Activists re-installed the Delight flag on the Stonewall Monument.
Picture by Dean Moses
New Yorkers defied the federal authorities just lately by re-raising the rainbow colours of the Delight flag above the Stonewall Nationwide Monument the place it belongs, days after the Trump administration had it taken down.
This act of civil disobedience, on the Greenwich Village website the place the trendy homosexual rights motion started practically 60 years in the past, was essential not only for town’s LGBTQ+ group however for the nation at massive.
It was a measure of defiance in opposition to unjust insurance policies from a presidential regime brazenly hostile to civil rights — and make no mistake, the civil rights of LGBTQ+ People are the rights of all People.
When they’re attacked and diminished, we’re all attacked and diminished.
Since President Trump returned to workplace in January 2025, he has waged struggle in opposition to the homosexual group of America. This contains ending funding for hospitals that administer gender-affirming care, overturning sure civil rights below the regulation for the transgender group, eliminating transgender references on the Stonewall Monument’s official web site, and the current elimination of the Delight flag from Stonewall itself.
Individuals who actually consider within the ideas of freedom and small authorities — that people ought to have the ability to reside the lives they need with out concern of reprisal or repression — would by no means assist this ongoing assault on this or another group in America.
The silence is as deafening as it’s shameful. It’s a profile in cowardice at a time when the nation wants the braveness of a united stand in opposition to assaults on the civil rights of People.
No matter social gathering, sexual orientation, gender id, or another distinction we might have, all of us want to come back collectively and defend one another’s civil rights each time and wherever they’re attacked. To cite the phrases of Abraham Lincoln, the primary and maybe biggest Republican president, “Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.”
The rainbow colours above Stonewall should proceed to fly. Transgender People have to be extra than simply seen; they should have their unalienable rights protected. Hospitals have to be allowed to manage gender-affirming care with out concern of presidency reprisal. All LGBTQ+ People must reside their lives free of presidency persecution of any sort.
And all of us, as People, should notice this primary reality: If one group amongst us is dehumanized and denied their rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” each different group will quickly undergo the identical destiny. Just one factor can cease it: The necessity to unite in protection of one another.
