Press Release: Gov. Evers Announces Progress Pride Flag to be Flown Statewide in Celebration of Pride Month 

Gov. Evers Announces Progress Pride Flag to be Flown Statewide in Celebration of Pride Month

MADISON — Gov. Tony Evers today signed Executive Order #204, ordering that the Progress Pride Flag be raised over the Wisconsin State Capitol during the month of June in celebration of Pride Month. The Progress Pride Flag will fly over the East Wing of the State Capitol building beginning at noon on Thurs, June 1, 2023, and ending at sunset on Fri., June 30, 2023. Additionally, Executive Order #204 authorizes state buildings and any jurisdiction of the state of Wisconsin to fly the Progress Pride Flag during the month of June.  

“As we kick off Pride Month in Wisconsin, we celebrate LGBTQ people in Wisconsin, the LGBTQ community more broadly, and LGBTQ contributions and culture, which are a vibrant, critical part of our state and our country,” said Gov. Evers. “We also honor and pay tribute to generations of LGBTQ folks who aren’t with us today—those whose stories, voices, and dedication have helped secure the LGBTQ freedoms that, even today, we must work hard to defend and protect.  

“As much as today and the month of June is a time to celebrate and honor the LGBTQ community, this is also a time when we recognize the work we have before us and the challenges the LGBTQ community faces still today,” continued Gov. Evers. “Anti-LGBTQ words and actions—whether they’re happening in Wisconsin or elsewhere—only make our work to keep our LGBTQ kids, families, and communities healthy and safe even more difficult. And to those whose rhetoric, actions, and legislation aims to harm LGBTQ Wisconsinites—especially our LGBTQ kids—this flag flies over the East Wing, just feet above my office, as a signal that I will always stand with LGBTQ Wisconsinites and fight to protect them with every tool and every power that I have.”  

Gov. Evers also proclaimed June 2023 as “LGBTQ Pride Month” throughout the state of Wisconsin. A copy of the governor’s 2023 LGBTQ Pride Month proclamation is available here. 

June is recognized as Pride Month in Wisconsin and throughout the United States, which originally began as a recognition of and tribute to the Stonewall Uprising in 1969 and has become an annual, month-long celebration and recognition of the LGBTQ community.  

Gov. Evers ordered the Rainbow Pride Flag to fly over the East Wing of the Wisconsin State Capitol for the first time in state history in 2019. Since then, the Rainbow Pride Flag has flown over the Capitol each year for the month of June until last year when Gov. Evers raised the Progress Pride Flag over the State Capitol for the first time. An iteration of the widely recognized Rainbow Pride Flag, the Progress Pride Flag was created to symbolize the inclusion of marginalized communities within the LGBTQ community. The Progress Pride Flag includes additional stripes forming a chevron pattern that represent LGBTQ individuals of color and the transgender community, as well as those who are living with and who have been lost to HIV/AIDS.   

The Progress Pride Flag will once again be flown over the East Wing of the Wisconsin State Capitol this year. The Progress Pride Flag will not disrupt other flags that regularly fly over the State Capitol building. The U.S. flag and Wisconsin state flag will continue flying on the East Wing flagpole above the Progress Pride Flag. The POW-MIA flag will continue flying on the North Wing flagpole as it does every day.  

Executive Order #204 will be in effect from Thurs., June 1, 2023, to sunset on Fri., June 30, 2023, and is available here.