Mamdani, Schumer & NYC Council demand National Park Service return Pride flag to Stonewall National Monument

The New York City Council on Tuesday pressed the National Park Service to restore the Pride flag at the Stonewall National Monument, escalating a dispute that has turned one of the most hallowed sites in LGBTQ+ history into a fresh battleground with the Trump administration.

In a letter led by Council Speaker Julie Menin and sent to federal officials, council members argued that removing the flag from the monument’s Christopher Park grounds strips the site of a symbol inseparable from its meaning. Stonewall, they wrote, is not an abstract lesson in civics but the place where, in 1969, queer New Yorkers fought back against a police raid and helped ignite the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement.

“The events that took place there catalyzed a global movement for dignity, equality, and freedom — guiding principles upon which our nation was founded. The Pride flag has long flown as a symbol of that struggle and of the resilience of a community that continues to fight for its basic rights,” the letter reads.

Across the street from the federally managed monument, the privately owned Stonewall Inn continues to fly Pride flags. Local organizers have announced a protest for Tuesday evening at 5 p.m. at the monument around Christopher Park, where Stonewall’s history has always been contested and claimed.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani added to the growing chorus of condemnation, calling the flag’s removal an attempt to erase history. “I am outraged by the removal of the Rainbow Pride Flag from Stonewall National Monument,” Mamdani said in a statement. “New York is the birthplace of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement, and no act of erasure will ever change, or silence, that history.”

He added, “Our city has a duty not just to honor this legacy, but to live up to it. I will always fight for a New York City that invests in our LGBTQ+ community, defends their dignity, and protects every one of our neighbors—without exception.”

U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate minority leader who represents New York, said the decision must be reversed immediately.

“The removal of the Pride Rainbow Flag from the Stonewall National Monument is a deeply outrageous action that must be reversed right now,” Schumer said in a statement to The Advocate. “Stonewall is a landmark because it is the birthplace of the modern LGBTQ rights movement, and symbols of that legacy belong there by both history and principle. New Yorkers are right to be outraged, but if there’s one thing I know about this latest attempt to rewrite history, stoke division and discrimination, and erase our community pride it’s this: that flag will return. New Yorkers will see to it.”

Rep. Mark Takano of California, chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus, said the move reflects a broader political agenda. “Removing Pride flags from a place that is so deeply connected to our fight for equality is about more than the flag itself—it is a symptom of the Trump Administration’s larger priority of ending all support for the LGBTQI+ community and attacking our rights wherever possible,” Takano said. “This isn’t the first time the Stonewall National Monument has been censored by the Trump Administration, and it is another example of how this Administration would rather devote their time and energy to erasing every example of support for the LGBTQI+ community instead of addressing the problems impacting Americans daily. They can take down our flag, but they can’t erase our community’s commitment to the fight for equality—or the message of the Stonewall Uprising.”

The Trump administration, through the Department of the Interior, has said the decision reflects long-standing rules governing which flags may fly on National Park Service flagpoles.

In a statement previously provided to The Advocate, the office of Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said that under government-wide guidance, “only the U.S. flag and other congressionally or departmentally authorized flags are flown on NPS-managed flagpoles, with limited exceptions,” and that any changes are made to ensure consistency with that policy. The department added that Stonewall’s history would continue to be preserved and interpreted through exhibits and programs.

To city leaders and LGBTQ+ advocates, that distinction misses the point. At Stonewall, they argue, the flag is not a decoration but part of the site’s living language and a visible marker of the community whose resistance made the place historic in the first place.

The letter builds on backlash from New York officials and national advocacy groups, including the National LGBTQ Task Force, Human Rights Campaign, and GLAAD, which have described the removal as part of a broader effort to narrow how LGBTQ+ history is presented on federal land.

That concern is not abstract. Last year, the National Park Service quietly removed references to transgender and queer people from the monument’s federal website, replacing “LGBTQ+” with “LGB,” a change that prompted protests and condemnation from activists and Democratic lawmakers. Bisexual advocates have also criticized the site’s official materials for omitting bi and pansexual identities from the story of the uprising. Each revision, critics say, has made Stonewall’s history a little smaller, a little easier to contain.

Those changes followed a March 2025 executive order by President Donald Trump titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” which directs federal agencies to review monuments, memorials, and exhibits to remove what the administration calls “improper ideology” and to emphasize a more “patriotic” account of the past. Supporters describe the order as a corrective. Opponents see it as an invitation to sand down the edges of history, especially where race, gender, and sexuality are concerned.