Stonewall National Monument Flag – Photo: MDoculus via iStockphoto
In what has become a familiar pattern, the Trump administration once again took aim at the LGBTQ community by removing a Pride flag from a flagpole at the Stonewall National Monument.
The historic site, designated a national monument by former President Barack Obama in 2016, spans 7.7 acres and encompasses the Stonewall Inn, Christopher Park, and several nearby streets and sidewalks. Portions of the site are also protected as both a New York City landmark and a New York state historical site.
The removal of the rainbow-colored Pride flag follows federal guidance issued by the U.S. Department of the Interior barring the display of so-called “non-agency” flags within the National Park System. The memo, issued last month, states that “only the U.S. flag and other congressionally or departmentally authorized flags are flown on NPS-managed flagpoles, with limited exceptions.”
“Any changes to flag displays are made to ensure consistency with that guidance,” the National Park Service told The New York Times regarding the flag’s removal from the nation’s only national monument specifically recognizing the history of the LGBTQ Pride movement.
It remains unclear who removed the flag or when it was taken down.
The flag’s removal is the latest in a series of symbolic moves by the Trump administration targeting diversity and inclusion efforts. It mirrors a U.S. State Department order issued last year requiring that only U.S. flags be flown at American embassies and consulates worldwide — reversing a Biden-era policy that permitted the display of Pride and “Black Lives Matter” flags.
The U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees the National Park Service, defended the directive as guidance for site managers on procedures for displaying “non-agency flags” at national parks.
The department told The New York Times that flagpoles at buildings controlled by the General Services Administration and the Department of the Interior “are not intended to serve as a forum for free expression by the public.”
However, the directive also includes several exemptions, including flags displayed for historical context — a category that could apply to the Pride flag — as well as flags used in historic re-enactments and flags of Tribal nations affiliated with national parks.
The Stonewall Inn, a gay bar on Christopher Street, marks the spot where the Stonewall Uprising — long considered the seminal event in the modern-day LGBTQ rights movement — took place in June 1969. The uprising was prompted by a police raid on the bar.
This isn’t the first time the Trump administration has taken steps to diminish LGBTQ visibility at the Stonewall National Monument. Last year, the National Park Serviceremoved the word “transgender” from prominent sections of the monument’s official website. Later that year, the agency removed the word “bisexual” from parts of the site, only to reverse course after public outcry.
LGBTQ advocates, allies, and New York politicians condemned the move as yet another swipe at the LGBTQ community by the Trump administration.
Tyler Hack, executive director of the Christopher Street Project, said the flag’s removal served a single purpose: “to further erase queer and trans people from public life.”
Cathy Renna, communications director for the National LGBTQ Task Force, said the flag’s removal is “another reminder that efforts to chip away at LGBTQ+ visibility are happening in real time.”
“What stands at Stonewall is more than a landmark; it’s sacred ground rooted in resistance, liberation, and the legacy of trans and queer trailblazers who changed the course of history,” she said.
Brandon Wolf, national press secretary for the Human Rights Campaign, noted that the Stonewall Inn & Visitors Centers are privately owned and remain free to fly Pride flags, regardless of what the administration orders.
“The Trump administration is obsessed with trying to suffocate the joy and pride that Americans have for their communities,” Wolf said. “For over a year, they’ve been on a witch hunt, targeting rainbow crosswalks, pride flags, Black Lives Matter murals, and throwing a tantrum about a Super Bowl performance they couldn’t control. But they will fail.”
“The mean-spiritedness of the Trump administration seems to know no bounds,” Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal said in a statement. “But we as a community are not going to take it standing by idly as our history, and by extension our human rights, are attempted to be erased.”
Hoylman-Sigal, who is gay, said he and other elected officials plan to raise the Pride flag at the monument on Thursday.
“We may be prevented from doing so,” he said. “But if we don’t seize this moment, and this outrage, I think we’ll let down generations of queer activists.”
As one of his final acts in office, outgoing New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced plans to distribute $2 million in "emergency funding" to roughly 20 organizations serving transgender, gender-nonconforming, and nonbinary New Yorkers.
The grants are intended to counter federal budget cuts and Trump administration efforts to block LGBTQ organizations -- particularly those serving transgender people -- from receiving federal funding, reports Gay City News.
The funding, the first of its kind in the nation, will be administered by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. The money is intended to support community organizations providing services to gender-diverse communities, including "health and wellness, legal advocacy, youth and family support, safety and crisis response, community building, and economic empowerment," according to the release.
A divided three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Montgomery County Public Schools did not violate the First Amendment rights of a Christian substitute teacher by requiring her to use transgender students' pronouns in the classroom.
The appeals court affirmed a lower court’s decision dismissing most of the teacher’s claims that the policy violated her free speech and religious rights, and denied her request for an injunction blocking the school district from enforcing it.
Under Montgomery County Public Schools policy, staff are required to address students by the name and pronouns that align with the gender identity they consistently assert at school. Students are not required to change permanent records to receive gender-affirming names or pronouns, and teachers are instructed to "maintain the confidentiality of a student’s transgender status" whenever possible.
A masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer fatally shot a queer woman in Minneapolis after opening fire through the window of her SUV during a confrontation in the street.
Video footage posted online shows two masked ICE officers approaching a Honda Pilot stopped in the middle of Portland Avenue near 34th Street in Minneapolis' Powderhorn neighborhood. One agent can be heard yelling at the SUV's driver -- later identified as 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good -- telling her to "get out of the fucking car" while attempting to open the driver's door, as a second officer stands back.
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