I’ve never been one to fly a rainbow flag. For all of the years that I have been out and proud, my feelings about the rainbow have remained ambivalent. Perhaps it is because I have lived in places where rainbow flags were everywhere and I may have taken it for granted. But it may also be that I have never felt a strong identification with the rainbow flag, as I often associate it with the gay male community, which is not always welcoming to women.

Now I am in a part of the country which has plenty of gay-friendly folks, but they are are fewer and father between, especially out in the suburbs where I live. And for all those who do support gay rights, many more neighbors are neutral on the issue at best, and there are some who are less than friendly towards the LGBT community, even if they won’t say so out loud.

For all of the neighbors who, like us, have yard signs saying “Hate Has No Home Here,” there are at least as many who have signs saying “We Support Police,” which are often surrounded by American flags, as a specific display of and claim to patriotism. These yard displays translate to me and my African-American spouse as “your lives do not matter.” It may seem like an unfair assumption for me to make, but I do so out of experience and self preservation. I am wary of those neighbors.

Living in a place where being out and visible actually makes a difference, and in the current political climate, it feels important to my spouse and I to hang a flag. I got over my ambivalence, deciding that I wasn’t going to let gay men have sole claim to the rainbow flag. It’s ours, too. We want to let our neighbors know we’re queer, and we are part of this community.

At the beginning of July, my spouse and I agreed that we would switch up and hang an American flag in honor of Independence Day. Like flying the rainbow flag, I have often felt ambivalent about patriotism. As a woman, as a lesbian, and as someone with decidedly liberal political views, I have often felt that my own country does not value me as a citizen. There have been times in my life where I disagreed so vehemently with the direction of the American government and policy that I actually felt ashamed of my country.

There is a lot about what is happening in this country now that makes me feel shame, not the least of which is the breakdown of civil discourse. But the source of this shame does not define my American identity, nor is it what I believe this country is at its heart. In the same spirit as we flew our rainbow flag, we are flying our American flag. We are out and proud Americans. I love my country, and I refuse to let my racist and homophobic neighbors lay sole claim to the American flag and dictate what it means to be patriotic.