A legal settlement announced Monday will see the rainbow Pride flag permanently restored to New York’s Stonewall National Monument following a February removal that sparked fierce backlash from LGBTQ+ activists and Democratic officials who accused the Trump administration of diminishing America’s first national monument commemorating gay rights history.
The Interior Department and National Park Service confirmed their “intention to maintain a Pride flag at Stonewall” under terms requiring judicial approval, with the banner only removable for “maintenance or other practical purposes” according to court papers filed as the government seeks ending litigation brought by LGBTQ+ and historic preservation groups.
Within one week, the Park Service will install three flags measuring three feet by five feet on the monument’s flagpole, positioning the Pride emblem between the US flag above and Park Service flag below—a arrangement resolving the flashpoint controversy over President Donald Trump’s approach to the site honouring gay rights struggles.
The banner’s February disappearance ignited immediate confrontation when the Park Service cited compliance with 21 January federal guidance largely restricting agency flag displays to US, Department of Interior and POW/MIA symbols with limited exemptions for “historical context.”
LGBTQ+ advocates interpreted the removal as deliberate erasure targeting a location embodying their community’s fight for rights and visibility, with New York Democratic elected officials promptly appearing with a replacement rainbow flag that—following heated moments when politicians seemed content leaving it on a separate lower pole—was hoisted alongside the US flag.
The Pride banner had been formally installed in 2022 during Democratic President Joe Biden’s tenure after activists conducted a yearslong campaign demanding daily display inside the Park Service-run site, with New York officials characterising it as demonstrating governmental commitment to “telling the complex and diverse histories of all Americans.”
Park Service officials insisted following February’s removal that the monument “remains committed to preserving and interpreting the history and significance of this site” through various exhibits and programming, though activists rejected such assurances as insufficient given the flag’s symbolic importance.
Democratic President Barack Obama created the Stonewall monument in 2016, centring it on a compact park opposite the Stonewall Inn—the Greenwich Village gay bar where a 1969 police raid sparked an uprising catalysing the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement.
The settlement represents a Trump administration retreat from culture war positioning that energised conservative supporters whilst alienating LGBTQ+ communities and historical preservation advocates who viewed the flag removal as erasing hard-won recognition of gay rights milestones.
