Stonewall National Monument Visitor Center – Photo: EDG Architecture + Engineering
After removing all references to transgender people from the Stonewall National Monument website earlier this year, the National Park Service has now scrubbed mentions of bisexual people as well.
As first reported by transgender journalist Erin Reed on her Erin in the Morning Substack, the change occurred on July 10, when the homepage was updated to read, “Before the 1960s, almost everything about living authentically as a gay or lesbian person was illegal.”
Subsequent pages, including the site’s “History and Culture” section, were also altered to remove broader LGBTQ references. One now reads: “Stonewall was a milestone for gay and lesbian civil rights,” whereas it previously noted that living “openly as a member of the Stonewall comunity [sic] was a violation of law.”
The Stonewall National Monument website — administered by the National Park Service, an agency within the U.S. Department of the Interior — has previously been targeted for the removal of terms the Trump administration characterizes as “woke,” particularly those recognizing gender-nonconformity or transgender identity.
In February, the NPS removed all mentions of transgender individuals from the monument’s website to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order prohibiting any federal recognition of transgender identity.
In June, the NPS banned the display of the transgender Pride flag and the Progress Pride flag — which incorporates the trans flag’s colors — as part of any decorations at the monument or nearby Christopher Park during Pride Month. In response, visitors began mounting unauthorized Pride flags at the site in protest.
Even now, the monument’s website credits activist Sylvia Rivera — a transgender woman and prominent figure in the early LGBTQ visibility movement — with fighting for “gay and rights,” a nonsensical phrase where the word “transgender” appears to have been deleted, likely by an automated web-scrubbing tool.
As Reed noted, transgender and bisexual people played key roles in the early LGBTQ rights movement. For example, Brenda Howard — a bisexual rights activist often called the “mother of Pride” — helped organize the rally that evolved into the Christopher Street Liberation Day March, the predecessor to New York’s modern-day Pride parade.
“Bisexual, transgender, and queer people were at the forefront of the Stonewall movement,” Reed wrote. “Though the language was still evolving, many of the patrons defied conventional categories of gender and sexuality, refusing to be neatly classified. Erasing them from Stonewall is not only historically false — it is a deliberate act of political revisionism.
“The recent removal of ‘bisexual’ from official Pride histories is a warning: attacks on transgender people will never stop with us,” Reed concluded. “They are part of a broader effort to narrow the scope of who is allowed to belong, to be seen, and even to be remembered.”
Some members of the LGBTQ community blasted the move on social media, with transgender activists noting they had long warned that efforts to erase LGBTQ identity would escalate. Some also criticized bisexual, gay, and lesbian commenters who tried to justify attacks on LGB visibility by blaming transgender people for alienating Republicans and social conservatives.
“We always knew once trans people were separated from the LGBTQ+ the same people would start trying to tell bisexuals they didn’t belong,” wrote one commenter. “They keep dropping hints about going after marriage equality. And we are seeing exactly what we’ve been warning about happening in real time.”
A Facebook post, later screenshotted and shared by a user on X, suggested there may be more sinister motives behind the erasure of bisexuality from public view.
“The erasure of bisexual identity is necessary in presenting homosexuality as an occasional action people ‘do,’ rather than something inherent to them or something they can ‘be,'” the Facebook post read. “Then, when someone in a straight relationship occasionally has gay sex, they can say, ‘See? Homosexuals don’t exist — it’s just sexual deviancy,’ and no one can respond, ‘That person is just bi.’ It’s interesting to see how they’re reverse-engineering civil rights.”
Following the outcry, the National Park Service quietly restored references to bisexuality on the Stonewall Monument website — at least for now.
Delaware Gov. Matt Meyer has signed an executive order protecting transgender individuals from having their medical or personal information shared with out-of-state authorities seeking to prosecute them for obtaining gender-affirming care.
Meyer signed the order last Friday at the CAMP Rehoboth Community Center, surrounded by LGBTQ advocates and activists.
The order prohibits Delaware state agencies from cooperating with out-of-state investigations targeting anyone who provides, receives, or assists others in obtaining legal gender-affirming care, such as hormone therapy or puberty blockers. It also bars agencies from sharing medical records, billing data, or personal information about anyone involved in such care.
Void, a Chicago-based Italian eatery, marked Pride Month with a pop-up parody targeting Chick-fil-A, the fast-food chain that has long been criticized for its past support of anti-LGBTQ initiatives and organizations.
"Chick-feel-Gay" appeared for one day only, on June 22, at a storefront at 2937 N. Milwaukee Street, in Chicago's Avondale neighborhood.
The menu featured chef and co-owner Dani Kaplan's version of the famous Chick-fil-A fried chicken sandwich, along with waffle fries, dipping sauces, and chicken nuggets.
Graeme Reid will continue as the U.N.'s expert on LGBT rights for another three years, as 29 nations back the mandate despite opposition from China, Pakistan, and others.
The U.N. Human Rights Council has voted to extend the mandate of its LGBT rights expert, ensuring continued global oversight of anti-LGBTQ human rights violations for another three years.
Under the mandate, the U.N.'s Independent Expert on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity is tasked with identifying the root causes of anti-LGBTQ violence and discrimination, and advising U.N. member states on how to better protect LGBTQ communities.
The current independent expert, South African scholar Graeme Reid, will continue in the role for another three years. Reid is the third person to hold the position since it was established in 2016.
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