Due to a ukase from the Trump administration, the rainbow flag was removed from the Stonewall Inn monument commemorating the queer uprising that gave birth to our Prides, in New York, in 1969.
An iconic site in queer history is left without its rainbow flag. On Tuesday, February 10, the queer community of New York was shaken to learn of the removal of the LGBT Pride flag from the Stonewall National Monument. The decision stems from a memo dated January 21, issued by the National Park Service, the federal agency responsible for managing this designated site in Manhattan, which prohibits the display of any flag other than the American Stars and Stripes and the insignia of the department.
The Stonewall National Monument commemorates the 1969 riots triggered by a police raid on this gay bar in Greenwich Village. The six days of clashes that followed are considered a foundational event of the LGBT+ movement in the United States. Protected since 2016, it includes the Stonewall Inn, a park, and several surrounding streets. Beyond the physical symbol, the case touches on memory and the institutional recognition of the historic struggle of a minority against repression and discrimination.
An Attempt at Erasure
Indignation did not take long to surface. New York’s Democratic mayor, Zohran Mamdani, said he was “outraged” by the flag’s removal. “New York is the cradle of the modern movement for LGBT+ rights, and no act of erasure will ever change, nor silence, this history,” he wrote on X. On Tuesday evening, about a hundred protesters gathered in the park opposite the Stonewall Inn. AFP also cites Jade Runk, a 37-year-old trans activist. “Removing something that has so much meaning for us and for our community in front of a historic site like this is simply a slap in the face. It’s a message that says ‘we do not want you to exist’,” she declared. Aleksander Douglas, a 29-year-old gay history archivist, denounces, in his view, an attempt “to erase a minority”, “a behavior simply unacceptable from an autocratic government”.
Discrimination-prevention associations also reacted: “The values of inclusion and freedom embodied by the Pride flag cannot be erased”, says a spokesperson for GLAAD, the American LGBT media watchdog quoted by AFP. Brandon Wolf, the Human Rights Campaign’s press secretary, criticized in a statement the Trump administration’s “to try to smother the joy and pride Americans feel for their communities”. The National Park Service did not respond when contacted by AFP.
This withdrawal comes in a US context particularly hostile to LGBT+ people and their symbols. In September, when questioned by a far-right journalist, Donald Trump had replied that he would have “no problem” with rainbow flags removed from private property in the federal capital, Washington. He noted, however, that such a ban would be contrary to freedom of expression.
