NEW YORK (AP) — Federal officials have reversed their decision to remove the rainbow Pride flag from New York’s Stonewall National Monument, announcing Monday they will restore the banner following legal pressure from advocacy groups.
The decision comes as the government works to resolve a lawsuit brought by LGBTQ+ organizations and historic preservation advocates who challenged the flag’s removal in February. The settlement still requires judicial approval.
Court documents show the Interior Department and National Park Service “have confirmed their intention to maintain a Pride flag at Stonewall.” The flag will remain in place permanently, only coming down for “maintenance or other practical purposes.”
The settlement requires the Park Service to install three flags within one week on the monument’s flagpole, each measuring three by five feet. The Pride banner will be positioned between the American flag and the Park Service flag.
The rainbow flag had become a source of controversy regarding President Donald Trump’s handling of the Stonewall site — the nation’s first national monument dedicated to LGBTQ+ history — along with other historic properties.
Following years of activist campaigns pushing for daily display of the LGBTQ+ pride symbol at the park service location, officials formally installed the flag in 2022 under Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration.
Park service officials in New York described the display at that time as demonstrating the government’s dedication to “telling the complex and diverse histories of all Americans.”
However, the agency took down the flag in February, citing adherence to federal guidelines governing flag displays. A January 21 park service directive primarily limits the agency to showing U.S., Department of the Interior and POW/MIA flags, though exceptions exist for providing “historical context.”
The park service maintained that the monument “remains committed to preserving and interpreting the history and significance of this site” through various displays and educational programs. LGBTQ+ advocates, however, viewed the flag’s removal as a deliberate insult designed to undermine a location central to their struggle for rights and recognition.
Supporters and several New York Democratic officials quickly appeared with another rainbow flag and — following tense moments when the politicians initially seemed willing to place it on a separate, lower pole — hoisted it alongside the U.S. flag that park service had erected.
Democratic President Barack Obama established the Stonewall monument in 2016. The memorial focuses on a small park situated across from the Stonewall Inn, the gay establishment where a 1969 police raid triggered an uprising that helped launch the contemporary LGBTQ+ rights movement.
Following Trump’s return to office as a Republican last year, he has targeted diversity, equity and inclusion programs and protections for transgender individuals. As one result of his policies, numerous references to transgender people were eliminated from the monument’s website and educational materials.
Trump’s administration has similarly scrutinized national parks, museums and landmarks for messaging, working to remove or modify materials the government considers “divisive or partisan” or that “inappropriately disparage Americans.”
