2,044 events on record Subscribe September 10, 2026
Standing Record home The Standing Record A non-partisan record of US democratic norms —
and the events that erode them.

National Park Service removed the Pride flag from Stonewall National Monument, the birthplace of the modern LGBTQ rights movement

On February 10, 2026, the National Park Service quietly removed the Pride flag — which had flown for years at the Stonewall National Monument in Manhattan and includes colors representing the transgender community — citing a Department of the Interior directive limiting NPS flagpoles to the U.S. flag and other "congressionally or departmentally authorized" flags. A coalition of LGBTQ+ nonprofits sued a week later, arguing NPS's own policy exempts flags that provide historical context — the same exception that allows Confederate flags at sites like Gettysburg — and the Trump administration settled on April 13, 2026, agreeing to restore the flag permanently within seven days.

Jurisdiction
Federal
Location
New York, New York

Abuses documented

Actors

On February 10, 2026, the National Park Service removed the Pride flag from a flagpole at the Stonewall National Monument in Manhattan's Greenwich Village — the first national monument the federal government designated to LGBTQ+ rights history, honoring the 1969 uprising at the Stonewall Inn against a police raid. The flag, which includes colors representing the transgender community, had flown at the site for years. NPS cited a January memorandum from acting Director Jessica Bowron, issued under a Department of the Interior directive, that restricts NPS flagpoles to the U.S. flag, the Interior Department's flag, and the Prisoners of War flag. The Interior Department told CNN the change was made "to ensure consistency with federal guidance and applicable executive order." Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal and other local leaders, including New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, condemned the removal, and Stonewall Inn co-owner Stacy Lentz said the flag "is not partisan it is historical."

Updates

2026-02-17 — Nonprofits sued NPS over the flag's removal [1]

On February 17, 2026, the Gilbert Baker Foundation, Village Preservation, and Equality New York, represented by Lambda Legal and the Washington Litigation Group, sued the administration in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The complaint argued that NPS and Interior Department policy exempts flags providing "historical context" — the same exception that allows Confederate flags to fly at sites such as Gettysburg National Military Park — and that removing the Pride flag on that basis was "capricious" and violated the Administrative Procedure Act.

2026-04-13 — NPS settled, agreed to restore the flag permanently [3, 4]

On April 13, 2026, the administration reached a court-enforceable settlement, agreeing to rehang the Pride flag on the monument's official flagpole within seven days and maintain it permanently. The settlement confirmed the Pride flag falls within NPS and Interior Department policy, vindicating the plaintiffs' central argument, and the court retained jurisdiction to enforce the agreement.

Why we recorded this

Stonewall is the first national monument the federal government ever designated to LGBTQ+ history, and the Pride flag flying there documents that history rather than expressing a partisan position, the same historical-context exception that lets Confederate flags fly at Gettysburg. NPS removed it anyway, citing a policy its own text does not support, as part of what the lawsuit called a "wider campaign...to target the LGBTQ+ community for discrimination and opprobrium." A federal site cannot selectively invoke a historical-context exception for one history and deny it to another. This archive records the removal because it targeted a specific community's history for erasure using a policy pretext that did not hold up.

Sources

  1. 'No Careless Mistake': Trump Admin Sued Over Removing Stonewall Pride Flag — HuffPost primary accessed August 14, 2026
  2. Trump admin removes Pride flag from Stonewall National Monument — CNN investigative accessed August 14, 2026
  3. Trump administration settles suit, returns Pride flag to NYC Stonewall monument — Courthouse News Service investigative accessed August 14, 2026
  4. VICTORY: Trump Administration Agrees to Restore Pride Flag at Stonewall National Monument — Lambda Legal primary accessed August 14, 2026

See also