Saranac Lake rallies around LGBTQ activist targeted by vandalism

Pride flags owned by Kelly Metzgar, director of Adirondack North Country Gender Alliance, have been ripped down multiple times

By Lauren Yates

Kelly Metzgar was checking the mail outside her Saranac Lake home last week when she saw something pink and blue peeking through her shrubbery: her transgender pride flag, which normally flanks her front door, had been torn down and thrown behind her azalea bush.

It was at least the third time someone had trespassed on Metzgar’s property to vandalize her trans pride flag and the intersex-inclusive pride flag that flanks the other side of her front door, according to Saranac Lake Police Chief Darin Perrotte. And it was the fourth case of anti-LGBTQ crime reported in Saranac Lake since her flag was first vandalized in 2022.

After the second-annual Tri-Lakes Pride Festival in Saranac Lake’s Riverside Park this past June, someone destroyed a multi-colored balloon arch created for the festival – a few weeks before Metzgar’s flags were vandalized a second time.

Perrotte said his department has worked with Metzgar since the first incident in 2022. Metzgar said the police department even loaned her some trail cameras after the pride festival last summer, until she could get her own security cameras installed. But when the vandal attacked her flag again last week, she had taken her cameras down to charge.

Perrotte and Metzgar are considering the idea that someone could be keeping tabs on Metzgar’s activity to better plan their attacks.

Metzgar’s flags are clearly being dismantled by human hands. She still has the flagpole mount that someone snapped in half when tearing down her flags for the first time in 2022. On Thursday, she held up the bent nails that had fallen from her most recent flagpole mount, which was left dangling by one nail after last week’s vandalism.

“It looks like someone used a crowbar,” she said.

Metzgar said it’s pretty easy to put the pride flags back up – she’s not worried about replacing flagpole mounts. She said the problem is that these repeated attacks on her pride flags – most of which involve her trans pride flag – indicate a series of hate crimes, or crimes based on prejudices against a certain gender, race, religion or sexual orientation.

“There’s hate in this town, and it’s directed at us,” she said. “Well, me.”

LGBTQ activist Kelly Metzgar has been the victim of vandalism — Kelly Metzgar stands with her Pride flags, which have been vandalized at least three times since 2022. Photo by Lauren Yates

Metzgar is the executive director of the Adirondack North Country Gender Alliance, which coordinates LGBTQ Pride festivals, events and education across the North Country. Through her work and connections with LGBTQ people living in and around the Adirondacks, Metzgar said she hasn’t seen other anti-LGBTQ hate crimes reported anywhere else – just the vandalism at her house. Perrotte said he hasn’t fielded other reports of anti-LGBTQ crime in Saranac Lake, either.

Metzgar has a feeling the crimes at her home are being committed by a repeat offender. She’s lived in her home for more than 40 years and hadn’t experienced anti-LGBTQ sentiment until the first attack in 2022. But if the acts are being done by multiple people, Perrotte said, that could point to a “larger showing of bias” in the Saranac Lake community.

“It’s concerning,” Perrotte said.

Growing number of hate crimes

The continued trespassing and vandalizing of Metzgar’s flags come as LGBTQ people nationwide face an increasing number of hate crimes and a record number of anti-LGBTQ bills advancing through state legislatures in the 2024 session. As of April 19, the American Civil Liberties Union found 487 anti-LGBTQ bills being considered in legislative sessions. New York was one of 10 states not actively considering any anti-LGBTQ bills, according to the map.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s 2022 annual crime report, released this past October, showed a 13.8% increase in reports of hate crimes based on sexual orientation – from 1,711 reports in 2021 to 1,947 in 2022 – and a 32.9% jump in reported gender identity-based hate crimes, from 353 in 2021 to 469 in 2022. Almost 75% of the gender identity hate crimes in 2022 were specifically anti-transgender.

Despite the vandalism, Metzgar said she feels safe and supported in the Adirondacks. More than 90 community members, businesses and organizations across the Adirondacks and the North Country signed a letter to the editor supporting Metzgar in Thursday’s edition of the Adirondack Daily Enterprise.

“Transgender people have always been here in this community, and worldwide. They will always be here,” the letter states. “We need to do better and create a safe space in which all people of all genders can thrive.”

Metzgar and Perrotte are talking about offering LGBTQ-related education courses to first responders and community members in Saranac Lake to stem the tide of crime and help people understand the LGBTQ community – an effort Metzgar likes to call “debunking the alphabet soup of LGBTQ.”

Metzgar said her biggest concern now is protecting LGTBQ youth from experiencing similar hate crimes. At Metzgar’s house, that means using longer screws for the flagpole mount, getting hard-wired security cameras, staying put and speaking out.