Trump administration erase references to bisexuality from Stonewall National Monument site
"They are literally doing bi-erasure"
By Aaron Sugg
The Trump administration has quietly erased pages on the Stonewall National Monument website referencing bisexual individuals, according to journalist Erin Reed.
Earlier this year, under Trump’s presidency, authorities digitally removed references to transgender people from the same site, sparking protests and raising concerns about censorship of LGBTQ+ history.
Reed, an independent journalist and transgender woman, said in an Instagram reel: “As the famous Niemöller poem goes, ‘First they came for…’ And now they’re coming for bisexual people.”
“They are literally doing bi-erasure” – Erin Reed
She highlighted changes to the language used on the site: “On Stonewall’s website it read that before the 1960s, almost everything about living openly as a lesbian, gay or bisexual was illegal — as if living as a transgender person was not illegal at that time. Well, just this month they’ve made a new change. It now reads that almost everything about living authentically as a gay or lesbian person was illegal.
“They are literally doing bi-erasure.”
Reed also pointed to other changes: “They say it was a milestone for gay and lesbian civil rights, where it used to say LGBTQ civil rights… and now they say living as a member of the Stonewall community was a violation of the law — rather than saying the LGBTQ community.”
In a statement issued by the Stonewall Inn and the Stonewall Inn Gives Back Initiative in February, reps said they were “outraged” by the changes that erased the trans community from its history.
The omission comes despite growing evidence that bisexual people represent a majority of the LGBTQ+ population in the United States
A recent Gallup poll found that 58 percent of LGBTQ+ adults in the US identify as bisexual, reinforcing what some researchers have described as the “invisible majority” within the queer community.
While the administration’s digital alterations have sparked concern, the National LGBTQ Wall of Honor at the Stonewall Inn remains unchanged. Its latest honourees include seven transgender icons.