New York City Council advances resolution opposing Stonewall Pride flag removal

The New York City Council has advanced a resolution urging Congress to protect LGBTQ history at Stonewall National Monument after the Trump administration ordered Pride flags to be removed from the site.

Resolution 1255 passed the council’s cultural affairs committee 6-0 on Wednesday morning, and now awaits consideration from the full chamber. Lead sponsor Chi Ossé told The Advocate that the resolution marks a step toward combating President Donald Trump’s anti-LGBTQ agenda.

“These attacks that we’re seeing on LGBTQ history [are] ... a distraction from the actual enemies we have at hand, which are Donald Trump [and] the fascist right-wing government,” said Councilmember Ossé, a Democrat who represents the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Bedford–Stuyvesant and Crown Heights.

The Trump administration issued a federal directive last month that prohibited national parks from flying banners other than the U.S. flag, with few exceptions. Similar orders have restricted what flags can be flown at U.S. embassies and military outposts.

The orders seem to be a crackdown on symbols like the Pride flag and Black Lives Matter slogan from appearing at government buildings, which Trump has previously criticized. But hundreds of protesters who have convened outside Stonewall argue the Pride flag is integral to commemorating LGBTQ history at the site.

“They’re trying to erase anything that accurately conveys the history of struggle of marginalized communities in this country,” Jay W. Walker, a New York City activist, told The Advocate at a protest Tuesday.

Patrons of the Stonewall Inn fought back during a June 1969 police raid and helped set in motion a national movement for LGBTQ+ rights. Stonewall is widely regarded as one of the most important sites of LGBTQ history in the United States, and was designated a national monument by President Barack Obama in 2016.

The resolution “goes beyond just a flag,” said Councilmember Justin Sanchez, a co-sponsor, during Wednesday’s committee meeting. “What removing a flag or desecrating any of our park space does is remove the places and the spaces where we get to see and be ourselves.”

Stonewall’s status as federal property means the federal government, and Trump, have jurisdiction over the site. But local officials, including Ossé, members of city council and Mayor Zohran Mamdani, have promised to push back against the Pride flag removal.

“I am outraged by the removal of the Rainbow Pride Flag from Stonewall National Monument,” Mamdani posted on the social media platform X Tuesday. “New York is the birthplace of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement, and no act of erasure will ever change, or silence, that history.”

This article was written as part of the Future of Queer Media fellowship program at The Advocate, which is underwritten by a generous gift from Morrison Media Group. The program helps support the next generation of LGBTQ+ journalists.