The National Parks Service (NPS) has removed a large rainbow pride flag at Stonewall National Monument, the birthplace of the modern LGBTQ rights movement, in Manhattan, according to multiple reports.
Former President Barack Obama designated the site as a national monument in June 2016 in an effort to commemorate the Stonewall Uprising — which began on June 28, 1969 — and “honor the broad LGBT equality movement.” The NPS’ communications office told the Daily Caller News Foundation in a Tuesday statement that “the policy governing flag displays on federal property has been in place for decades.”
“Recent guidance clarifies how that longstanding policy is applied consistently across NPS-managed sites,” according to the NPS’ statement. “Under government-wide guidance, including General Services Administration policy and Department of the Interior direction, 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. Stonewall National Monument continues to preserve and interpret the site’s historic significance through exhibits and programs.”
The Department of the Interior (DOI) did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
A January memo from the DOI notably mentions some exemptions for non-agency flags, such as those that “provide historical context, such as earlier [versions] of the U.S. flag at a historic fort,” and also any flags that are a part of “historic reenactments or living history programs.”
Democratic Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal wrote in an Instagram post on Monday that he had confirmed “that a January 21st federal order has resulted in the removal last weekend of the Pride flag at Stonewall, birthplace of the modern LGBTQ human rights movement.” Hoylman-Sigal added that the Trump administration “cannot erase” LGBTQ “history.”
Democratic New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin similarly criticized the move in a statement posted to X on Tuesday, writing that “Stonewall is sacred ground.”
“It is the birthplace of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement, and the removal of the Pride flag from the Stonewall National Monument is a deliberate and cowardly attempt to erase that history,” Menin wrote in her X post. “This is an attack on LGBTQ+ New Yorkers, and we will not stand for it. Our history will not be rewritten, and our rights will not be rolled back.”
Moreover, Democratic New York State Sen. Erik Bottcher wrote in an X post that the Trump administration ordering the removal of the Pride flag from the monument is “a shameful attempt to rewrite history.”
“Stonewall is where our community fought back and demanded to be seen. You cannot separate that place from the symbol that grew out of it,” added Bottcher, who won a Nov. 4 special election to succeed Hoylman-Sigal in the State Senate. Bottcher and Hoylman-Sigal are both openly gay.
In 2025, a spate of major U.S. corporations retreated from their involvement in LGBTQ pride events across the nation.
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