The pride flag is back at Stonewall, but the fight against erasure is far from over |
The pride flag is back at Stonewall, but the fight against erasure is far from over
Last week, a federal court settlement required the Trump administration to permanently restore the pride flag at Stonewall National Monument, a hard-fought win for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer cultural representation and artistic freedom. Still, the victory brings into focus the erasure of transgender and queer activism from the official history of the site designated to honor that legacy.
The settlement resolved a lawsuit brought by Lambda Legal and the Washington Litigation Group on behalf of the Gilbert Baker Foundation, Village Preservation, and Equality New York, after the administration removed the flag in February under a Department of Interior memorandum restricting “non-agency flags” at National Park Service sites. In settling, the government capitulated, acknowledging that the pride flag provides essential historical context at Stonewall.
Even so, this confirmation raises an unavoidable question: If the federal government acknowledges that the pride flag belongs at Stonewall because of its historical significance to the LGBTQ+ community, how can it continue to justify the erasure of integral elements of that cultural history from the monument’s own website?
In 2025, the Trump administration removed all references to “transgender” and “queer” from the Stonewall monument’s official National Park Service website, replacing “LGBTQ+” with “LGB.” In the months that followed, it removed dedicated pages for transgender activists Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera; took down the central page of a 15-part video series on the Stonewall riots; and stripped more than 100 queer and transgender stories from Park Service websites.
These deletions followed an executive order by President Trump that directed federal agencies to remove content the administration characterized as promoting “gender ideology,” and a subsequent Office of Personnel Management memo ordering agencies to take down all outward-facing content that inculcates or promotes it. In doing so, the U.S. government erased the very history Stonewall was created to preserve.
When President Obama designated Stonewall a national monument in 2016 under the Antiquities Act, the founding proclamation directed the National Park Service to “interpret the monument’s objects, resources, and values related to the LGBT civil rights movement” — a movement it explicitly identified as belonging to the “lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community.” The Antiquities Act directs the National Park Service to manage the monument in accordance with that proclamation.
The Trump administration’s systematic removal of transgender and queer voices from the monument’s official record directly contradicts it. Challenging the removal of that content, however, presents a different legal terrain than the removal of the pride flag from the monument.
Under the government speech doctrine, federal agencies have broad discretion over content they author on their own websites, making those changes harder to challenge in court. However, a federal judge ruled in May 2025 that taking down third-party authored content from a federal website on viewpoint grounds violates the First Amendment. Some of the materials taken down from Stonewall’s site, including the video series and community stories, may fall into that category.
No legal challenge specifically targeting the Stonewall website changes has been filed, and the legal question remains open. Nevertheless, the Trump administration cannot confirm in a federal proceeding that it must honor LGBTQ+ history at Stonewall and simultaneously claim no obligation to restore the transgender and queer voices removed from the monument’s own official record.
Our organization developed the Artistic Freedom Monitor precisely to track this kind of government intervention. What we have documented reveals a coordinated national effort to restrict LGBTQ+ artistic expression and cultural representation across federal and state institutions.
In 2025, federal actions consistently targeted LGBTQ+ content at cultural institutions, including restricting funding for artistic programming and canceling performances at federally managed arts venues. In 2026, that effort has intensified. In February, Rep. Mary Miller (R-Ill.) introduced a bill to prohibit schools receiving federal funding from using materials referencing gender identity. In January and February, legislatures across at least six states advanced nearly identical bills criminalizing drag performances. And in March, a Tennessee county library board fired its director for refusing to remove books about sexuality and gender identity from the young adult section.
The Stonewall uprising of 1969 was itself a response to this state-sanctioned erasure and violence. The community that fought back then is the same one that organized protests within days of the pride flag’s removal in 2026, filed suit within eight days, and won. That is the Stonewall legacy — not only what happened in 1969, but the refusal, generation after generation, to accept erasure as the final word.
In October 2025, 72 lawmakers demanded the immediate restoration of transgender and queer references to the Stonewall website. While the administration did not respond, last week’s settlement only strengthens the legal validity and urgency of that demand.
Last Monday’s settlement demonstrates that when communities, advocates and legal organizations unite and fight back, the government can be held accountable. It also reveals how much remains unfinished. The Trump administration agreed to restore the pride flag at Stonewall, but it has not reversed the erasure of the public record of the history behind it. The transgender and queer voices, stories and testimonies that document how LGBTQ+ people in this country have fought, survived and built a movement powerful enough to change American law and culture are part of the American story. They belong on the official website of the monument designated to honor them.
The proclamation establishing Stonewall National Monument and the settlement requiring the pride flag’s return both confirm the federal government’s obligation to honor LGBTQ+ history at the site. Now it must prove it.
Sanjay Sethi is co-executive director of Artistic Freedom Initiative, where Skylar Davidson is officer of global policy and advocacy.
Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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