Trump Administration Removes A Rainbow Flag From Stonewall National Monument
The National Park Service, under federal guidance, has removed a large rainbow flag from the historic Stonewall National Monument in Greenwich Village.
Featured Image: Spencer Platt/ Getty Images
The Trump Administration has removed a large rainbow flag from the historic Stonewall National Monument in Greenwich Village. This latest affront to the LGBTQ+ community comes on the heels of hundreds of anti-LGBTQ+ bills advancing across the country in 2026 alone.
The historic site in Christopher Park was designated as a national monument under the Obama Administration in 2016. In the past year, the National Park Service (NPS) has attempted to erase LGBTQ+ history from the monument’s website by removing pages of queer and transgender history and deleting most mentions of bisexual people, leading to protests at the monument.
This most recent action of removing a rainbow flag occurred over the weekend, according to Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal, in accordance with a January 21 memo from the US Department of the Interior. The memo states that “flagpoles at buildings under the jurisdiction, custody, or control of the GSA [General Services Administration] are not intended to serve as a forum for free expression by the public.”
The memo goes on to state that “only the U.S. Flag, flags of the DOI, and the POW/MIA flag will be flown by the NPS in public spaces where the NPS is responsible for the upkeep, maintenance, and operation of the flag and flagpole.” While there are a few exemptions in place, including flags that “provide historical context, such as earlier version of the U.S. flag,” it is clear that pride flags are deemed not acceptable.
“Under government-wide guidance, including General Services Administration policy and Department of the Interior direction, only the US flag and other congressionally or departmentally authorized flags are flown on NPS-managed flagpoles, with limited exceptions,” NPS said in a statement to Gay City News. “Any changes to flag displays are made to ensure consistency with that guidance. Stonewall National Monument continues to preserve and interpret the site’s historic significance through exhibits and programs.”
Under Trump’s first administration in 2016, federal officials scrapped plans to permanently install a rainbow flag at the monument, citing that the existing flagpole sat on city-owned land rather than federal property. Community activists responded with backlash. In 2022, flag caretaker Steven Love Menendez and LGBTQ+ activist Michael Petrelis secured federal approval to raise a rainbow flag on federally-controlled land within the park.
The flag’s removal has already drawn outrage from elected officials and advocacy organizations.
decision to remove the words “transgender” and “queer” from the monument’s website.
Photo by Abbie Thompson.
“The removal of the Pride Rainbow Flag from the Stonewall National Monument is a deeply outrageous action that must be reversed right now,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who represents New York, said in a statement to The New York Times. “New Yorkers are right to be outraged, but if there’s one thing I know about this latest attempt to rewrite history, stoke division and discrimination, and erase our community pride, it’s this: That flag will return. New Yorkers will see to it.”
Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal, who is openly gay, says he intends to raise the pride flag at Stonewall National Monument again on Thursday, February 12. “We may be prevented from doing so,” he told the Times. “But if we don’t seize this moment, and this outrage, I think we’ll let down generations of queer activists.”
He went on to say the “meanspiritedness of the Trump administration seems to know no bounds. 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.”
City Council Speaker Julie Menin—along with co-chairs of the Council’s LGBTQIA+ Caucus, Council Members Chi Ossé and Justin Sanchez—denounced the removal and urged the NPS to immediately return the flag. “This event follows an alarming trend of the erasure of LGBTQIA+ history, including the decision to rename the USNS Harvey Milk and the removal of key facts from the Stonewall National Monument website,” they wrote.
The NYC LGBT Community Center called the flag’s removal “symbolic of a broader attempt to erase LGBTQ+ people and our history from public spaces…Removing the flag does not erase the importance and history of Stonewall. But its removal undermines the safety of LGBTQ+ people, especially the most vulnerable members of our community.”
decision to remove the words “transgender” and “queer” from the monument’s website.
Photo by Abbie Thompson.
The Stonewall Inn—the national historic landmark and site of the 1969 riots that launched the gay rights movement—alongside Gays Against Guns, Queer Liberation March, and Rise and Resist will be holding a community gathering at Christopher Park on Tuesday, February 10 at 5 pm to “express our outrage at the Trump National Parks Department’s erasure of OUR history and OUR flag from OUR park!”
