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New York City officials plan to raise a Pride flag at the Stonewall National Monument in Lower Manhattan on Thursday, February 12, following its removal by the Trump administration earlier this week.
The flag was taken down after the Department of the Interior issued a January 21 memorandum that drastically limited the types of flags that could be displayed at National Park Service (NPS) sites. According to the directive, only the U.S. flag, agency flags, and the POW/MIA flag are permitted at parks, with limited exceptions for flags that provide "historical context."
Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal, who is gay, has been vocal about the removal. "They cannot erase our history. Our Pride flag will be raised again," he wrote in a social media post. In an interview Tuesday, he added, "This is not a moment for our community to stand by idly as attempts to undermine our history are put forward by Trump and the federal administration."
The Stonewall National Monument commemorates the June 1969 riots that followed a police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in Greenwich Village. The six days of protests are widely recognized as a pivotal moment in the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement. Former President Barack Obama designated the site as a national monument in 2016.
This is not the first change to the monument under the current administration. In February 2025, the NPS removed references to transgender and queer people from its web page for the Stonewall monument. In June 2025, transgender and progress flags were excluded from the monument's Pride month display.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani expressed outrage over the flag's removal. "New York is the birthplace of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement, and no act of erasure will ever change, or silence, that history," he stated on social media.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York called the removal "deeply outrageous" and predicted, "If there's one thing I know about this latest attempt to rewrite history, stoke division and discrimination, and erase our community pride it's this: that flag will return. New Yorkers will see to it."
The Interior Department defended the action, stating, "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."
The flag removal at Stonewall is part of broader changes to national parks under the Trump administration, including the removal of exhibits on slavery at Philadelphia's Independence National Historical Park in January and plans to reinstate a statue of Confederate general Albert Pike in Washington.
While the Pride flag has been removed from the federal monument, it continues to fly at the privately owned Stonewall Inn and visitor's center.
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