National monument commemorates 1969 riot led by trans women of color outside historic New York City bar. The National Park Service eliminated all references to transgender people from its website for the Stonewall national monument on Thursday. The monument commemorates a 1969 riot outside New York City’s historic Stonewall Inn, led by trans women of color, that ignited the contemporary gay rights movement.
The move comes as federal agencies across the country seek to comply with an executive order Donald Trump signed on his first day in office, calling for the US government to define sex as only male or female. “This blatant act of erasure not only distorts the truth of our history, but it also dishonors the immense contributions of transgender individuals – especially transgender women of color – who were at the forefront of the Stonewall Riots and the broader fight for LGBTQ+ rights,” organizers at the Stonewall Inn and the non-profit Stonewall Inn Gives Back Initiative said in a statement.
Since Trump returned to office last month, he has signed a series of executive orders targeting trans Americans, including by banning trans athletes from women’s sports, restricting healthcare for trans youth and transferring incarcerated trans women to men’s facilities; a US judge, however, temporarily blocked federal prisons from implementing the order to move trans people. Many of the orders have been framed as “defending women”.
The Stonewall national monument, located in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village, has become a symbol of the LGBTQ+ rights movement. One June night in 1969, LGBTQ+ patrons of the historic gay bar resisted a police raid. Although recollections of the night vary, by many accounts a Black trans woman named Marsha P Johnson “threw the first brick”. During the George Floyd uprisings in June of 2020, a march for Black trans lives began at the Stonewall Inn. It was followed by the largest-ever march for Black trans lives in Brooklyn later that month.
Barack Obama designated the site as a national monument in 2016. Earlier this week, the homepage for the monument said: “Before the 1960s, almost everything about living openly as a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer (LGBTQ+) person was illegal.”. On Thursday, it said: “Before the 1960s, almost everything about living openly as a lesbian, gay, bisexual (LGB) person was illegal.”. Sign up to Headlines US.
