Lambda Legal and Washington Litigation group, representing a coalition of LGBTQ advocates, sued the Trump administration on Feb. 17 in response to the White House’s decision to remove the Rainbow Flag from the Stonewall National Monument on Feb. 9.
The advocates, who filed the lawsuit in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, allege that the removal of the flag violated the Administrative Procedures Act — and they’re calling on the National Park Service to officially restore the official National Park Service-sanctioned Rainbow Flag that previously flew on the flagpole at the Stonewall National Monument. Plaintiffs include Equality New York, the Gilbert Baker Foundation, Charles Beal, and Village Preservation. Several New York-based LGBTQ community leaders are named in the suit, including Melissa Sklarz and Tanya Asapansa Walker, who are both members of Equality New York.
“The Pride flag at the Stonewall National Monument honors the history of the fight for LGBTQ+ liberation,” Douglas F. Curtis, chief legal advocacy officer at Lambda Legal, said in a written statement. “It is an integral part of the story this site was created to tell. Its removal continues the Trump administration’s disregard for what the law actually requires in their endless campaign to target our community for erasure and we will not let it stand.”
The lawsuit asks the federal court to “declare that the defendants’ removal of the Pride Flag from the Stonewall National Monument was arbitrary and capricious, and contrary to law,” and to “vacate the decision to remove the official NPS Pride flag from the Stonewall National Monument.”
The plaintiffs listed on the lawsuit are the US Department of the Interior and its secretary, Doug Burgum; the National Park Service and its acting director, Jessica Bowron; and Amy Sebing, the superintendent of Manhattan Sites.
Gay City News was the first to report on the Trump administration’s removal of the Rainbow Flag at the Stonewall National Monument, where it was first installed on the flagpole in 2022 under then-President Joe Biden. The White House’s removal of the flag represented just the latest example of interference with the flagpole since Donald Trump returned to the White House last year. As previously reported by Gay City News, the Trump administration decided last year that it no longer wanted the existing large Rainbow Flag with black and brown stripes and colors of the Trans Flag. Instead, it only allowed the standard Rainbow Flag on the flagpole — until it eventually opted to remove that one, too.
Three days after the flag was removed on Feb. 9, activists and elected officials raised a new Rainbow Flag — which still remains on the flagpole. But the Trump administration still has yet to reverse its decision to remove the flag. Instead, the Department of the Interior told Gay City News the flag-raising ceremony was a “political stunt” and “a distraction” from the city’s “recent deadly failures.”
“The Pride flag is recognized globally as a symbol of hope and liberation for the LGBTQ+ community, whose efforts and resistance define this monument,” said Charles Beal, the president of the Gilbert Baker Foundation. The foundation is named after the individual who created the Rainbow Flag. “Removing it would, in fact, erase its history and the voices Stonewall honors,” Beal added.
Amanda Babine, the executive director of Equality New York, echoed a common phrase voiced throughout the past week by LGBTQ activists: “We will not be erased.”
“The Pride Flag stands for everyone who is a member of the LGBTQ+ community, and those who came before us, fighting for dignity and visibility,” Babine said. “It stands sentry over the birthplace of our modern movement, where LGBTQ+ New Yorkers fought back against injustice. We will not be silent.”
The lawsuit coincided with a separate effort by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Congressmember Dan Goldman to make the Rainbow Flag a congressionally-authorized flag.
