A drag queen who serves as an elected local official told Fox News Digital why she and her colleagues removed “homophobic” traffic signs from her Los Angeles community.
Maebe A. Girl, a member of the Silver Lake neighborhood council, responded to the controversy that ensued after she removed signs which said, “No cruising. No U-turns. Midnight to 6 a.m.” The signs were posted around the Silver Lake neighborhood in 1997, with the intent of curbing gay men from roaming the streets to hook up, according to Maebe.
“Now, with this, context matters,” the councilmember said. “Cruising is a euphemism for gay men searching for sex. And I’m not here to say I’m here to make sure that gay men can cruise for sex. The point of the original signs being installed in Silver Lake was a response to what was perceived by LAPD and neighbors in the area of gay men cruising for sex.”
Maebe also responded to critics’ concerns about whether removing the signs could impact public safety.
“People are saying they’re fed up with the queer community because we’ve gone too far. We’ve asked for too much. Now we’re saying, ‘No U-turn signs are homophobic,’ which is absolutely not the case,” said Maebe. “This was just a local issue that we were asked to address. We did, and it just traveled very far outside of our community.”
The move exploded on platforms such as X and TikTok. Right-wing accounts, in particular, quickly took notice of the videos showing Maebe removing the traffic signs and expressed their shock that it was real life – not satire or some joke.
Maebe said she never imagined it would have spread and become a “divisive moment of the culture wars.”
“So, a lot of critics about these signs coming down are saying it’s just a traffic safety issue, [that] there’s going to be a lot of accidents now that the signs have been removed,” she said. “Here’s the thing: If U-turns were really a problem on this residential streets, then the no U-turn signs should be in effect 24/7. They should not have been in effect only in what is arguably the least busy time for traffic, midnight to 6 a.m. So, cops were using this as a way to sort of crack down on the queer community in the neighborhood.”
Maebe wore a pin of the Palestinian flag during an interview and explained her involvement with “Queers for Palestine,” a movement critics have crudely mocked as “Chickens for KFC.”
“I’ll say I’m not the spokesperson for the ‘Free Palestine’ movement. But I will say that I am a proponent. I am a supporter,” she said.
To explain her point of view, Maebe switched gears and said that the LGBTQ movement in the U.S. is currently facing what she believed was discriminatory legislation.
“To me, it’s just pink washing and saying, ‘How can you support [‘Free Palestine’] if you’re a queer person?’ when I’m not even supported as a queer person here in the United States?” she said.
“I’m not free unless everybody is free. And to me, it just seems that you have to be, you know, willing to extend that liberation to everybody, even if they don’t agree with every part of your particular identity,” she said.
“I support Israeli citizens, I support Palestinians. For me, it is this battle of these governmental entities on a global scale, and that’s what I take issue with,” Maebe said.
