A person secures the Pride flag during a ceremony where New York City officials will raise it again at Stonewall National Monument in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, on February 12, 2026, after it was removed by the National Park Service earlier this week.
Timothy A. Clary | AFP | Getty Images
The Trump administration was sued Tuesday over last week’s abrupt removal of the Pride rainbow flag from New York City’s Stonewall National Monument, the site of the 1969 uprising that ignited the U.S. gay rights movement.
The lawsuit, brought by LGBTQ+ advocacy groups and a Greenwich Village community group, alleges that the federal government says Department of the Interior regulations prohibit the display of anything other than the U.S. flag, DOI flag, or POW/MIA flag in national parks.
“In fact, the opposite is true. The policy that the government says requires the removal of the Pride flag explicitly allows the (National Park Service) to fly other flags that provide historical context for national monuments. This is exactly what the NPS’s official Pride flag has done for many years at Stonewall,” the complaint states.
The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan a day after a federal judge in Philadelphia ordered the National Park Service to restore an exhibit at Independence National Historical Park containing information about nine slaves who lived with President George Washington in the presidential mansion in Philadelphia in the 1790s.
The order will remain in effect pending the outcome of a lawsuit filed by the city of Philadelphia in January challenging NPS’ removal of the exhibit.
A flagpole was installed at Stonewall National Monument, and the Pride flag had been flown since 2022.
The monument is across the street from the Stonewall Inn, where a police raid on the then-underground gay bar in July 1969 was met with resistance from patrons, and days of riots and protests ensued.
“Before the 1960s, almost everything about authentically living as a lesbian, bisexual, or gay man was illegal,” the NPS memorial page says. “The Stonewall Uprising of June 28, 1969 was a milestone in the pursuit of civil rights and galvanized the movement.
People gather to protest at Stonewall National Monument after the Trump administration removed the LGBTQ+ Pride flag from the monument, considered the birthplace of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement, on February 10, 2026 in New York City.
Spencer Pratt | Getty Images
A new lawsuit in Manhattan federal court calls the flag’s removal on February 9 “a textbook example of arbitrary and capricious action.”
“This was not a careless mistake,” the complaint states. “The government has not removed other historic flags on other national monuments, particularly the Confederate flag. Meanwhile, the attack on Stonewall is the latest in a series of efforts by the Trump administration to target the LGBTQ+ community with discrimination and stigmatization.”
New York City Mayor Zoran Mamdani said in a Feb. 10 post on X that he was “outraged by the removal of the Rainbow Pride flag from Stonewall National Monument.”
“New York is the birthplace of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement, and no act of erasure will ever change or silence that history,” Mamdani said.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said Sunday he would introduce legislation that would make the Pride flag “a symbol recognized by Congress.”
Schumer criticized President Donald Trump for calling the flag’s removal an attack on the LGBTQ community.
“I will not allow Donald Trump to orchestrate a movement against the LGBTQ community and rewrite history,” Schumer said in a post on X.
“During this year’s bitter cold, hundreds of New York City homes have lost power, bodies have been found on the streets, and trash has piled up so high that it towers over city residents,” an Interior Department spokesperson said in a statement to CNBC when asked about the lawsuit.
“This is Mayor Mamdani, Senator Schumer, and the New York City delegation,” the spokesperson said. “Their time would be better spent removing accumulated trash from city streets, ensuring avoidable deaths are eliminated, and working to keep power flowing for the people of New York City.”
“This political pageantry shows how incompetent and out of touch New York City officials and New York City Council members are with the issues facing the city.”
