The transgender flags that often adorn the Stonewall Nationwide Monument in New York Metropolis throughout Delight Month had been lacking this 12 months, so some New Yorkers are taking issues into their very own palms.
This comes because the Nationwide Park Service is accused of actively erasing transgender visibility and history.
“It is a horrible motion for them to take”
Throughout June, Delight flags are positioned across the park’s fence. They often embrace a mix of rainbow LGBTQ+ flags, transgender flags and progress flags, which have stripes to incorporate communities of colour.
Photographer and advocate Steven Love Menendez stated he created and gained federal approval for the set up 9 years in the past. Inside just a few years, the Nationwide Park Service was choosing up the tab, shopping for and putting in flags, together with trans ones.
Spencer Platt/Getty Pictures 
This 12 months, nonetheless, Menendez stated the Nationwide Park Service advised him to alter the protocol.
“I used to be advised … solely the normal rainbow flag can be displayed this 12 months,” he stated.
Now, no transgender or progress flags are among the many 250 rainbow flags put in across the park.
“It is a horrible motion for them to take,” Menendez stated.
Earlier this 12 months, the Nationwide Park Service removed references to transgender and queer people from the Stonewall National Monument’s website.
“I was listed as an LGBTQ activist, and now it says ‘Steven Menendez, LGB activist,'” Menendez stated. “They took out the Q and the T.”
“I am not going to face by and watch us be erased from our personal historical past”
Many visiting the monument stated they’re against the change.
“I believe it is absurd. I believe it is petty,” stated Willa Kingsford, a vacationer from Portland.
“It is horrible. They’re altering all of our historical past,” Los Angeles resident Patty Carter stated.
Jay Edinin, of Queens, introduced his personal transgender flag to the monument.
“I am not going to face by and watch us be erased from our personal historical past, from our personal communities, and from the visibility that we desperately want proper now,” he stated.
CBS Information New York 
He’s not the one one bringing unauthorized flags to the park. A variety of trans flags had been seen planted within the soil.
Nationwide Park Service employees on the park advised CBS Information New York they don’t seem to be licensed to talk on this topic. CBS Information New York reached out by cellphone and electronic mail to the Nationwide Park Service and has not but heard again.
