CarlosGSmith) August 21, 2025
Sheehan added that FDOT is giving other cities an opportunity to go through an administrative process to defend their rainbow crosswalks but that removing Orlando’s in the middle of the night denied them that chance.
“These are strong arm tactics when you don’t want to follow the Constitution, when you don’t want to follow due process,” she said. “This is an overreach of government power and government is not supposed to oppress its citizens, government is supposed to serve its citizens.”
Other officials in Florida called the move fascist, callous, and a distraction.
Orlando area residents recolored the crosswalk rainbow with chalk, but police repainted it black and white again. The cycle continued again and now the state has sent multiple police officers to guard the crosswalk.
The resistance to erasure is strong across Florida—residents of Ybor City chalked a pride crosswalk where there hadn’t been one before. Erin in the Morning reported that one citizen there said, “You can try to make chalk illegal in the state of Florida, but we will still find a way. I don’t know of a single rainbow crosswalk that has ever killed a child. Yet I can name countless bus stops across this state without traffic lights—real dangers where tax dollars could be used to protect lives, rather than being wasted on erasing LGBTQ+ visibility.”
You can also follow this story through News Is Out.