Maeve Bidonde, Staff Writer
In Greenwich Village down in New York City stands a historic place called Stonewall Inn. That Inn has become a national monument after the Stonewall Rebellion that happened on June 28th in 1969. The Rebellion was in response to a police raid conducted at a gay bar. The monument was named a national monument in 2016 when President Obama was still in office. The rebellion lasted several nights and gave tremendous momentum for the LGBTQ+ Civil Rights movement.
Recently rights given to LGBTQ+ individuals, specifically transgender individuals are being stripped away one by one under the rule of President Trump. Trump has begun regressing Civil Rights back to the 60s with his Executive Orders, one of which is responsible for erasing the role transgender activists had in the Stonewall Rebellion.
Stonewall Inn Board Director, Angelica Christina gave a statement to ABC News saying “In this fight, in this movement, it was also trans people, especially trans women of color, like Marsha P Johnson, Sylvia, Rivera, Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, black and brown trans women that stood at the forefront of this movement. We would not have pride as we know it today without trans people, without trans women.” NYPD Officials since then have apologized for the anit-LGBTQ+ practices of the past and the Stonewall Inn raid.
According to ABC News, New York Governor Kathy Hochul posted on X condemning the change labeling it as “Cruel” and “Petty.” She promised that the contributions of transgender people will never be erased as they have played a pivotal role in the battle for LGBTQ+ rights.
This is the latest in a series of stunts the Trump Administration has pulled to erase transgender individuals and the very concept of gender identity. According to NPR, some of the executive orders issued by Trump in his first month in office were designed to ban transgender athletes from participating in Women’s Sports and to eliminate the idea of gender identity separate from your given sex.
Timothy Leonard, NorthEast Program Manager for the National Parks Conservation Association a group who pushed for Stonewall to become a monument and advocates for the National Parks System said “Erasing letters or webpages does not change the history or the contributions of our transgender community members at Stonewall or anywhere else. History was made here and civil rights were earned because of Stonewall.”
The Trump Administration’s blatant attempt at transgender activism and general erasure is a backwards step in history. The contribution transgender activists gave for the LGBTQ+ community to have the rights they have today is being erased. The website about Stonewall Rebellion has removed the T from the acronym LGBTQ+ making the acronym appear as LGB instead.
The staff at Stonewall in and LGBTQ+ activists aren’t taking this lying down. According to NPR there will have been a protest scheduled by LGBTQ+ groups and Stonewall Inn staff at the Stonewall Monument to fight back against the blatant erasure of historical contributions from transgender activists forced by the Trump Administration and Trump’s executive orders.
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