By Daniel Trotta
(Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s transgender policy began with a Day One executive order delegitimizing gender identity. Now it has encroached on a conspicuous place, removing the word “transgender” from the U.S. National Park Service website for the Stonewall National Monument.
The monument commemorates the Stonewall Inn, a New York gay bar where resistance to a 1969 police raid sparked the civil rights movement expanding LGBTQ rights.
While other Trump measures carry real-world implications for transgender Americans in the military, seeking healthcare or playing sports, the symbolic measure of removing the word transgender was especially painful, perceived as an attempt to erase them.
The monument’s website was initially altered on Thursday to refer to “lesbian, gay, bisexual, or queer (LGBQ+)” people, deleting the letter T from the acronym.
Later in the day, the Q and + were removed, leaving the acronym as LGB, a usage that was more common in a less inclusive era before 1990.
“This is literally coming into our house and trying to erase trans people,” said Stacy Lentz, co-owner of the Stonewall Inn.
In 2016, former President Barack Obama designated the Stonewall National Monument to protect the area around the bar, including Christopher Park, where historic photos have been hung. A visitor center opened in 2024.
Advocates have fought hard in recent years to promote the crucial role played by transgender pioneers of the movement such as Marsha P. Johnson and Silvia Rivera.
“The Stonewall Riots happened because trans people, particularly of color, rose up against state violence. You can’t even begin to tell the story without our trans ancestors and elders,” transgender activist Raquel Willis said on X.
On his first day in office on January 20, Trump signed an order demanding government employees refer only to “sex” and not “gender,” and declaring sex to be an “immutable biological reality” that precludes any change in gender identity.
Then followed a series of measures, nearly all facing legal challenges. A U.S. judge on Thursday blocked U.S. health agencies from enforcing his order on transition-related healthcare.
The White House did not immediately respond to a Reuters query for this story, nor did the National Park Service.
Supporters of the president believe he enjoys broad public support on the transgender issue, especially on banning trans women and girls from female sports. A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll found just 40% of Americans support Trump’s order barring transgender people from the military, while 55% opposed such a ban.
U.S. Representative Nancy Mace, a Republican from South Carolina, has been one of the most vocal supporters of Trump’s transgender policies.
“Let’s be clear: biological sex is real, and no amount of wordplay will change that,” she said in a statement to Reuters.
“Transgender individuals, like all Americans, have the same rights under the Constitution. But those rights don’t include forcing others to deny biological reality,” Mace said.
At least one transgender activist lamented that much of the Democratic Party and other allies have failed to forcefully oppose the Trump measures, leaving trans people – an estimated 0.6% of the population who are disproportionately the victims of crime – to fend for themselves.
“What Donald Trump and his sycophants are doing is essentially violence against trans people. It is essentially trying to erase us,” said Angelica Christina, a New York-based activist and board member of the Stonewall Inn Gives Back Initiative, a non-profit advocacy. “We will stand up against this oppression, but it is relentless.”
(Reporting by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)
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