Activists have defied the Trump administration by reinstalling a Pride flag at the Stonewall National Monument in Manhattan, a landmark widely recognized as the birthplace of the modern LGBTQ rights movement. Just three days after the administration quietly removed the flag, community members gathered at Christopher Park to raise it again. The initial ceremony, led by Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal and State Senator Erik Bottcher, placed the Pride flag on a separate pole, leaving it flying at half-mast. Some activists rejected the compromise.
Jay W Walker and Josh Tjaden took matters into their own hands, reinstalling the Pride flag on its original flagpole. Walker told Gay City News: “Our elected officials, though I love them, brought in their own flagpole and planted it in the ground in front of it, and their plastic pole was lower than that flagpole, so it resulted in our Rainbow Flag being lower than [the American Flag] and not on the actual flagpole…The least we could do is to put our flag higher on this cord than the American Flag.”
The Pride flag was first installed at the monument in 2022 under then-President Joe Biden. Angelica Christina, director of the Stonewall Inn Gives Back Initiative, told Gay City News: “I feel so empowered to say my community showed up en masse…” She added that the community will keep fighting for future generations.
