As outrage reverberated over the Trump administration’s removal of the Rainbow Flag at the Stonewall National Monument, advocates rallied at Christopher Park on Feb. 10 and elected officials announced plans to re-raise the flag within the week.
The dramatic fallout stemming from the flag’s removal, which was first reported by Gay City News, grew as the day progressed on Feb. 10, with LGBTQ lawmakers and allies blasting the Trump administration and demanding the flag’s restoration after the National Park Service cited recent guidance stipulating that “only the US flag and other congressionally or departmentally authorized flags are flown on NPS-managed flagpoles, with limited exceptions.”
Congressmember Dan Goldman, Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal, State Senators Erik Bottcher and Brian Kavanaugh, and Assemblymembers Deborah Glick and Tony Simone announced plans to raise the flag yet again — regardless of the federal government — at 4 p.m. on Feb. 12.
By 5 p.m. on Feb. 10, advocates assembled in Christopher Park — just steps from the bare flagpole where the Rainbow Flag was removed — with Rainbow Flags and “BRING BACK OUR FLAGS” signs in hand. Lorelei Crean, a trans teenage activist, said at the rally that National Park officials were trying to close the park ahead of the scheduled 5 p.m. closing time, but eventually unlocked the gates in the face of pressure from activists.
“We held the gate open with our bodies,” Crean said, before asking the audience, “Whose park?” Folks quickly responded, “Our park!”
“This is an affront to our community, it is an affront to this park — what this park stands for,” Jay W. Walker, the founder of the Queer Liberation March and president of Gays Against Guns, said. “The fact that this racist, rapist, homophobic, evil man in the White House right now decided to remove this flag is a slap in the face to our community, it is a slap in the face of history.”
Ken Kidd, a local LGBTQ activist, reminded the crowd of the meaning behind each of the colors of Gilbert Baker’s Rainbow Flag and described the flag’s removal as a “crime,” saying it represented “an attempt to assault our community.” Walker said Steven Love Menendez, a caretaker of the flags in the park, had purchased the flag that was removed by the federal government.
Tanya Asapansa-Johnson Walker, a co-founder of New York Transgender Advocacy Group, also conveyed the importance behind the symbolism of the flag.
“When I came out, there was a gay flag. I went running towards that gay flag,” Walker said. “All these other flags came later. There was no Trans Flag, there was no transgender — we were the gay community and we stuck together and fought together for the rights that we have. We have been here since the beginning of time and we’re not goin any f–king where.”
Stacy Lentz, a co-owner of the Stonewall Inn who said she and her business partners worked with the Obama administration to help make the park a National Monument, said the flag’s removal was an attempt to erase the American struggle for LGBTQ rights.
Another speaker, Tabytha Gonzalez of Destination Tomorrow, said the flag’s removal sent a message to “erase the visible, sanitize the struggle, and rewrite the history.”
“But we’re not going to let that happen,” Gonzalez said. “Stonewall does not belong to the federal government. Stonewall does not belong to any administration. Stonewall belongs to the people who fought back and put their lives on the line when the law told them they could not exist.”
Among other speakers included Kei Williams, the executive director of New Pride Agenda, a statewide LGBTQ organization.
“We must stand in solidarity each and every time, each and every moment, as an act of resistance against this administration,” Williams said.
Williams added: “We won’t let them steal our joy. We won’t let them steal our flag. We won’t let them steal our country.”
The National Park Service did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the plan by elected officials to re-raise the flag.
