Two lawsuits ask federal judges to protect Stonewall Monument’s Pride flag from Trump’s history rewrite

Two federal lawsuits filed this week have turned a single flagpole in New York City’s Greenwich Village into a referendum on how the United States tells its own story.

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At issue is the Pride flag at the Stonewall National Monument, the first national monument dedicated to the LGBTQ+ rights movement. Earlier this month, the National Park Service removed the NPS-sanctioned Pride flag that had flown there since 2022, sparking protests in New York and a swift legal and political backlash. Now, one lawsuit filed in Manhattan seeks to force the government to restore the flag at Stonewall, while a second, broader case filed in Massachusetts challenges what plaintiffs describe as a coordinated effort by the Trump administration to scrub disfavored history and science from national parks across the country.

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Together, the cases take on a dispute that is only partly about a piece of fabric. More fundamentally, they ask whether the federal government can selectively narrow the historical record presented in public spaces and whether Stonewall, of all places, can be stripped of a symbol that has become inseparable from its meaning.

The New York case was brought by the Gilbert Baker Foundation, Village Preservation, Equality New York, and other plaintiffs against the Department of the Interior and the National Park Service. The complaint argues that the agency acted unlawfully and arbitrarily when it removed the official Pride flag from the monument on February 9. The flag, installed after years of advocacy, was the first Pride flag flown permanently on federal land and bore the Park Service’s own insignia—an explicit signal, the plaintiffs say, that the government recognized the flag as part of the site’s historical interpretation.

The suit contends that the Park Service misread its own policies, ignored the Stonewall monument’s founding documents, and failed to follow required procedures under the National Historic Preservation Act, including consulting the public before making changes to a historic site. The removal, the plaintiffs argue, violates the Administrative Procedure Act because it rests on a justification that “on its face” does not require the flag to come down.

Stonewall is not an ordinary park unit. Established by President Barack Obama in 2016, the 7.7-acre monument encompasses Christopher Park, the Stonewall Inn, and surrounding streets where, in 1969, patrons and neighbors resisted a police raid. The uprising is widely seen as a catalytic moment in the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement. The National Park Service’s own foundation document describes the site’s purpose as preserving and interpreting that history and its continuing significance, placing Stonewall within the broader story of American civil rights.

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The Pride flag’s defenders argue that the symbol is not decorative but interpretive: a visual shorthand for the movement that Stonewall helped ignite. Its removal, they say, represents not bureaucratic housekeeping but a narrowing of the story the federal government is willing to tell.

The second lawsuit, filed in federal court in Massachusetts by a coalition that includes the National Parks Conservation Association, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and several history and park-ranger groups, widens the lens. That case challenges a series of actions taken by the Interior Department and the Park Service following a 2025 executive order directing agencies to promote what the administration calls a more “patriotic” account of American history.

According to the complaint, the government has removed or altered exhibits and signage addressing slavery, climate change, Indigenous history, and civil rights at parks around the country, often with little explanation and no meaningful public process. The plaintiffs argue that this campaign violates federal law, including statutes that require the Park Service to reflect current scholarship and to serve as an educational resource for a diverse public. They are seeking court orders to halt the removals and restore materials that have already been taken down.

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In January, the Park Service circulated new internal guidance on the display of non-agency flags, which the administration has cited to justify taking down the Pride flag. The guidance says that, in most cases, only the U.S. flag, Department of the Interior flags, and the POW/MIA flag should be flown on NPS-controlled flagpoles, though it also allows exceptions for flags that provide historical context.

The Stonewall plaintiffs argue that the Pride flag falls squarely within that exception and that the government’s insistence otherwise reveals not a neutral application of policy but a selective, ideologically driven choice.

In a statement to The Advocate, Skye Perryman, the president and CEO of Democracy Forward, which is representing plaintiffs in the broader parks lawsuit, cast the litigation as a defense of the national parks’ civic purpose.

“America’s national parks are a living classroom, telling the stories of sacrifice, perseverance, and hope so that every visitor can learn our history and the world around us,” Perryman said. “You cannot tell the story of America without recognizing both the beauty and the tragedy of our history. You cannot truly love America without understanding our country’s true history and what it teaches about the country we must work together to build and the country that we can be. The president’s effort to erase history and science in our national parks violates federal law, and is a disgrace that neither honors our country’s legacy nor its future.”

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The legal fight is unfolding alongside a political one. This week, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Rep. Daniel Goldman, both New York Democrats, announced plans to introduce legislation that would make the Rainbow Flag permanent at Stonewall, a move applauded by the Gilbert Baker Foundation, which was founded to preserve the legacy of the flag’s creator.

“Whenever trouble strikes, and someone tries to ban our flag, the Gilbert Baker Foundation has been there. Through our Save The Rainbow Flag initiative, we have gone toe to toe with bullies and bigots from California to New Jersey, from Florida to Michigan. From the smallest town to Stonewall, we have shown up and fought the fight,” Charles Beal, President of the Gilbert Baker Foundation, said.