Pride flag removed from iconic LGBTQ monument by Trump administration

The rainbow flag, which once flew over the gay nightclub that sparked the Pride movement in America, has been taken down.

The Trump administration took down the Pride flag at the Stonewall National Monument, in what many see as a symbolic swipe at the country’s first national monument to queer history.

The National Park Service-run site, which centres on a park in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village, is across the street from the Stonewall Inn, the gay bar where a rebellion against a police raid sparked the gay rights movement.

The park service said it was complying with recent guidance that clarified longstanding flag policies and applied them consistently.

But gay rights activist Ann Northrop said the removal was a ‘disgusting slap in the face’ and vowed to rally and raise the flag once again.

The National Park Service prohibits flying ‘non-agency flags and pennants’, with no exception for historical, military or Tribal flags.

‘It’s part of the Trump administration’s attempt to reshape the Park Service in a manner that conforms with his right-wing base of support, excluding minority groups and LGBTQ people,’ Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal told CNN.

‘We’re just going to try to fly it again. It may be taken down. We may be blocked from even doing so; there may be federal officers preventing us, but we certainly are going to try in the spirit of Stonewall,’ he added.

Last February, almost all mentions of trans and queer people were scrubbed clean off a website for the Stonewall National Monument.

The NPS told Metro at the time that it did so to comply with orders from US President Donald Trump that federal agencies only recognise two genders, male and female.

The changes to the monument website followed a push by US President Donald Trump to end initiatives that ‘promote or reflect gender ideology’.

Agency officials were ordered to ‘restore biological truth to the federal government’ by, among other things, removing all public-facing media that promotes trans rights.

Why is Stonewall so important?

The Stonewall riots happened on June 28, 1969, when American police targeted New York City’s Stonewall Inn – as had become a regular occurrence.

It was expected that gay bars would be raided, with the police given the authority to arrest those committing homosexual acts, or demand that people observe a ‘three-piece law.’

This law allowed them to arrest people – usually drag queens and kings, trans women and trans men – who were wearing more than three articles of clothing not ascribed to their gender assigned at birth.

But this time their behaviour sparked a backlash which sent shockwaves around the world.

Considering the raid the final straw, the gay community rose in defiance – and the events of the next three nights came to be known as the Stonewall Riots.

Black drag queen Marsha Johnson helped spearhead the uprising, which came to be a key moment in the fight for gay rights.

From there, the momentum behind the Pride movement snowballed through to the mainstream, commercialised entity it is today.

1972 saw Britain’s first Pride demonstration, attended by around 700 marchers, and the establishment of Britain’s earliest gay newspaper, Gay News.

A first gay rights conference followed a year later, before the party that became the Lib Dems led the way in backing LGBT rights in 1975.

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