‘Prouder, louder’: NYC Pride pushes back as LGBTQ+ rights are rolled back

The transgender pride flag won’t be part of this year’s Pride display at the national park near the Stonewall Inn, which typically transforms each June into a sea of rainbow and trans pride flags lining its perimeter.

Although the National Park Service had previously covered the cost of the trans pride flags, the agency shifted gears this year, only agreeing to fund rainbow flags at the Stonewall National Monument in Greenwich Village, according to Steve Love Menendez, the artist and activist who created the display.

The move comes after the department removed other references to trans people as part of an executive order from President Donald Trump. It is one of many rollbacks of legal and symbolic protections for LGBTQ+ Americans launched under the new administration in the five months since Trump took office.

And it’s just one of the many ways that Pride will look different this year for Menendez and other LGBTQ+ New Yorkers.

“It made me sad, but it was not a surprise with all of the rhetoric that’s been going on in the news prior to the administration coming in,” he said. “There’s been a big movement against the trans community. I didn’t even know if this display was going to go up. I didn’t know what to anticipate.”

Menendez, 56, who calls himself a “love activist,” said he never leaves his apartment without a Pride flag on him. So when he learned almost a decade ago that a national monument was planned just steps from the Stonewall Inn — the site of the 1969 uprising that sparked the modern Pride movement — he pitched an idea: rows of rainbow flags encircling the park as a symbol of joyful rebellion.

He helped launch the annual decoration of the monument by raising donations and contributing his own money, purchasing hundreds of rainbow flags wholesale for the display once the park became a monument. And as years went on, he said, the National Park Service helped cover the costs, eventually including trans pride flags starting in 2023.

A spokesperson for the agency did not respond to requests for comment.

‘It feels like a very scary time.’

In the months since Trump began his second term, he has banned trans people from military service, begun limiting access to gender-affirming care, removed certain resources for LGBTQ+ people from federal sites and revamped certain sex-based anti-discrimination laws.

Many of these changes came through executive orders, and many are already facing legal challenges. Allie Bohm, senior attorney with the New York Civil Liberties Union, said it feels like déjà vu.

“We find that we are relitigating things that we thought were settled five to 10 years ago. It feels like a very scary time,” she said.

The NYCLU and other legal groups have spent months challenging a wave of anti-LGBTQ+ bills introduced in statehouses across the country and a flood of executive orders they say are unconstitutional.

“It’s a throwback to a different era, and one that I think young LGBTQ folks today may not even remember, which makes it particularly jarring,” Bohm said.

Many have been turning to LGBTQ+ leaders in New York, a state that has long led the way on marriage equality, housing rights and access to health care for queer people. And there have been some successes.

In one example, city lawmakers passed legislation reversing certain protections previously stripped nationally by the White House, including access to gender affirming care.

City Councilmember Erik Bottcher, who represents parts of Manhattan, including Greenwich Village, said elected officials are battling City Hall in ongoing budget negotiations to secure more funding for LGBTQ+ New Yorkers.

“People are truly worried that even here in New York City, which has been a haven for a long, long time, people are worried that they aren’t safe here,” Bottcher said.

A nation ‘at odds with itself’

Matt Brim, a queer studies professor at the College of Staten Island and director of LGBTQ studies at the CUNY Graduate Center, said this year’s Pride feels different not only because of policy rollbacks but something deeper — the issue of who gets to be seen.

“There are lots of public spaces where queer people — trans people, in particular — are being told ‘You don’t belong,’” Brim said. “And that echoes very much the message of the pre-Stonewall era. I think people are feeling, in some ways, similar to then and that time."

Brim noted that many groups in the United States, including immigrants, communities of color and women, have been targeted by recent federal policies. But, he said, the attacks on LGBTQ+ people evoke earlier eras of government-led discrimination, drawing parallels to the 1950s "Lavender Scare" and the Clinton-era “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.

“We’re in another moment of this cycle of sex and gender panic that happens when the nation is at odds with itself,” he said.

Brim said people should expect Pride celebrations this month to be more subdued, due to a significant number of businesses opting to scale back on sponsoring events. And while some people may feel more eager to protest, others may shy away for fear of persecution, he said.

“We often think twice about being the public face of a protest, and so you might see a kind of shadow protest of people working behind the scene and supporting public-facing protests, but can’t — for really good reasons — be in the streets and in your face,” Brim said.

Even without corporate support, organizers in the city are still providing a volume of Pride events unseen in other parts of the country. Beyond the main Pride March, several alternative demonstrations, including the Queer Liberation March and the Dyke March, are still moving forward.

“The truth is there is a relative level of privilege being a New Yorker, of course, I mean this is one of the main cities where people come to be out,” said Jay Walker, one of the co-founders of the Queer Liberation March, who also serves as one of its lead organizers.

Walker said the Queer Liberation March’s history as an anti-corporate and grassroots initiative makes it primed for the current political and social climate. “New York has had such a strong and vibrant activist community going back over a century that that’s kind of in New York’s DNA,” Walker said.

Meanwhile, queer bars and clubs have been hosting events throughout the month, from drag shows and dance parties to borough-specific Pride parades.

Stacy Lentz, who co-owns the Stonewall Inn, said she and others had no plans of letting up.

“Pride should be remembered this year in particular as a protest like it was in 1969: Fighting back and making sure that we are united as a community,” she said. “We are fighting for these hard-earned rights that these folks spent so much time getting for us.”

Lentz said she wants people, especially those who feel discouraged, to feel as if they can show up without fear of retaliation.

“It’s not just about celebration and finding queer joy, but it really is about showing up, being visible and just existing sometimes in defiance as queer people,” she said. “Our existence is being politicized right now, so let’s make sure that we are out there being visible.”

That spirit of resistance has resonated with others, too, including Menendez. He said he is hopeful the political climate will move people to act.

“I think that when communities of people are being oppressed, it makes them stronger, fiercer, prouder and louder,” he said. “I hope that’s what happens.”

It’s definitely a home — a second home.

Steve Love Menendez, the artist and activist who created the flag display

‘The Stonewall monument is like my church.’

The flag display at the Stonewall National Monument has become a symbol of the Pride movement over the years. And in this same period, Menendez has become a walking, talking symbol of the park as well.

Every day in June, Menendez and a team of volunteers check whether any flags disappeared overnight, either from enthusiastic passersby wanting a souvenir or from acts of vandalism.

During a June interview with Gothamist, Menendez was repeatedly stopped by park rangers and construction workers smiling and waving. At one point, a passing tour guide paused to introduce him to a crowd of tourists learning about the site’s history.

Menendez has used his daily check-ins at the display to be a lifeline to others, too. He has been a shoulder to cry on for visitors overcome with emotion. Photos of him alongside other LGBTQ+ leaders are plastered around the park.

He told Gothamist he will continue the flag display outside of the Stonewall Inn “for as long as I can.”

For Menendez, the labor is more than a public service, and the park holds a special place in his heart. He said he can recall his first time visiting the Stonewall Inn as an 18-year-old who was crashing with an uncle who lived in the area.

Menendez said his uncle gave him a tour of the neighborhood and wanted his nephew to understand the importance of the space. It’s what led Menendez, who later moved to the city from his native Miami, to make the park a part of his daily life.

“Sometimes I say that the Stonewall Monument is like my church,” he said. “It’s definitely a home — a second home.”