The removal of a rainbow flag from the US’s most prominent gay monument has sparked protests and condemnation, with critics calling it an act of erasure.
NEW YORK: The removal of a large LGBTQ rainbow pride flag from the Stonewall National Monument has sparked outrage and a noisy protest.
The action followed a January 21 memo from the federally run National Park Service, which banned flying flags other than the US national banner and the Department of the Interior’s colors.
About 100 demonstrators, many draped in LGBTQ flags, gathered in a park opposite the monument in downtown Manhattan. Attendees decried the move as a “slap in the face” for the community.
New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani said he was “outraged” by 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 wrote on X.
The monument memorializes the 1969 Stonewall Uprising, when LGBTQ New Yorkers rose up against discriminatory policies. A police raid of a gay bar ignited six days of rioting that birthed the modern US gay rights movement.
Trans community organizer Jade Runk, 37, used cable ties to fasten LGBTQ flags to railings in Christopher Park. “To have somebody take down something that is so meaningful to us… is basically a slap in the face,” Runk said.
“It’s a message saying ‘we don’t want you to exist’.”
The area around the monument, including the adjacent Stonewall Inn, remains adorned with many bright LGBTQ and trans community flags. New York state Governor Kathy Hochul said she would “not let this administration roll back the rights we fought so hard for.”
The National Park Service did not respond to a request for comment. LGBTQ campaign group GLAAD said attempts to censor visibility are tactics “we will continue to defeat.”
Gay history archivist Alec Douglas, 29, said “we’ve seen this movie before.” “It’s just unconscionable behavior from an autocratic government to erase a minority,” said Douglas, holding a historic rainbow flag.
Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal told local media he would reraise the flag at the site on Thursday. One protester angrily shouted “Let’s do it now. What are we waiting for?”