Visitors to New York’s Stonewall National Monument have been leaving transgender Pride flags in defiance of a directive from the Trump administration allowing only the traditional six-stripe rainbow flag to be flown for Pride Month.
The monument, which honours the pivotal 1969 Stonewall riots—widely seen as the catalyst for the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement—was designated a national site in 2016 by President Barack Obama. It commemorates a movement led by trans women of colour and remains a deeply symbolic site for the queer community.
Each year, Christopher Park, adjacent to the Stonewall Inn, becomes a vibrant display of the full spectrum of LGBTQ+ identities, represented through various Pride flags. However, this year, artist and installation curator Steven Love Menendez was instructed by the National Park Service to only display the rainbow flag.
The restriction follows a controversial February move by the Trump administration to erase mentions of transgender and non-binary people from the monument’s official website. The decision is part of a broader rollback of diversity, equity, and inclusion content from government platforms. LGBTQ+ advocacy group GLAAD condemned the action as part of Trump’s “blatant attempts to discriminate against, and erase the legacies of, transgender and queer Americans.”
Protesters have responded by personally planting trans flags at the monument. One of them, Jay Edinin from Queens, said: “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.”
Menendez, once listed as an LGBTQ activist, noted to CBS that his title on the monument’s materials has been altered to “LGB activist,” erasing the Q and the T. “It’s a terrible action to take,” he said. Speaking to Gothamist, he added, “It made me sad, but it’s not a surprise with all of the rhetoric that’s been going on.”
For many, the protest is a powerful reminder that the fight for visibility and inclusion continues, especially at a site that holds such profound historical weight for the LGBTQ+ movement.
