National Park Service removes transgender references from Stonewall monument website

The National Park Service (NPS) updated its website Thursday to remove references to transgenderism on the Stonewall National Monument landing page.

“Before the 1960s, almost everything about living openly as a lesbian, gay, bisexual (LGB) person was illegal,” the monument’s landing page now says. “The Stonewall Uprising on June 28, 1969, is a milestone in the quest for LGB civil rights and provided momentum for a movement.”

However, before the Trump administration changed it, that paragraph included the words “transgender” and “queer” after bisexual and used the term “LGBTQ+” instead of LGB.  

Stacy Lentz, co-owner of the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar raided by police in 1969, leading to the uprising, expressed anger at the change. 

“This feels especially personal … when you’re coming into the birthplace of the LGBTQ rights movement – where Pride began – and erasing the history of the LGBTQ rights movement by erasing trans folks,” Lentz told CNN.  

Some of the more prominent Stonewall rioters, including Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, were transgender-identifying males. 

The move comes after Trump signed an executive order last month declaring that his administration would recognize the existence of two genders determined at birth: male and female.  

“Efforts to eradicate the biological reality of sex fundamentally attack women by depriving them of their dignity, safety, and well-being,” the decree says. “The erasure of sex in language and policy has a corrosive impact not just on women but on the validity of the entire American system.   

“Basing Federal policy on truth is critical to scientific inquiry, public safety, morale, and trust in government itself,” it adds. 

Since Trump signed the EO, government agencies have eliminated the use of LGBTQ+ and replaced it with LGB, including the State Department and Centers for Disease Control. 

The Stonewall Monument, designated by the NPS in 2016, commemorates the riots that followed the police raid of the New York City gay bar. Activists protested for days, assaulting police officers, setting fires, destroying private property, flipping over cars and resisting arrests.