Transgender Flags Banned at Stonewall Monument
The National Park Service barred transgender and Progress Pride flags from the historic LGBTQ monument.
In another swipe at the transgender community, the national monument honoring what is widely seen as the seminal event of the modern LGBTQ rights movement has erased all mention of transgender and queer people.
Each June, the Stonewall National Monument in New York City typically decorates the fence surrounding Christopher Park — the small park adjacent to the historic Stonewall Inn and part of the official monument — with various Pride flags.
In past years, the display has featured a mix of flags — the familiar six-stripe rainbow Pride flag, the blue, pink, and white transgender Pride flag, and the “Progress” flag, which adds stripes for Black and brown communities and a chevron design incorporating transgender and intersex Pride colors.
But this year, the National Park Service has removed transgender and Progress Pride flags from the monument — a move that mirrors broader Trump-era efforts to erase transgender visibility, roll back diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives across government, academia, and the private sector, and discourage acknowledgment of “woke” concepts such as centering the struggles of Black and brown communities.
Steven Love Menendez, a photographer and LGBTQ advocate who created and has long maintained the flag display at Christopher Park, says the National Park Service instructed him to use only the traditional six-stripe rainbow flag this year. No other Pride flags would be accepted.
“It’s a terrible action for them to take,” Menendez told New York’s WCBS-TV.
The change follows the National Park Service’s removal of references to transgender and queer people from the Stonewall National Monument’s official website — a move LGBTQ advocates call a deliberate attempt to erase part of the community’s history. Menendez noted that even mentions and photos of him on the site have been edited to remove the “T” and “Q” from his title, now referring to him as an “LGB activist.”
Advocates acknowledge the growing backlash against LGBTQ visibility in the United States and worldwide — one in which even the presence of Pride flags can provoke attempts to ban, destroy, or incite violence. The Stonewall Monument itself was vandalized in both 2023 and 2024, with passersby stealing and tearing apart flags from the display. Three men were arrested and charged in connection with the 2023 incident.
Visitors opposed to the Park Service’s recent directive are bringing unauthorized Pride flags to the monument, hanging them on the fence or planting them in the ground around Christopher Park in protest.
Willa Kingsford, a tourist from Portland, called the ban on other Pride flags “absurd” and “petty.”
Jay Edinin, a Queens resident, brought his own transgender flag to the monument.
“I’m not going to stand by and watch us be erased from our own history, from our own communities, and from the visibility that we desperately need right now,” he said.
National Park Service workers at the site told WCBS they were not authorized to speak about the changes.
In response to an inquiry from Metro Weekly seeking further comment or clarification, the National Park Service’s Office of Public Affairs released the following single-sentence statement, referencing and linking to Trump’s executive order refusing to recognize transgender identity as valid:
“In compliance with Executive Order 14168, flags associated with self-assessed gender identity have been removed from federal areas.”
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