Watch: Stonewall National Monument Bans Trans Flags on Pride Display – and New Yorkers Fight Back

Transgender heroes like Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera are remembered for their roles in the historic Stonewall Uprising, which lent momentum to the modern civil rights movement. Even so, the National Park Service attempted to erase trans people by abolishing transgender flags from this year's Pride display at the Stonewall National Monument.

New Yorkers aren't having it, and some have added trans flags to the display in open defiance of the federal government's attempts to eradicate recognition of transgender individuals.

"Photographer and advocate Steven Love Menendez said he created and won federal approval for the installation nine years ago," CBS News reported.

"Within a few years, the National Park Service was picking up the tab, buying and installing flags, including trans ones."

That changed after the inauguration of Donald Trump this past January. On his first day as America's 47th president, Trump signed an executive order that effectively abolished governmental recognition of transgender and non-binary people.

That purge extends to this year's Pride display at the Stonewall National Monument, which includes Greenwich Village sites such as the Stonewall Inn, Christopher Park, and Christopher Street. The monument was created in 2016 by President Barack Obama in recognition of the 1969 uprising. On June 29, 1969, police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar, and patrons pushed back. Lore around the uprising has it that transgender people and drag queens took a leading role.

But their courage was targeted for erasure. Menendez told CBS that word came down to him from the Park service that "only the traditional rainbow flag would be displayed this year." As a result, CBS noted, "no transgender or progress flags are among the 250 rainbow flags installed around the park."

"It's a terrible action for them to take," Menendez told the news outlet, before adding that he has seen his own identity edited by the governmental entity.

"I used to be listed as an LGBTQ activist" on the Stonewall National Monument's website, "and now it says 'Steven Menendez, LGB activist,'" he explained. "They took out the Q and the T."

Tourists and locals alike gave vent to their disdain for the attempt to eradicate trans history from official recollections of the epoch-changing uprising.

One visitor to the monument called the transgender-erasing directive "absurd" and "petty," while another said it was "horrible" and added, "They're changing all of our history."

Queens resident Jay Edidin sought to redress the gaping omission by adding a trans flag to the display that he provided on his own.

"I'm not going to stand by and watch us be erased from our own history, from our own communities, and from the visibility that we desperately need right now," Edidin declared.

"He is not the only one bringing unauthorized flags to the park," CBS noted. "A number of trans flags were seen planted in the soil."

The monument was the site of protests earlier this year, when people gathered there in response to the T and Q being summarily lopped off the monument's website, which had formerly acknowledged the LGBTQ community.

"We cannot be erased by removing words from a website," nonbinary protestor Samy Nemir Olivares told CBS News at the time. "It's saying that trans and nonbinary and queer people do not exist at all."

Transgender New Yorker Bernie Wagenblast added: "I am not going to allow any government, any organization, any person, to take away the joy that I feel as a trans person."

At the time, Gov. Kathy Hochul decried the elimination of references to trans and queer people, calling the move "cruel and petty."

"Transgender people play a critical role in the fight for LGBTQ+ rights," Hochul declared, "and New York will never allow their contributions to be erased."

State Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal agreed, stating, "The transgender community threw the first bricks that launched the contemporary LGBTQ human rights movement."

"It was trans women of color, trans women like Sylvia, Rivera, Marsha P. Johnson, Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, trans women that put their lives on the line, that stood on the front lines of this revolution," Angelica Christina, a board member for Stonewall Inn Gives Back Initiative, pointed out. "They are the reason why we have the rights that we have today, not just for trans people, but for LGBT people in general."

The website for the Stonewall National Monument Visitor Center does not reflect the federal government's attempts to erase transgender, non-binary, and queer identities.

"Forever changing the course of the LGBTQIA+ movement, the events that transpired on this day became one of the most pivotal moments in the fight for full equality," the site said of June 29, 1969.

Watch the CBS News report below.