A huge crowd of New Yorkers and local elected officials gathered in the city’s Christopher Park on Thursday to see the LGBTQ+ Pride flag raised at the Stonewall National Monument days after the Trump administration had it removed. But local LGBTQ+ people have been left wondering how long it’ll stay up, as the Trump administration issued a statement denouncing the re-raising.

The New York Daily News estimated that over 2,000 people spilled onto the streets around the Greenwich Village park across from the historic Stonewall Inn, where the modern fight for LGBTQ+ rights kick-started in June 1969. Many held Pride flags of their own and signs reading “You can’t erase our history.” At one point, the crowd chanted “raise the flag.”

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As the Associated Press notes, the Pride flag has flown for years over the National Park Service-run monument, the first in the nation to honor the LGBTQ+ rights movement.

But on Monday, the National Park Service removed the rainbow flag in accordance with new guidance issued by the Trump administration in January. A spokesperson for the agency told Gay City News that a government-wide guidance now mandates that “only the U.S. flag and other congressionally or departmentally authorized flags are flown on NPS-managed flagpoles, with limited exceptions.”

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“Any changes to flag displays are made to ensure consistency with that guidance,” the spokesperson added.

The removal sparked immediate outrage in the LGBTQ+ community as well as local officials, including New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, New York state Sen. Erik Bottcher (D), and Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal.

On Tuesday, Holyman-Sigal vowed that he and other elected officials would re-raise the Pride flag in Christopher Park this week. New York City Council speaker Julie Menin told the New York Times that she and other lawmakers had sent a letter to the National Park Service demanding the flag’s restoration. And on Thursday, the city council passed a resolution urging Congress to respect the history of the Stonewall monument, according to The Guardian. The flag was restored the same day.

“We have brought the flag back to a sacred site,” Holyman-Sigal told the Times Thursday.

“Stonewall is a sacred site in this city,” Menin said. “It is sacred ground for civil rights and sacred ground for the LGBTQ community.”

According to the Times, officials initially raised the original rainbow flag designed by artist Gilbert Baker, which includes eight stripes, below the American flag flying in Christopher Park. But several activists briefly removed the flag before hoisting it alongside the stars and stripes.

“We won’t let Trump erase LGBTQ+ history. Stonewall was a rebellion. Stonewall was a beginning. Today, Stonewall is a call to action once again,” U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), who was among those at Thursday’s flag raising, said in a statement. “I’m proud to be at Stonewall today as we re-raise the Pride flag. It’s flying once again.”

The Pride flag removal represents the Trump administration’s latest attempt to rewrite the history of the Stonewall monument. Last February, the National Park Service (NPS) removed all mentions of transgender people from its website for the monument in compliance with the president’s executive orders prohibiting any federal recognition of trans people in any aspect of civic life. In June, the agency reportedly banned both the trans and the Progress Pride flags from being displayed at the monument. Both moves were seen as a blatant effort to erase the trans community’s pivotal role in the 1969 uprising.

The Times noted Thursday that it remains unclear how long the Pride flag will be allowed to fly in Christopher Park. In a statement, the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees the National Park Service, called the flag restoration a “political stunt” and a “distraction” from what it described as the city’s failures in response to this year’s winter storms.

“Today’s political pageantry shows how utterly incompetent and misaligned the New York City officials are with the problems their city is facing,” the statement read, according to local ABC affiliate WABC.

“They’re probably gonna take it down again, maybe,” New Yorker Joyce Burstein told the Times on Thursday, “but it’ll just go back up.”

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The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California has granted a temporary restraining order blocking the Trump administration from withholding billions in federal funding to the state in retaliation for its refusal to allow schools to out transgender students to their parents.

As The Advocate reports, this week, California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Education and the Trump administration over its threat to withhold $4.9 billion in annual federal education funding unless the state allows local school districts to notify parents of students’ social gender transitions, which would violate California law.

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Last month, U.S. Department of Education (ED) accused the California Department of Education (CDE) of violating the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) — a federal law granting parents the right to access their child’s education records. In a statement, Education Secretary Linda McMahon said CDE had “egregiously” abused its authority by “pressuring school officials to withhold information about students’ so-called ‘gender transitions’ from their parents,” under the state’s Support Academic Futures & Educators for Today’s Youth (SAFETY) Act.

The 2024 law prohibits “parental notification” policies in school districts and protects teachers and administrators from retaliation if they choose not to follow district directives to out LGBTQ+ students to their parents. LGBTQ+ advocates contend that outing children to unsupportive parents without their consent can be dangerous, and Bonta and California State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond (D) have argued in court that students have a constitutional right to privacy from their parents in the state.

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In his February 11 complaint, Bonta challenges the ED’s claim that the state is in violation of FERPA. He argues that the law “only requires disclosure of education records” and “does not require schools to affirmatively disclose a student’s gender identity or preferred name or pronouns to parents, nor does it mention gender identity.”

“Defendants have failed to demonstrate even a single violation of FERPA,” the lawsuit states. “They do not cite even one instance in which any [local educational agency] failed to disclose education records that state a student’s gender identity — or any other record — in response to a valid parental request under FERPA.”

The lawsuit says the ED exceeded its legal authority by demanding that CDE “disclose education records related to a student’s gender identity to a student’s parents where the parents have not made any request for [that] education record” and by requiring CDE “to disclose information, materials, or documents related to gender identity that fall outside of an ‘education record’ as defined by FERPA,” according to the lawsuit.

In a February 11 statement, Bonta described the ED’s threat to withhold federal funding as “a flagrant attempt … to intimidate the California Department of Education and California’s local education agencies under the guise of enforcing FERPA.”

“We will not stand by as U.S. ED uses baseless claims to attack crucial education funding,” Bonta added. “We will continue to fight to protect California’s schools and students from unfair attacks and work to ensure a discrimination-free educational environment for all students.”

In granting California’s request for a temporary restraining order, U.S. District Judge Noël Wise ensured that the Trump administration cannot withhold federal funding while the case plays out.

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