By Jonathan Allen
NEW YORK, Feb 10 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has removed a large rainbow Pride flag that flew over the Stonewall National Monument, which marks the birthplace of the modern gay rights movement in New York City.
The National Park Service, the federal agency overseeing U.S. national monuments, said that it managed the flagpole at the monument and that the flag had been removed to ensure a "longstanding policy" was applied consistently across its sites.
But some elected officials in New York said the flag's removal from the Greenwich Village monument in downtown Manhattan was part of efforts by Trump, a Republican, to limit the rights of gay and transgender people.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a Democrat, said he was outraged and called it an "act of erasure." Some officials have said they intend to raise another Pride flag on the now bare flagpole before the week is out.
The Park Service referred to guidance issued in 2023 that government-managed flagpoles are not "a forum for free expression by the public," and that flags besides the U.S. flag may be flown that are "an expression of the Federal Government's official sentiments." The policy allows flags that provide historical context or are part of a "living history" program.
"Any changes to flag displays are made to ensure consistency with that guidance," the agency said in a statement.
The agency circulated a memorandum repeating the guidance to regional directors and superintendents last month.
The flagpole and monument are in Christopher Park, marking where gay, lesbian and transgender New Yorkers rioted and protested in response to a late-night police raid of the Stonewall Inn in 1969, a time when such raids of gay bars were commonplace. The Stonewall uprising was a watershed moment in the gay rights movement.
The site was designated a U.S. national monument in 2016 by then President Barack Obama, a Democrat, at an intersection that remains a bustling center of LGBT nightlife.
Trump and other Republican politicians have sought to curtail LGBT rights, especially those of transgender people. Trump has ordered his agencies to adopt a policy that there are two immutable sexes, and every mention of "LGBT" on the Stonewall monument's official website has been replaced with "LGB".
The flag was removed either Sunday night or early Monday morning, Gay City News reported on Monday.
Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal said the removal was "a deliberate attack on the LGBTQ community."
The National Park Service did not respond to questions about what it would do if New Yorkers raised another rainbow flag over the monument, as Hoylman-Sigal and others have said they intend to do on Thursday.
"We think that the worst outcome would be arrest, but that's in the spirit of Stonewall itself," Hoylman-Sigal said. "The movement was founded on rebellion against authorities."
(Reporting by Jonathan Allen; Additional reporting by Christine Kiernan and Soren Larson; Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)
