At LA’s Unofficial Gay Beach, Vandals Defaced Lifeguard Towers Painted In Progress Pride Colors

Ginger Rogers Beach — an unofficial stretch of Will Rogers State Beach in Pacific Palisades — was recognized on Saturday for its storied legacy within the LGBTQ+ community.

But come Monday, the two lifeguard towers that were freshly painted in the colors of the Progress Pride flag were vandalized with hateful remarks.

What happened to the towers?

At around 7 a.m., lifeguards discovered that towers numbered 17 and 18 had been broken into, according to Los Angeles Police Department officer Norma Eisenman.

Windows were busted in. A county cell phone and first aid kit were snatched. And the walls of the towers — the ones painted in rainbow colors — were written over with antisemitic and anti-LGBTQ+ remarks. Eisenman says the incident is being investigated as a hate crime.

The vandalism comes after the number of harmful acts has been growing in Southern California. Recently, hateful flyers about Jewish and LGBTQ+ communities were circulated at homes in Huntington Beach. In Glendale, dueling sets of protesters physically fought each other Tuesday over the school district’s stance on LGBTQ+ education — another confrontation in a movement that’s attracting right-wing conservatives and Proud Boys.

At the lifeguard towers, crews were able to quickly clean off the markings. The towers are still in operation.

Why Ginger Rogers Beach matters

This strip of beach, named after the Golden Age actress and gay icon Ginger Rogers, offers a place of safety and belonging in the LGBTQ+ community.

But its history outside of the community is little-known. That may be changing.

The beach was formally honored by the L.A. County Board of Supervisors after Supervisor Lindsey Horvath introduced a motion to place signage about the area’s importance and to permanently paint the towers in the Progress Pride flag colors. The ONE Archives Foundation, which is part of the largest repository of LGBTQ+ history, collaborated on the project.

At the tower unveiling Saturday, Horvath noted how the beach has lived in the “shadows of Los Angeles history for too long.”

Since at least the 1940s, the beach has been a popular spot to relax, meet other LGBTQ+ people and organize. Drag performances took place on the sands. It was also where Harry Hay and Rudi Gernreich — early gay rights activists — gathered signatures under the Mattachine Society to oppose the Korean War.

Romances and friendships were built there. In Gay L.A., historians Lillian Faderman and Stuart Timmons wrote about how the beach was symbolic to gay people, because it “represented the very edge of the continent, far away from ‘back home.’”

Ginger Rogers Beach also saw its fair share of trouble. In the 1950s, the LAPD cracked down on the area to target people's gay and drag behavior. Now roughly 70 years later, the vandalism is a reminder of the oppression people in the community faced.

In a statement, Horvath says L.A. County will repair the towers and “continue to fight the extremism that has given rise to acts of hate like this.” Constance Farrell, her communications director, says the buildings will get new windows and paint touch-ups.

“Hate will not win,” Horvath said. “Not today, not ever.”