Trump Took Stonewall’s Trans Flags. New Yorkers Brought Their Own.

It is impossible to separate the transgender community from the history of Stonewall, no matter how hard the government may try.

Credit Kevin Kinery

The Trump Administration removed trans flags—as well as flags honoring Black and brown queer communities—from the Stonewall National Monument, but New Yorkers aren’t having it.

As the site of the 1969 Stonewall Uprisings that define the LGBTQ liberation movement as we know it today, the landmark falls under federal jurisdiction. This means when the Trump Administration took the White House, the memorial to queer resistance became subject to the whims of a certain orange demagogue hellbent on the modern-day digital book burning of transgender history and life itself.

Enter Steven Love Menendez, an artist, filmmaker, and LGBTQ activist (or, as his bio now reads on government websites, “LGB activist,” much to his chagrin).

For almost a decade now, he’s celebrated pride in New York City by placing flags around the perimeter. Eventually, the National Parks Service (NPS) took notice and provided him funding for the yearly installation, which involves 250 flags.

As time went on, Menendez included the Progress Pride flag—whose design nods to queer activists of color, as well as those lost to the HIV/AIDS crisis—as well as the trans Pride flag.

But this year, Menendez was told only the “original” Pride flag would be allowed, as per federal regulations imposed by President Trump. This was not only for his installation, but for the nautical flag at the park’s center. Where the gay pride flag and trans pride flag once used to billow side-by-side, only the rainbow remains.

“Excluding the flag is basically excluding trans people,” Menendez told Erin in the Morning. “By having the trans flags, you’re heightening trans visibility. By taking it away and somehow trying to take away trans visibility—I think that's a problem. You're somehow saying there's something wrong with them.”

This comes after the Trump Administration sought to expel any reference to transgender people from all federal resources, as per his January executive orders. As Erin in the Morning previously reported, one glaring example included an informational blurb about Sylvia Rivera, a trans woman of color and street queen who was among the founding mothers of the movement.

“At a young age, Sylvia began fighting for gay and transgender rights,” the original NPS website read. The revised version reads, “gay and rights,” with the word “transgender” removed entirely, rendering the sentence nonsensical.

Nevertheless, however, the trans community has persisted. Menendez says he comes to Stonewall everyday during Pride month to maintain the flag installation—flags may get accidentally knocked down or blown away, which isn’t uncommon. But this year, in defiance of the disappeared trans flags, New Yorkers have been bringing their own, he and other sources said. Those making the pilgrimage to the site have draped the trans flag upon the park’s statues, drawn messages of affirmation in chalk, and placed stickers around the perimeter. “Unauthorized” trans flags have cropped up from the soil through the fence, CBS reported.

When Jay Edidin, a New York-based LGBTQ rights activist heard about the trans flag’s censorship from an article in The Gothamist, he took his own massive trans flag—which had, up until that point, been a window curtain in his home—and stood by the gate for hours to wave the pink, white and blue. He told Erin in the Morning that trans people can’t simply wait around for things to get better or for the government to simply change. Rather, he said, there is something everyone can be doing, and should be doing.

“The government works for us. And if they don't, we do the work ourselves,” Edidin said. “Even these small acts of resistance, I think, mean a lot to people.”

This comes as other direct actions for trans rights have been flaring across the country. In Jacksonville, Florida, community members lit up a bridge rainbow in defiance of Governor Ron DeSantis’s anti-LGBT and anti-Pride initiatives. And this past weekend, nine trans activists were arrested for blocking a roadway at a protest against the recent Skrmetti decision, which could dismantle protections for trans health care access across the country.

Earlier this year, an activist group known as The Transexual Menace staged a day to rally against the trans erasure at Stonewall and the slew of anti-trans policies that have come with it.

“This kind of predictable erasure is as pathetic as it is disgusting,” a Transexual Menace spokesperson told Erin in the Morning in a recent interview.

“It is impossible to separate the transgender community from the history of Stonewall, no matter how hard the government may try. The NYC Transexual Menace will be making peaceful efforts to provide some historical context to the space in the coming days.”