The Trump administration has been juggling many tasks lately, from keeping up with war developments to maintaining robust PR for the president. The days have been busy and packed.
Amid the recent controversies, the administration announced Monday that it will restore the rainbow Pride flag at Stonewall National Monument in New York City, reversing a decision made just two months earlier to remove it from the landmark honoring LGBTQ+ history.
According to the Strait Times, the move was confirmed in a joint court filing on April 13 as part of a legal settlement with advocacy and historic preservation groups that challenged the flag’s removal on February 9. A judge has since approved the agreement, and several media outlets immediately covered it.
According to The Guardian, in February, the Trump administration issued orders to remove the rainbow flag from the monument, which was a move critics said was aimed at rolling back diversity initiatives across the country. The Interior Department and National Park Service “have confirmed their intention to maintain a Pride flag at Stonewall,” the group wrote in the joint filing.
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Under the latest agreement, three flags will be raised on the monument’s main flagpole within a week: the U.S. flag at the top, the Pride flag below it, according to federal flag code, and the National Park Service flag at the bottom. Each flag will measure 3-by-5 foot.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has always condemned Donald Trump’s gender policies and several other executive orders, also applauded the change and called it “a victory for the LGBTQ+ community and for our entire city” and “a reminder that New Yorkers won’t let our history be rewritten.”
“We fought the Trump administration and won,” said Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal on X. According to The Associated Press, several other prominent political figures and LGBTQ+ activists have also commented on the change via social media.
Located across from the historic Stonewall Inn, the monument marks the June 1969 uprising that helped start the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement. Today, NYC has an estimated 756,000 LGBTQ residents. The city has generally supported LGBTQ rights.
This is a victory for the LGBTQ+ community and for our entire city. It’s a reminder that New Yorkers won’t let our history be rewritten.
Our administration will keep working to ensure LGBTQ+ New Yorkers can live safely and with dignity in our city. https://t.co/KKfZQtXvum
— Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@NYCMayor) April 13, 2026
The first act of rebellion began when riots in Greenwich Village, stemming from a chaotic police raid at the Stonewall Inn, often visited by queer folks, sparked a protest movement that lasted several days
Barack Obama declared the site a historic monument in 2016, after which the then-Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke approved the flagpole. In June 2022, under Joe Biden’s leadership, the Pride flag was officially raised on federal land at the start of Pride Month.
However, after Donald Trump’s return to office in 2024, his administration removed references to transgender people from the monument’s National Park Service website.
Stacy Lentz, the co-owner of the Stonewall Inn, had strongly slammed the decision and questioned the credibility of the government.“Awful attack on the park”. “We can’t trust the government with our history or with our stories,” she said.
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In January 2025, in his inaugural address, Donald Trump touched upon the topic of gender identity, claiming that the U.S. will aim to recognize only two genders—male and female.
The 79-year old also emphasized his intention to continue standing against the rights of the LGBTQ community, adding that he aims to put an end to what he referred to as “gender madness.”
