LGBTQ+ Community & Allies Furious After Stonewall Monument Pride Flag Removed
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Community members, LGBTQIA+ advocates and elected officials have gathered in protest after a Pride flag was removed from the Stonewall National Monument following new directives issued under the administration of Donald Trump.
The flag, which had been flying near the monument in Greenwich Village, was taken down by the National Park Service earlier this week. The agency confirmed the removal was in line with updated federal guidance, limiting the types of flags permitted on government-managed flagpoles to the United States flag, the Department of the Interior flag, and the POW/MIA (Prisoner of War/Missing in Action) flag.
Stonewall National Monument commemorates the 1969 Stonewall uprising, widely recognised as a catalyst for the modern LGBTQIA+ rights movement in the United States. The removal of the Pride flag prompted immediate backlash from community members, who say the symbol is inseparable from the site’s history and meaning.
Protests quickly formed outside the monument, with demonstrators holding rainbow flags, signs and placards calling for the Pride flag’s reinstatement.
Chants echoed through Christopher Park as organisers framed the move as part of a broader pattern of decisions affecting LGBTQIA+ visibility under the current administration.
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LGBTQ+ advocates & politicians condemn removal of Stonewall flag
Newly appointed New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani criticised the removal, saying it sent a message of erasure.
“I am outraged by the removal of the Rainbow Pride Flag from Stonewall National Monument,” Mamdani said in a statement. “New York is the birthplace of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement, and no act of erasure will ever change, or silence, that history.”
“Our city has a duty not just to honour this legacy, but to live up to it. I will always fight for a New York City that invests in our LGBTQ+ community, defends their dignity, and protects every one of our neighbours — without exception.”
Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman‑Sigal, the first openly gay person to hold the role, also condemned the move, describing it as an affront to decades of LGBTQIA+ activism and visibility, telling local media he would re-raise the flag later in the week.
“The removal of the Pride Rainbow Flag from the Stonewall National Monument is a deeply outrageous action that must be reversed right now,” Senator Chuck Schumer – who is the Democratic Senate minority leader representing New York — told The Advocate. “Stonewall is a landmark because it is the birthplace of the modern LGBTQ rights movement, and symbols of that legacy belong there by both history and principle. New Yorkers are right to be outraged, but 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.”
Council Speaker Julie Menin sent a letter to federal officials, demanding the flag be returned to the Stonewall monument.
“Stonewall is a sacred ground in the history of civil rights in our country,” write Menin in her letter. “The events that took place there catalysed a global movement for dignity, equality, and freedom — guiding principles upon which our nation was founded. The Pride flag has long flown as a symbol of that struggle and of the resilience of a community that continues to fight for its basic rights.”
GLAAD said in a statement that, “attempts to censor and diminish visibility are tactics that LGBTQ Americans overcame decades ago, and we will continue to defeat.”
The National Park Service has maintained that the decision was administrative, referring to guidance issued in 2023 that government flagpoles are not “a forum for free expression by the public,” and that, apart from the American flag, flags may be flown that are “an expression of the Federal Government’s official sentiments.”
The current administration has made its anti-LGBTQIA+, and in particular, anti-transgender, sentiments well known since Trump entered the White House for his second term. There has been an enormous surge of anti-LGBTQIA+ legislation, with the ACLU tracking a whopping 616 anti-LGBTQIA+ bills in 2025 alone.
Despite the removal from the official flagpole, Pride flags remain visible throughout the area, with protesters attaching them to fences, clothing and nearby structures.
Organisers say further demonstrations are planned in the coming days.
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