Within hours of taking his oath of office, President Donald Trump issued an executive order requiring US Government offices to stop recognizing transgender identities. The order states:
“It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female. These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.”
After the issuing of this executive order, many government websites including the US Health Department removed mention of transgender people from their websites. This erasure of transgender identities upset many in the LGBTQ community, and tensions reached a peak when on Thursday, February 13, the National Parks Service followed suit and removed the T and Q from LGBTQ on the page for the Stonewall National Monument. The monument pays tribute to the Stonewall Uprising, one of the most important events in the queer rights movement, and an event that was led in large part by transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals. As recently as Wednesday, the page for the Stonewall Monument on the National Parks website read:
“Before the 1960s, almost everything about living openly as a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer (LGBTQ+) person was illegal.”
Now it states,
“Before the 1960s, almost everything about living openly as a lesbian, gay, bisexual (LGB) person was illegal. The Stonewall Uprising on June 28, 1969 is a milestone in the quest for LGB civil rights and provided momentum for a movement.”
Protests marked the weekend in New York’s Grenich Village and Stonewall and NPS signs were vandalized.
