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Dozens of Democratic members of Congress have signed an open letter addressed to the Trump administration, demanding that portions of LGBTQ history that were removed from the Stonewall National Monument be restored.
Back in February, the National Park Service (NPS) eliminated the words “queer” and “transgender” from the Stonewall National Monument website. The monument commemorates the Stonewall Uprising, a 1969 riot in New York City for gay liberation — led by transgender women of color — that laid the foundation for Pride celebrations today.
The decision to remove those references was reportedly made to comply with President Donald Trump’s anti-trans executive order, issued the previous month, which sought to “restore” references to supposed “biological truth” within the federal government — a false notion that rejects the widely accepted scientific fact that gender is not binary or solely determined by a person’s sexual organs.
Last week, 72 Democratic lawmakers in Congress signed an open letter demanding that references to transgender and queer people at the Stonewall National Monument be restored — including Rep. Mark Takano (D-California) and Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-New York), leaders within the Congressional Equality Caucus, as well as Rep. Dan Goldman (D-New York), who spearheaded the effort.
Their letter, addressed to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Acting National Park Service Director Jessica Bowron, noted that the monument is meant to honor “the legacy of the Stonewall Rebellion and the critical role it played in the LGBTQIA+ civil rights movement.”
“This pivotal moment would not have happened without the courage of trans activists, particularly transgender women of color such as Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, and Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, who were on the front lines and fought for gay and transgender rights,” the letter stated.
We are deeply alarmed by the NPS’ recent changes to Stonewall National Monument. … This erasure of transgender and queer Americans from the history of Stonewall—or from any part of our national narrative — is a blatant attack on the integrity of public history. The history of Stonewall cannot be told without the stories of transgender Americans.
The letter-writers then expressed concerns that the administration would alter the history behind other monuments, including those relating to Japanese internment camps during World War II, the U.S. genocide of Indigenous Peoples in the Americas, and the enslavement of Black people. Efforts to reshape historical narratives to conform to a political agenda “risk undermining public trust and the credibility of the Park Service,” they wrote.
The signers also said they were “especially troubled with the ongoing implementation of NPS’ June 9th memo that requires all NPS units to post signage to encourage the public to offer feedback on any information that they feel portrays American history and landscapes in a negative light.”
“The lack of transparency on how NPS plans to rewrite ‘negative’ content and incorporate visitor feedback is deeply concerning,” the letter-writers warned. “We must reject any attempts to gloss over or otherwise rewrite difficult chapters of our history.”
The letter from lawmakers came just days after Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, a transgender activist and veteran of the Stonewall uprising, passed away at age 78.
Earlier this year, Miss Major spoke out against the Trump administration’s attempts to erase transgender history at Stonewall.
“It’s just terrible. They keep continually trying to eradicate us,” Miss Major said in an interview with USA Today.
“Being transgender is not the road to hell,” she went on, adding that those trying to erase history were “blinded” by people simply living their lives.
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