#historical-erasure

#historical-erasure

In 2025, LGBTQ+ people watched hard-won progress unravel in real time. Diversity, equity, and inclusion programs were dismantled with startling speed, often under the false banner of "fairness." Queer people, particularly trans Americans, were targeted in the military and elsewhere, once again treated as liabilities rather than patriots. LGBTQ+ history was scrubbed from government websites, our contributions quietly erased from history as if they were inconveniences rather than facts.

We have passed into the era of unhistory. The other day, it was announced that a famous 1863 picture of an ex-slave showing the crisscrossed scar tissue from dozens of whippings would be removed from a national park. And, as The Washington Post says, this was part of a general campaign on the part of the administration to quite literally whitewash American history as presented on our public lands.

The Trump administration's removal of trans references from the Stonewall National Monument's site is an egregious act of erasure against a vital part of LGBTQ+ history, denying the contributions of trailblazers like Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera in the riots that sparked the modern LGBTQ+ movement.