The Trump administration has erased references to transgender people from New York’s Stonewall National Monument website.
On the National Park Service website, the acronym LGBTQ+ has been shortened to LGB, standing for lesbian, gay and bisexual.
Other government websites have also been changed after President Donald Trump signed an order recognising two sexes only – male and female – on his first day in office.
Activists denounced the move on Friday and held a protest at the site, which is the country’s first national monument dedicated to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender history.
“There is no Pride without Trans folks leading that fight!,” Stacy Lentz, the co-owner of The Stonewall Inn and CEO of The Stonewall Inn Gives Back Initiative, wrote on Instagram in a post announcing the protest.
“Trying to erase them from the birthplace of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement will not happen!”
The National Park Service’s public affairs department said the agency had taken the actions to comply with the executive order signed by President Trump which described “restoring biological truth to the federal government”, according to a statement sent to the New York Times.
The BBC has contacted the National Park Service for comment.
On an older version of the park service website, saved by the digital web archive Wayback Machine, the monument’s main page read: “Before the 1960s, almost everything about living openly as a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer (LGBTQ+) person was illegal.”
The updated webpage now reads: “Before the 1960s, almost everything about living openly as a lesbian, gay, bisexual (LGB) person was illegal.”
Some other references to transgender people remain on the website, including the founding document for the Stonewall National Monument.
A 1969 police raid at the Stonewall Inn gay bar in New York led to riots, which marked a major turning point in the push for gay equality.
Former President Barack Obama designated it a US national monument in 2016. The monument covers 7.7 acres of land, including nearby Christopher Park.
In a statement on Thursday, the Stonewall Inn and the Stonewall Inn Gives Back Initiative said it was “outraged” at the changes.
“This blatant act of erasure not only distorts the truth of our history, but it also dishonours the immense contributions of transgender individual,” the statement said.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul called the change “cruel and petty”.
A protest against the website changes took place next to the Stonewall monument on Friday. Posters with signs such as “national park service you can’t spell history without a T” were held up by demonstrators.
