References to transgender people have vanished from the National Park Service’s Stonewall National Monument web pages, reflecting the Trump administration’s policy that the country recognizes only two genders. On Thursday, the words “transgender” and “queer” were removed from the LGBTQ+ acronym on the website, which now reads “LGB” for lesbian, gay, and bisexual. The change follows a series of executive actions by President Donald Trump rolling back transgender rights, including banning trans people from women’s sports, the military, and minors from receiving gender-affirming care.
The introductory text on the monument’s homepage now reads, “Before the 1960s, almost everything about living openly as a lesbian, gay, bisexual (LGB) person was illegal. The Stonewall Uprising on June 28, 1969 is a milestone in the quest for LGB civil rights and provided momentum for a movement.”
On Wednesday, the text read, “Before the 1960s, almost everything about living openly as a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer (LGBTQ+) person was illegal,” according to the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.
Additional changes to the website include the removal of a page listing interpretive flags connected to the LGBTQ+ movement, including the pink, blue, and white flag that represents transgender people, as well as the times when the flags are scheduled to fly in Christopher Park, located in front of the Stonewall Inn.
The removal of transgender references from the website has sparked outrage among New York City’s LGBTQ+ community. The Stonewall National Monument, the National Park Service’s first visitor center dedicated to the gay rights movement, opened in June.
Located next to the historic Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street, the monument commemorates the June 28, 1969, police raid that ignited three days of protests and became the catalyst for the national LGBTQ+ rights movement.
In 2016, President Barack Obama designated the site, including the bar, Christopher Park, and the surrounding streets, as a national monument.
The Stonewall Inn condemned the move as an “attack” and an attempt to erase the community’s hard-fought achievements.
“This decision to erase the word ‘transgender’ is a deliberate attempt to erase our history and marginalize the very people who paved the way for many victories we have achieved as a community,” the bar told The Hill. “It is a direct attack on transgender people, especially transgender women of color, who continue to face violence, discrimination, and erasure at every turn.”
Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal, a member of the LGBTQ+ community, representative of the Stonewall Monument, and author of several LGBTQ+ rights laws, condemned the removal of transgender references from the website.
“The decision by the Trump Administration to strike the word ‘transgender’ from the website for the Stonewall National Monument is one of the darkest moments in American history,” Hoylman-Sigal said.
“The Trump Administration’s decision is an attempt not only to rewrite U.S. history and belies factual evidence, but signals the continued, morally reprehensible effort by the White House to demean, demoralize and discriminate against an entire population of Americans. This decision cannot stand.”
Other policies executed by the Trump administration include barring trans people from identifying how they would choose on documents like passports, investigating schools with gender-neutral bathrooms, criminalizing teacher support for trans students, and mandating federal prison officials to force roughly 1,500 trans women in custody to be housed with men, according to the Times.
According to the Times, the Park Service’s public affairs department said the agency had carried out the actions to abide by Trump’s executive order that was described as “restoring biological truth to the federal government,” as well as a second order signed by the acting secretary of the interior last month.
As of Friday morning, some references to transgender people remained on the website. A biographical page for Sylvia Rivera, a key figure in the LGBTQ+ movement, still described her as a “transgender activist.” Similarly, a page for Marsha P. Johnson, another pivotal figure, referred to her as a “transgender woman of color.”
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