After President Donald Trump ordered the removal of the Pride flag at New York City’s Stonewall National Monument earlier this month, Sen. Chuck Schumer on Wednesday formally introduced legislation to make the flag congressionally authorized. Supported by Schumer and Rep. Dan Goldman, the bill seeks to amend current policy that permits only the U.S. flag and other “congressionally or departmentally authorized flags” to fly on National Park Service flagpoles, as Gay City News reported. The flag was taken down on February 9, and New York City officials defiantly raised it again three days later.
According to guidance issued by the U.S. Department of the Interior on January 21, the NPS may fly “only the US Flag, flags of the DOI, and the POW/MIA flag.” This includes limited exceptions for flags “provide historical context, such as earlier versions of the U.S. flag at a historic fort, or are part of historic reenactments or living history programs.”
The bill seeks to add the Pride flag to this list of exceptions. Its three main goals are to: “designate the Pride flag as an authorized flag eligible for display at units of the NPS;” to “condemn the removal of the Pride flag at Stonewall National Monument;” and to “express the sense of the Senate that the Pride flag should be restored at Stonewall National Monument.”
The monument, located next to the historic Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street, commemorates the June 28, 1969, police raid that sparked three days of protests and ignited the national LGBTQ+ rights movement. In 2016, former President Barack Obama designated the site, including the bar, Christopher Park, and surrounding streets, as a national monument.
On February 15, outside Stonewall, Schumer announced that he would introduce legislation to protect the Pride flag, according to Gay City News. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York is co-sponsoring the bill in the Senate.
“Stonewall has stood as a beacon of hope for the LGBTQ+ community – a reminder of the resilience and perseverance of those before us who fought for the rights they deserve,” Schumer said in a press release. “Stonewall is sacred ground and Congress must act now to permanently protect the Pride flag and what it stands for.”
Trump’s removal of the flag came years after a similar dispute during his first term, when he canceled plans to dedicate a rainbow flag at the monument, arguing that the flagpole stood on the city, not federal, land, prompting a years-long advocacy campaign to preserve the flag’s presence at the site.
Last year, the National Park Service also removed transgender references from its Stonewall National Monument webpage. The agency deleted the words “transgender” and “queer” from the LGBTQ+ acronym on the site, following a series of executive actions by Trump that rolled back transgender rights, including banning trans people from women’s sports, the military, and minors from receiving gender-affirming care, as 6sqft previously reported.
Months later, the NPS removed several references to the word “bisexual” from the site. In 2025, the Trump administration also discontinued the existing Pride flag design—which featured black and brown stripes and Trans flag colors—and permitted only the standard Pride flag to fly on the flagpole.
During the Biden administration, advocates successfully pushed the federal government to allow a Pride flag to fly on federal land within the park, according to Gay City News.
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