After Trans People, Trump Now Erasing Bisexual People From Stonewall National Monument

Read more at Erin in the Morning.

Earlier this year, the Trump administration digitally erased transgender people from the Stonewall National Monument, scrubbing them from the history they helped shape. The decision sparked widespread protests at the civil rights landmark and raised alarm about broader efforts to censor transgender people from the public record. Now, new signs suggest the administration has set its sights on another target: bisexual people. Key historical and cultural pages associated with the Stonewall site have been updated to describe the uprising as a milestone for “gay and lesbian rights,” quietly removing any mention of bisexual or transgender individuals.

Signs that the pages dedicated to Stonewall were being tampered with emerged early in Trump’s second presidency. Before the first update, the Stonewall National Monument page acknowledged that “before the 1960s, almost everything about living openly as a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer (LGBTQ+) person was illegal.” The revised version then stated, “almost everything about living openly as a lesbian, gay, bisexual (LGB) person was illegal.” Now, a new version of the page indicates that “Before the 1960s, almost everything about living authentically as a gay or lesbian person was illegal.”

You can see the changes here:

The changes were not limited to the front page. In the “History and Culture” section, the page once indicated “Stonewall was a milestone for LGBTQ civil rights that provided momentum for a movement.” Then it was changed to “Stonewall was a milestone for LGB civil rights that provided momentum for a movement” by the Trump administration. Now, the page says that it was a milestone for “gay and lesbian” civil rights. Likewise, the page now reads that living “openly as a member of the Stonewall comunity |SIC| was a violation of law,” rather than living as an openly LGBTQ+ person, as it had previously read.

The erasure is historically inaccurate. Stonewall was heavily led by transgender and gender-nonconforming leaders like Sylvia Rivera, Marsha P Johnson, and Zazu Nova. At Stonewall, Sylvia Rivera famously stated that while she did not “throw the first Molotov cocktail,” she did throw the second. Transgender woman Zazu Nova is among those credited with “throwing the first brick,” sparking the uprising. Marsha P. Johnson, another key figure in the protests that followed, played a critical role in shaping the movement.

Likewise, bisexual people played a pivotal role in the Pride movement that emerged from Stonewall. Brenda Howard, a bisexual rights activist often referred to as “the mother of Pride,” helped organize the rally that became the Christopher Street Liberation Day March on the first anniversary of the uprising. Both transgender and bisexual people have long viewed Stonewall as a civil rights milestone—and for good reason. Living openly as either in the 1960s carried enormous risk, and both communities were targeted in the police raid that sparked the movement.

These edits were not the only ones made to Stonewall since Trump took office. Individual pages dedicated to transgender figures instrumental in the Stonewall uprising were also altered to erase transgender references. The changes were often sloppy and rushed, revealing the haphazard nature of the effort. In one glaring example, Sylvia Rivera’s section originally stated, “At a young age, Sylvia began fighting for gay and transgender rights.” The revised version read, “gay and rights,” with the word “transgender” removed entirely, rendering the sentence nonsensical:

Bisexual, transgender, and queer people were at the forefront of the Stonewall movement. Though the language was still evolving, many of the patrons defied conventional categories of gender and sexuality, refusing to be neatly classified. Erasing them from Stonewall is not only historically false—it is a deliberate act of political revisionism. The recent removal of “bisexual” from official Pride histories is a warning: attacks on transgender people will never stop with us. They are part of a broader effort to narrow the scope of who is allowed to belong, to be seen, and even to be remembered.

NYC’s Stonewall monument excludes trans flags this year, but activists are defying the ban

*This is reported on LGBTQ Nation.

For the past nine years, the transgender flag was included among those that flew around the Stonewall National Monument in Christopher Park during Pride Month. However, the National Park Service(NPS) will no longer be displaying the Transgender Pride flag or the Progress Pride flag, stating a change of protocol as the reason.

The New York City monument commemorating the Stonewall Uprising of 1969 is the first U.S. National Monument dedicated to LGBTQ+ rights, having been designated as such in 2016 by then-President Barack Obama. It has since become tradition for the monument, located in a park across the street from the Stonewall Inn, to be adorned with various Pride flags, including the trans flag. NPS funds the installation of these flags. This year, however, NPS told photographer, advocate, and installation creator Steven Love Mendez that the park will not allow Trans or Progress Pride flags this year.

The censorious move comes after the Trump administration wiped all references to trans and nonbinary people from the monument’s website in February, as part of his wider initiative to purge trans and nonbinary people from all references and resources provided by the federal government. The removal of trans people from a monument in which a transgender person was considered a key figure has led to outrage, with many coming to the monument to protest.

Speaking to CBS, Mendez comments, “It’s a terrible action for them to take.” he continues, “I used to be listed as an LGBTQ activist, and now it says ‘Steven Menendez, LGB activist,’” Menendez said. “They took out the Q and the T.”

The trans-exclusionary initialism of “LGB” is sometimes used by transphobes to encourage a social and ideological split between gay, lesbian, and bisexual people and transgender people, based on their differing gender experiences.

Upon learning of the monument’s trans erasure, many New Yorkers and tourists came to the monument to set up unauthorized pride flags in protest, including smaller trans flags planted in the soil.

Jay Edinin of Queens, New York, was one of the people who brought his own flag and told CBS, “I’m not going to stand by and watch us be erased from our own history, from our own communities, and from the visibility that we desperately need right now.”  

Willa Kingsford of Portland, Oregon, stated, “I think it’s absurd. I think it’s petty,”

Patty Carter of Los Angeles, California, stated, “It’s horrible. They’re changing all of our history.”

The Stonewall Riots, to which the monument is dedicated, to began on June 28, 1969. During that time law enforcement commonly raided queer bars since New York had outlawed homosexuality and “cross-dressing.” During the raid at the Stonewall Inn, the LGBTQ+ community decided they had reached their tipping point and fought back against law enforcement. The resulting six days riots were said to have marked the beginning of the LGBTQ+ rights movement and became the reason why Pride Month is celebrated in June.

Two of the most notable figures in this uprising were Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, both trans women. It is believed that Johnson instigated the riot by throwing a brick at a police officer. Rivera is also considered to be a key instigator; she is said to be one of the first people to fight back against the police, to which many quote her as saying, “I’m not missing a minute of this—it’s the revolution!”

References to transgender and queer removed from Stonewall National Monument’s web page

*This was first reported by NBC News.

References to transgender and queer people were erased from the Stonewall National Monument’s web page, marking one of the latest moves of the current administration after President Donald Trump said the government would recognize male and female as the only biological sexes.

The page used to say “LGBTQ+,” according to an archived version of the National Park Service’s website. It now only says “LGB.”

Stacy Lentz, co-owner of the Stonewall Inn and the chief executive of the nonprofit Stonewall Inn Gives Back Initiative, said the Trump administration was trying to “erase trans people from history and from existing.” A protest is scheduled for noon on Friday.

“There is no Pride without Trans folks leading that fight! Trying to erase them from the Birthplace of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement will not happen! We need to show up and speak out for our trans and nonbinary siblings who are under attack,” Lentz wrote in an Instagram post announcing the protest.

In a joint statement, the Stonewall Inn and the Stonewall Inn Gives Back Initiative said it was “outraged.”

“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,” the statement read.

“Let us be clear: Stonewall is transgender history. Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, and countless other trans and gender-nonconforming individuals fought bravely, and often at great personal risk to push against oppressive systems,” it continued. “Their courage, sacrifice, and leadership were central to the resistance we now celebrate as the foundation of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement.”

The statement said removing the word transgender is an attempt to marginalize the people who fought for change in the community. They called it a “direct attack on transgender people” and demanded the word be added back to the website.

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