#Pride Flag Is Removed From #Stonewall Monument After #Trump Directive

The flag’s removal came weeks after the Dept of the Interior issued federal guidance on displaying “non-agency” flags in the National Park System, which includes a small park in front of the #Stonewall Inn, the bar for which the federal monument is named.

Elected officials & bar employees said they realized the rainbow flag was gone on Monday morning. On Tuesday, a bare flagpole stood on the monument’s grounds as steely clouds hung overhead.

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Stacy Lentz, an owner of the bar, said its owners were surprised by the removal, since a year has passed since the #Trump admin removed references to #transgender people from the monument’s website & other materials.
“To think you can go to #Stonewall & just take down the #Pride flag—that is telling of the time we are living in. It is unbelievable. The flag is not just an abstract symbol; it tells #LGBTQ people, especially younger ones, that their history will not be sidelined again,” Lentz said

In response to questions about the flag’s removal, the National Park Service on Tuesday pointed to that memo, saying in a statement that “only the U.S. flag & other congressionally or departmentally authorized flags are flown on N.P.S.-managed flagpoles, with limited exceptions.”

More than 100 people rallied outside the #Stonewall Inn late Tuesday afternoon to protest the flag’s removal.

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“Government institutions have not always been reliable narrators of #history, & that isn’t an accusation, it’s a historical fact,” she said. “The concern isn’t about the symbolism of the flag necessarily; it’s about what decisions are being made when the narrative isn’t controlled by the people who have lived that history.”

On Tuesday, Mayor #ZohranMamdani said he was “outraged” by the flag’s removal.

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#Stonewall is the first historic site in the #US dedicated to the nation’s #LGBTQrights movement. The Stonewall Inn, on Christopher Street, has long been seen as a cradle of the movement after a police raid there in June 1969 set off 3 days of protests & riots in the surrounding streets.

Since then, the site has become well known on a global scale, & #LGBTQ events & organizations in several countries, including Britain, Australia & Germany, have been named in its honor.

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The original #Pride flag debuted in 1978, according to the Park Service website, with each of the 8 colors symbolizing an aspect of the #LGBTQ community’s experience.

In 2016, President Barack #Obama designated the 7.7-acre site a national monument, encompassing the #Stonewall Inn, Christopher Park & several nearby streets & sidewalks. Parts of the site are also designated as a city landmark & a state historical site.

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Brad Hoylman-Sigal, the #Manhattan borough president, said on Tuesday, “The meanspiritedness of the #Trump administration seems to know no bounds. But we as a community are not going to take it standing by idly as our #history, & by extension our #HumanRights, are attempted to be erased.”

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Hoylman-Sigal said he & other local reps were planning to raise the flag at the monument again at a #demonstration Thurs. To allow the #Pride flag to remain absent would be to “let down generations of queer activists,” he said.

Jay Walker, one of the organizers of the rally Tuesday, told the crowd the land outside the #Stonewall Inn was hallowed ground for the #LGBTQ community, no matter which level of govt controlled it.

“This park, regardless of its designation, belongs to us,” he said.