Ultraconservative Tarrant County Judge Tim O’Hare occupies a spot in the center of the uproar. O’Hare, who regularly inserts himself into issues regarding sexuality, in May sent a letter opposing the LGBTQ marker to the state agency charged with approving historical markers. O’Hare cited procedural grounds, saying the city’s application hadn’t been properly reviewed by the county.
O’Hare did not respond to Observer’s requests for an interview, but a statement by his chief of staff indicates the real problem was the people the marker recognized. Ruth Ray told the Fort Worth Report in a written statement, “It should come as no surprise Judge O’Hare doesn’t support a historical marker glorifying radical gender ideology and drag performances.”
The Texas State Historical Commission also assigns the judge’s influence to the marker about-face. The proposal was never approved by the commission, according to spokesman Chris Florance. Since it was submitted a year earlier, the application had only been accepted and deemed complete, he said. County judges have broad authority to interfere in marker submissions, Florance added, but he said the commission was unable to say whether or how often judges have acted similarly.
But O’Hare wasn’t the only one raising red flags. The initial objection came from the Tarrant County Historical Commission, which had approved the marker plan when it was suggested in 2024. That’s according to Sana Syed, interim communications manager for the city. Syed said an unnamed commission member labeled the application as improper because it was initiated by a city staffer, also unnamed, rather than a community member or elected official.
The then-new city manager, Jesus “Jay” Chapa, decided to follow the county historical commission’s lead. “The city manager, after reviewing with staff, asked for the application to be rescinded because there was no public process or formal external request for submitting the application,” Syed explained.
The list of individual members of the 19-person volunteer county commission is not made public and the Tarrant County Historical Commission did not respond to requests for interviews. Interview requests to members of the commission when the application was submitted similarly drew no response.
Marker Chronology
The marker idea first came up two years ago, according to Todd Camp, founder of YesterQueer, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving and recognizing the history of Tarrant County’s LGBTQ community. A city staff member approached him after he gave a presentation on the topic and suggested a historical marker.Dallas installed its own historical marker commemorating the city’s LGBTQ history in 2018. That request met no opposition, and the marker now rests at the corner of Cedar Springs Road and Throckmorton. Camp said he was surprised by the idea that Fort Worth would follow suit, despite Cowtown’s recent history as an LGBTQ-friendly city, but he agreed to participate in the project.
After a year or so of development, the marker design and text won local approval and went off to the state historical agency. The selected location was in front of the vacant lot where the Rainbow Lounge operated until it closed after a 2017 fire. Camp said the marker didn’t refer to the 2009 raid because that event was too recent to meet state historical commission marker standards. Rather, it described the significance of the address, 651 Jennings St.
“It was consecutively a gay bar since 1969,” Camp explained. And the whole neighborhood is significant because that’s the closest thing we had to Cedar Springs, a gayborhood.”
For his part, Camp thinks the Fort Worth application followed the rules and suspects that the claims of procedural violations mask anti-gay bias. Fort Worth has observable civic pride about being exceptionally friendly to the LGBTQ community, but recently, Camp says, things have changed, and anti-gay bias today seems to be everywhere. “It doesn’t surprise me at all that something like this would be targeted and squashed,” he said.
The city, at least, won’t oppose another try. “If community members would like to submit the application, they are welcome to work through the process with the Tarrant County and Texas Historical Commissions or reach out to their respective council member,” according to city spokesperson Syed.
Camp says that’s almost certain to happen. “We’ll resubmit,” he says. “If we didn’t get all the i’s dotted or t’s crossed, we’ll correct that and try again.”
Although Fort Worth may get its LGBTQ historical marker, a clear explanation for the fate of the first try may take longer to show up. “If we resubmit and do everything by the book, the way they seem to say we didn’t, and it’s denied again, that would be clearer,” Camp says. “But I don’t know that we’ll ever get a complete, honest answer.”
