Outraged LGBTQ+ activists and human rights advocates gathered in Manthattan’s Greenwich Village Friday afternoon to protest in opposition to the Trump administration’s newest — and maybe boldest — assault on the neighborhood.
A day earlier, web customers observed that every one references to the phrases “transgender” and “queer” had been faraway from the Stonewall Nationwide Monument web site, a transfer described by New York State Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal as “one of the darkest moments in American history.”
The anti-LGBTQ transfer — seen as a deliberate try to rewrite historical past whereas additional marginalizing trans individuals — sparked a near-immediate response from members of the neighborhood, who gathered on Friday at Christopher Park, simply throughout from the historic Stonewall Inn, to specific their fury and frustration.
Folks protest the elimination of the phrase “transgender” from the Stonewall Nationwide Monument web site throughout a rally outdoors of The Stonewall Inn on February 14, 2025 in New York Metropolis. (Photograph by Spencer Platt/Getty Photos)
Waving transgender and rainbow Satisfaction flags and indicators that learn “No LGB without the T” and “You can’t spell Stonewall without the T,” politicians, activists and neighborhood members got here collectively to protest in opposition to the change whereas renewing their dedication to struggle in opposition to the present administration’s relentless assault on LGBTQ+ rights.
“It’s just another part of the chaos and cascade of attacks that the queer community is facing under the Trump administration,” Cathy Renna, spokesperson for the Nationwide LGBTQ Process Power, informed ABC7. “I think this one hurts, particularly because this is really, for so many of us, a place where we come when good things happen.”
The Stonewall Inn bar, the primary U.S. nationwide monument devoted to LGBTQ+ historical past, is the place in the summertime of 1969, trans ladies of shade, homeless LGBTQ youth, lesbians, drag queens, homosexual males and their allies rioted, protested, obtained arrested and altered the course of historical past.
As lately as Wednesday, anybody visiting the Nationwide Park Service web page for the Stonewall Nationwide Monument web site would learn the next paragraph:
“Before the 1960s, almost everything about living openly as a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer (LGBTQ+) person was illegal. The Stonewall Uprising on June 28, 1969 is a milestone in the quest for LGBTQ+ civil rights and provided momentum for a movement.”
On Thursday, nonetheless, a chilling modification to the textual content changed “living openly as a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer (LGBTQ+) person” with “living openly as a lesbian, gay, bisexual (LGB) person.”
Folks protest the elimination of the phrase “transgender” from the Stonewall Nationwide Monument web site throughout a rally outdoors of The Stonewall Inn on February 14, 2025 in New York Metropolis. (Photograph by Spencer Platt/Getty Photos)
The change shocked LGBTQ+ activists, who identified the pivotal function transgender ladies — significantly trans ladies of shade— performed within the Stonewall Rebellion.
Folks protest the elimination of the phrase “transgender” from the Stonewall Nationwide Monument web site throughout a rally outdoors of The Stonewall Inn on February 14, 2025 in New York Metropolis. (Photograph by Spencer Platt/Getty Photos)
