In February, the National Park Service (NPS)—operating under Trump’s anti-DEI insanity—quietly and abruptly took down a large rainbow Pride flag that had flown at New York’s Stonewall National Monument since 2019. Activists called it a “disgusting slap in the face,” Manhattan’s borough president called it “petty and vindictive,” and Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) called it an “act of erasure.” All true! Hundreds of people flocked to Greenwich Village—where the 1969 riots that kicked off the LGBTQ+ civil rights movement began—to protest.

On Monday, the decision was reversed, and the administration agreed—or, more accurately, was told by the courts—to put the Pride flag back. A big win for a battle that was won decades ago…

The reversal settles the lawsuit brought by LGBTQ+ activist groups led by the Gilbert Baker Foundation—named for the artist who created the Pride flag—which argued that the February decision violated federal law. Per a NPS memo signed in January, while the agency is generally not allowed to fly “non-agency flags and pennants” that aren’t the U.S. flag or the flag of the Department of the Interior, the exception is flags that provide historical context—which is how national parks can fly Confederate and military flags.

Invoking this rule to take down the Pride flag, the lawsuit argued, was an act of illegal discrimination against LGBTQ+ people.

The flag was originally removed on February 9. Nearly a year earlier, in February 2025, the NPS also deleted the words “transgender” and “queer” from the Stonewall website. Hundreds also flocked to Greenwich Village to protest the animus after the decision—though the words remain removed.

“The flag will be restored, it will fly officially and permanently, and the court will stand ready to enforce that commitment,” Alex Kristofcak, one of the lawyers in the case, told the New York Times on Monday. “The government has acknowledged what we argued from day one: The Pride flag belongs at Stonewall.”

But the Trump administration has done whatever it can to demonize the LGBTQ+ community. On his second day back in office, Trump signed an executive order claiming to “restore biological truth,” and subsequently erase trans people. He also told Marjorie Taylor Greene’s wannabe-journalist boyfriend in September that they could figure out how to make the Pride flag a terrorist symbol, and in October, FBI Director Kash Patel reportedly fired a longtime employee for having the flag on his desk. Idaho’s GOP Gov. Brad Little also recently signed a law banning “unauthorized” flags, which includes the Pride flag. (Idaho responded by opting for rainbow-colored flagpoles, instead. Genius.)

But I can’t believe it’s 2026 and it’s news that NYC is allowed to fly the Pride flag. Yay for not, like, a full regression, I guess?

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