Upon his return to the White House, Donald Trump has targeted transgender and nonbinary people with a string of executive orders, rolling back Biden-era protections for these groups and asserting scientifically discredited essentialist definitions of gender onto everything from travel documents to women’s sports.
Last Thursday, February 13, these attempts to publicly erase transgender and nonbinary individuals reached New York City’s Stonewall National Monument, where the National Park Service (NPS) scrubbed any and all references to transgender and queer people from its website describing the historic 1969 uprising — including the “T” and “Q” in the LGBTQ+ initialism.
The website changes drew immediate outrage from queer rights activists and groups including Advocates for Trans Equality, ACT UP, and Human Rights Campaign, who subsequently rallied at the monument to protest the act. They covered the site with Transgender Pride flags and signs calling attention to trans and gender-nonconforming civil rights activists such as Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, who were at the forefront of the 1969 uprising.
“Through the 1960s almost everything about living openly as a lesbian, gay, bisexual (LGB) person was a violation of law, rule, or policy,” a description for the Stonewall monument now read on the NPS website, notably omitting any reference to trans individuals. Additionally, a link to a 15-part educational video series about the rebellion no longer works.
While the NPS is a federal bureau within the Department of Interior, it is unclear whether the agency made the website changes in response to a specific Trump order. NPS has not yet responded to Hyperallergic’s press inquiry.
Located on Christopher Street in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village, Stonewall became the first national monument to commemorate the LGBTQ+ rights movement in June 2016 after receiving a formal designation from then-President Barack Obama. It encompasses the Stonewall Inn itself, the surrounding streets where the famous uprising took place, and the adjacent Christopher Park, which is home to artist George Segal’s “Gay Liberation” (1992) sculpture. Last year, a corresponding visitor center opened at 51 Christopher Street, becoming the first LGBTQ+ visitor center in the National Park System; its inauguration was marked by a banner protest for Gaza at the nearby AIDS Memorial.
In a joint statement posted to Instagram, the Stonewall Inn and the Stonewall Inn Gives Back Initiative said they were “outraged and appalled” by the NPS changes and demanded an “immediate restoration” of the word “transgender” to the monument’s website description.
“This blatant act of erasure not only distorts the truth of our history, but it also dishonors the immense contributions of transgender individuals — especially transgender women of color — who were at the forefront of the Stonewall Riots and the broader fight for LGBTQ+ rights,” the statement read, citing the efforts of “countless … trans and gender-nonconforming individuals” that helped form the basis of the modern LGTBQ+ rights movement.
“This decision to erase the word ‘transgender’ is a deliberate attempt to erase our history and marginalize the very people who paved the way for many victories we have achieved as a community,” the statement continued.
