Dude tries to tear down Pride flag, gets outsmarted by lesbian’s ingenious carabiner trick

Editor's note: This article was originally published on July 12, 2021. It has since been updated.

A young man was left embarrassed after struggling to yank off a pride flag displayed out of a garage. The incident was caught on security footage and shows a person trying to repeatedly tear down a stranger's Pride flag. The Phoenix resident, an apparent homophobe, was shirtless and covered his face up, as he walked up to the garage and tried to tear down the flag. The flag was put on display by a lesbian woman on her garage door. The video was posted by @leftovergains on TikTok, where it has been viewed over 1 million times. The video also found its way onto Twitter where it was shared close to 2,000 times and liked by almost 11,000 people.

The man clearly thought he could just yank the Pride flag and run away but realized it wasn't going to be easy. He can be seen looking sideways to see if anyone's watching him as he tries to take down the rainbow flag. He pulls at it a few more times before giving up on it. He throws up his arms in exasperation before quietly walking away. The TikTok user @leftovergains posted the video and captioned it: "Kid tries and fails to steal my pride." She posted a couple of hashtags which included #pride and #fail. She also wrote, "Oh, now you wanna wear a mask," referring to the refusal of the majority of the right wing to wear a mask. In the comments, she confirmed that she had now added a siren which would have been even more embarrassing for the person. Certainly, there's no way of ruling out someone trying to take down the flag again. She also has a Black Lives Matter flag but no one's tried taking that down yet. 

Many praised the TikTok user for displaying the flag and some asked how she had fastened it that tight, ensuring it wasn't stolen or taken down. It appears the woman secured the flag to the inside of her garage using a set of sturdy carabiners and a pair of screwing posts. People couldn't help but admire the ingenuity of her ideas. “You will NOT out-construct a pair of lesbians,” commented one person. “It's impossible.” Another wrote, “Never underestimate lesbians with carabiners.”

One person asked her to print a picture of the person who tried to take down the flag and hang it on the grade door. One person wrote, "Great idea. It's absurd that you have to secure it so well so that ignorant people can't steal it!" She responded, "Maybe he'll try again and I'll get a good video of him reacting to the siren." One person added that the person may not have been a homophobe and simply wanted the flag for himself. "He wants it for his room." they wrote. Some were genuinely angry that random people would try to take down the pride flag. One person wrote, "Why he felt the need to enter someone’s property and take their flag down.” Another added, “I never knew it was so difficult to mind your own business.”

Displaying a Pride flag can mean the world to someone who's not come out of the closet, as a young LGBTQ person revealed in a letter to a neighbor. As we reported, a woman hung the Pride flag outside her home and found a heartwarming letter in her mailbox. Stephanie Robertson didn't realize how much that gesture meant until she received a hand-written letter thanking her for the support. She sent the text to her son who posted it online. "She texted me yesterday and was like, 'You're not gonna believe the letter I found in our mailbox,' and sent me a photo of the letter." The letter was scribbled on notepad paper and signed off as a 'young LGBTQ+ person'. "Hello, this is probably kinda weird but I walk past your house every day and I've noticed your flag and I'm glad to know there is at least one ally in this little town," read the letter.