LGBTQ Pride flag removed from NYC Stonewall National Monument after Trump administration directive

Sheetal Banchariya, Josephine Stratman and Thomas Tracy, New York Daily News on Feb 10, 2026

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NEW YORK — A rainbow pride flag has been removed from the Stonewall National Monument in Greenwich Village because of a directive from the Trump administration — outraging LGBTQ New Yorkers and local elected officials who feel the move will “erase our history.”

Apparently following orders from a Jan. 21 memo from the U.S. Department of the Interior, the large pride flag was removed from the monument in Christopher Park near the Stonewall Inn over the weekend, according to local elected officials.

“It’s an outrage that really strikes at the heart of the LGBTQ community’s human rights movement,” Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal said. “Stonewall is the birthplace of the contemporary human rights movement and to have the federal administration, Donald Trump, remove the pride flag that has been there proudly for decades is an affront to New Yorkers and all Americans who care about human rights.”

The federal memo notes that flagpoles and buildings under the jurisdiction of the U.S. General Services Administration, which the monument is under, “are not intended to serve as a forum for free expression by the public.”

“Only the U.S. flag, flags of the Department of the Interior, and the POW/MIA flag will be flown by the National Parks Service in public spaces where the NPS is responsible for the upkeep, maintenance, and operation of the flag and flagpole,” the memo states.

However, non-agency flags can be flown “for a specific special occasion” or “as an expression of the federal government’s official sentiments,” the memo said.

No flags were flying on the poles at the Stonewall Monument on Tuesday, although several small pride flags were peppered around the park.

The Stonewall National Monument visitor center was open but workers declined to comment on the new directive.

“I was here on the day that we won marriage equality with my husband and my young daughter,” said Hoylman-Sigal as he looked around the park. “So to me, it’s deeply personal as an out LGBTQ elected official, but also as a parent. What lesson are we sending to our young people about their family members, their parents, their friends at school or themselves?”

Hoylman-Sigal said that he and other local, state and federal officials plan to raise the flag back up on Thursday. He noted the Trump administration previously removed references to transgender people from the Stonewall Monument’s government website.

“Part of it is just sheer nonsense,” Hoylman-Sigal said. “He’s not going to keep the LGBT community down by this.”

“Identity is very important and when a message like this comes from Washington that trans youth and queer kids are degraded, I think it could result in enormous harm for those kids, and so I really think this is about standing up for the future of the LGBTQ community, just as those Stonewall veterans back in 1969 did the same,” he added.

Stonewall was designated a national monument by President Barack Obama in 2016. The riot at the Stonewall Inn in 1969 is recognized as the beginning of the LGBTQ movement in the U.S.

“Under government-wide guidance, including General Services Administration policy and Department of the Interior direction, only the US flag and other congressionally or departmentally authorized flags are flown on NPS-managed flagpoles, with limited exceptions,” a spokesperson for the National Park Service told Gay City News, which first reported the story. “Any changes to flag displays are made to ensure consistency with that guidance. Stonewall National Monument continues to preserve and interpret the site’s historic significance through exhibits and programs.”

But Council Speaker Julie Menin said the removal of the pride flag “is a deliberate and cowardly attempt to erase” the history of the LGBTQ movement.

“This is an attack on LGBTQ+ New Yorkers, and we will not stand for it,” she wrote on X. “Our history will not be rewritten, and our rights will not be rolled back.”

Sen. Charles Schumer agreed, saying that the removal of the flag is a “deeply outrageous action that must be reversed right now.”

“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,” he added. “New Yorkers will see to it.”