Pride flag removed from Stonewall monument

Government officials removed a pride flag from New York's Stonewall National Monument, the birthplace of the modern queer rights movement, following federal guidance restricting what flags can be flown in national parks, community leaders say.

The removal comes amid a broader federal effort to scrub LGBTQ+ history from government sites and single out transgender people, raising fears among LGBTQ+ advocates their community faces erasure from public life.

"It's an outrage," says Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal. "But it's an outrage upon another outrage because we know that this administration seems very comfortable in attacking religious, ethnic, and other minorities, including the LGBTQ population."

The Gay City News reported the removal Monday.

NPS tells Axios it followed "government-wide guidance" requiring "only the U.S. flag and other congressionally or departmentally authorized flags" fly on "NPS-managed flagpoles, with limited exceptions."

NPS did not say when the flag had been removed. The Interior Department did not immediately respond to Axios' request for comment.

A January memo includes narrow exemptions for non-agency flags, such as those that "provide historical context" or "are part of historic reenactments."

Hoylman-Sigal says community members will not "sit back idly" and plan on raising the flag again on Thursday.

"If we're barred from raising the flag, then it will be a protest … in the spirit of 1969," when the uprising took place, he says.