Dead Letters

Image:  Facebook

The transgender flag still flies at the Stonewall National Monument in New York City, but something else is missing.

On the National Park Service's Stonewall website, "LGBTQ" has turned into "LGB." Our community has suffered an amputation. Without benefit of anesthetic.

This can only be due to Donald Trump's spastic efforts to wipe out all evidence of trans people from the federal government. If you have another explanation . . . I ain't buying it.

Multiple ironies leap to mind. First, the site meant to memorialize the start of queer liberation now can't say the word "queer," at least not online. Second, the L's, the G's and the B's were also definite outcasts not long ago, but now have achieved enough standing that the government isn't aiming to make them disappear. Yet.

The third irony I see is that gay people often used to ignore the part played by transgender and gender non-conforming folks at Stonewall. The community largely clawed past the racism and classism and gave the likes of Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera their due. Now we're watching them be disappeared again.

Some aren't having it. On X, New York's governor decried  the sudden removal of trans and queer references as "just cruel and petty."

Protesters gathered yesterday at the Stonewall Inn. A transgender woman told CBS News, "I served in the military. I didn't say I had bone spurs to get out of it."

As far as I know, no bricks were thrown at the protest, just brickbats. And the politicians in attendance were for us, not against us. Things have changed a great deal since 1969. Which is precisely what scares many Americans, and part of what propelled Trump to victory.

We have our work cut out for us in 2025, to stop the reversal of what began in 1969. If you want to make a party out of it, wear 1969 fashion to the next protest. I didn't look good in it then—I was six—and I don't now, but I'm willing to take one for the team.