The Trump Administration has recently ordered the removal of the Pride flag from the Stonewall National Monument in New York City. Many of us if not all of us know that Stonewall is what gave us the courage, and voice during the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement. Being able to decorate it with the flag shows its significance and its removal feels like a piece of tape over the mouth to many, queer erasure.

Many locals gathered during one of their protests to re-raise the flag showing silence will not happen, and that you can’t erase the community especially when they’ve worked so hard, just to be set back.

For many young members of the community who already feel like they don’t have much of a voice, this definitely took a toll.

“It’s really made me feel terrible, the fact that it’s even allowed to be removed is so messed up, and it’s completely discriminatory,” Sienna Ronald (9) expresses her distress, and anger over this striking, and unfair occurrence.

There’s also the discussion of the President’s previous actions of removing Bisexual and Non-binary identities from the stonewall national monument, earlier last year.

There’s also the outside opinion of those who don’t reside within the community. Some people like Janna Ellerson (9) believe that it’s not ok for the president to be removing any part of the communities identity especially not from a monument based within queer rights, and the community’s voice itself. While there’s those who don’t agree with it, there’s also some people who don’t mind it.

“If a monument was built without the flag, then it doesn’t need to be there now,” Taylor Luebbert (9) claims in defense of the removal.

While she doesn’t completely disagree with its removal, she does believe it’s kind of messed up, but also thinks that if the President himself called for its removal there has to be some sort of reason to back it, and that when the reason is released it will all make perfect, and clear sense.

With all these different opinions, most people who are aware of the situation don’t stand for it. However people are, you just need to accept them, and removing a community’s flag from a monument made for them and their voices will only set the community back which they’ve already been dealing with so much more than usual in this past year.