NEW YORK (AP) — The Trump administration said Monday it will continue to fly the rainbow Pride flag from the federal flagpole at Stonewall National Memorial in New York City, reversing course two months after removing the banner from the first national monument commemorating LGBTQ+ history.
The government disclosed the decision in court papers as it agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by historic preservation and advocacy groups who sought to block the demolition on Feb. 9. A judge approved the deal.
The Department of the Interior and the National Park Service “have confirmed their intention to maintain the Pride flag at Stonewall,” lawyers for the government and the groups wrote in a joint court filing.
The flag — one of several Pride banners at the 7.7-acre (3.1-hectare) park — will not be removed, except for “maintenance or other practical purposes,” the filing said.
According to the agreement, within a week, the park management board will hang three flags on the flagpole at the monument. The Pride flag will be placed below the United States flag, following the United States flag code and above the park service flag. Each will measure 3 feet by 5 feet (0.9 meters by 1.5 meters).
The site also features a large Pride flag on a city-controlled flagpole and smaller flags on a fence around the monument, located across from the Stonewall Inn, the gay bar where a 1969 police raid sparked an uprising and helped catalyze the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement. Those flags are not removed.
“We fought the Trump administration and won,” Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal wrote on X. Democrats helped organize a Pride flag rally after the government-mandated banner was removed.
“We, as an LGBTQ community, celebrate the Trump Administration’s legal takedown of its contemptible attempt to erase gay people from American history at Stonewall,” wrote Hoylman-Sigal, the first openly gay person elected to his office.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a Democrat, called the Trump administration’s reversal “a victory for the LGBTQ+ community and for our entire city” and “a reminder that New Yorkers will not let our history be rewritten.”
The Gilbert Baker Foundation, which honors the Pride flag creator who died in 2017, is among the organizations that have sued over its removal.
“Stonewall is hallowed ground in the struggle for LGBTQ+ liberation, and this resolution helps ensure that the Rainbow Flag will continue to fly there, where it belongs,” said organization President Charley Beal.
The Pride flag has become a flashpoint for debate over Republican President Donald Trump’s approach to Stonewall and many other historic properties.
After a years-long campaign by activists who wanted the flag symbolizing LGBTQ+ pride to be flown daily inside the park service-run site, the banner was officially installed in 2022 during Democrat Joe Biden’s term.
At the time, park service officials called it a sign of the government’s commitment to “telling the complex and diverse histories of all Americans.”
When it removed the flag in February, the park service said it was following federal guidelines on its display. A Jan. 21 memorandum largely restricted the agency from displaying the flags of the United States, Department of the Interior and POW/MIA, with exemptions including providing “historical context.”
The park service insists the monument “remains committed to preserving and explaining the history and significance of this site” through exhibits and programs. But LGBTQ+ activists see the flag’s removal as an intentional insult aimed at diminishing a site focused on the fight for their rights and visibility.
Activists Michael Petrelis and Steven Love Menendez, who fought for the park service to fly the Pride flag, said they were satisfied with Monday’s agreement. However, they said they were disappointed that other symbols, such as the even more inclusive Progressive Pride flag, were removed.
“I look forward to the day when the display of the flag can be restored to its original purpose, allowing all iterations of the LGBTQ+ flag to be flown,” Menendez said. “Until then, at least we have the original rainbow flag flying as a beacon of light.”
Democratic President Barack Obama created the Stonewall monument in 2016.
After Trump returned to office last year, he took aim at diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, and many references to transgender people were removed from the Stonewall monument website and materials.
Similarly, the Trump administration has put national parks, museums and landmarks under the messaging microscope, aiming to remove or alter material it deems “divisive or partisan” or “inappropriately disparages Americans.”
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Anthony Izaguirre contributed to this report.