The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump removed a large Pride flag that flew over the Stonewall National Monument, which marks the birthplace of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement in New York City.
The National Park Service, the federal agency that oversees U.S. national monuments, stated that it manages the monument’s flagpole and that the flag was removed to ensure a “long-standing policy” was consistently applied across all its sites.
But for some elected officials in New York, the removal of the flag from the monument in Greenwich Village, in midtown Manhattan, is part of efforts by Trump, a Republican, to limit the rights of gays and transgender people.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a Democrat, said he was outraged and called the move an “act of erasure.” Some politicians announced their intention to raise another Pride flag on the now-empty flagpole before the end of the week.
The Park Service said it followed guidance issued in 2023 that government-administered flagpoles are not “a forum for the free expression of the public” and that flags other than the American flag may be flown if they represent “an expression of the official sentiments of the federal government.”
“Any changes to the flag displays are made to ensure consistency with this guidance,” the agency said in a statement.
The agency released a memo reiterating the guidance given to regional directors and superintendents last month.
The flagpole and monument are located in Christopher Park, marking the spot where gay, lesbian, and transgender New Yorkers rioted and protested in response to a police raid on the Stonewall Inn in 1969, a time when such raids on bars frequented by LGBTQ+ people were common. The Stonewall riots were a pivotal moment in the LGBTQ+ rights movement.
The site was designated a U.S. national monument in 2016 by then-President Barack Obama, a Democrat, at an intersection that remains a bustling center of LGBTQ+ nightlife.
Trump and other Republican politicians have sought to restrict LGBTQ+ rights, especially those of transgender people. Trump ordered his agencies to adopt a policy that there are two immutable sexes, and all mentions of “LGBT” on the official Stonewall monument website were replaced with “LGB”.
The flag was removed on Sunday night or early Monday morning, Gay City News reported on Monday.
Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal said the removal was “a deliberate attack on the LGBTQ+ community.”
The National Park Service did not respond to questions about what it would do if New Yorkers raised another rainbow flag over the monument, as Hoylman-Sigal and others said they intended to do on Thursday.
“We thought the worst outcome would be imprisonment, but this is in keeping with the spirit of Stonewall itself,” said Hoylman-Sigal. “The movement was founded on rebellion against authority.”
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