One of the executive orders signed by Donald Trump on his return to the White House has been hit with backlash after it resulted in major changes being made to the website for the Stonewall National Monument.
The monument is located in New York City’s Greenwich Village and marks the location where the Stonewall Rebellion began in 1969, when a police raid at a gay bar led to riots and a milestone moment in the push for equality.
Barack Obama designated the location a monument during his time in office in 2016, and details about the location have since been featured on the National Parks Service website.
The Stonewall Inn is the site where riots began in 1969 (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Prior to the beginning of Trump’s second term in office, the website’s home page explained: “Before the 1960s, almost everything about living openly as a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer (LGBTQ+) person was illegal.”
However, in the wake of an executive order from Trump, which stated the government would only recognize male and female as biological sexes, references to ‘transgender’ and ‘queer’ have been removed.
Now, the website reads: “Before the 1960s, almost everything about living openly as a lesbian, gay, bisexual (LGB) person was illegal.”
The decision to remove references to entire communities has been met with widespread backlash and physical protests, with Stacy Lentz, co-owner of the Stonewall Inn and the chief executive of the nonprofit Stonewall Inn Gives Back Initiative, accusing the Trump administration of trying to ‘erase trans people from history and from existing’.
In an Instagram post, Lentz wrote: “There is no Pride without Trans folks leading that fight! Trying to erase them from the Birthplace of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement will not happen! We need to show up and speak out for our trans and nonbinary siblings who are under attack.”
Protestors came together to take a stand against the changes (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
The Stonewall Inn and the Stonewall Inn Gives Back Initiative also issued a joint statement on the website update, saying: “This blatant act of erasure not only distorts the truth of our history, but it also dishonors the immense contributions of transgender individuals – especially transgender women of color – who were at the forefront of the Stonewall Riots and the broader fight for LGBTQ+ rights.
“Let us be clear: Stonewall is transgender history. Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, and countless other trans and gender-nonconforming individuals fought bravely, and often at great personal risk to push against oppressive systems. Their courage, sacrifice, and leadership were central to the resistance we now celebrate as the foundation of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement.”
In a post on Twitter, New York Governor Kathy Hochul wrote: “This is just cruel and petty. Transgender people play a critical role in the fight for LGBTQ+ rights — and New York will never allow their contributions to be erased.”
Trump’s executive order has claimed that ‘efforts to eradicate the biological reality of sex fundamentally attack women by depriving them of their dignity, safety, and well-being’.
It reads: “Accordingly, my Administration will defend women’s rights and protect freedom of conscience by using clear and accurate language and policies that recognize women are biologically female, and men are biologically male.”
If you’ve been affected by any of these issues and want to speak to someone in confidence, contact the LGBT national hotline at 888-843-4564, available Monday to Friday 4pm-12am ET and 12pm-5pm ET on Saturdays.
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A federal judge has blocked President Donald Trump’s order to end a birthright citizenship across the US.
Donald Trump returned to the Oval Office just over two weeks ago, and he’s certainly wasted no time in getting his policies across and into writing.
The 47th POTUS has signed off on numerous executive orders, which included halting the ban of TikTok, changing laws on immigration, and declaring that there are ‘only two genders’.
And over the past few days, we’ve even got the threat of a trade war and the creation of the very first US wealth fund.
Another one of Trump’s executive orders aimed at ending birthright citizenship, though a federal judge in Maryland has since issued a nationwide preliminary injunction against it.
Donald Trump’s executive order has been blocked (JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)
On Wednesday (February 5), District Judge Deborah Boardman heard arguments from five women hoping to block Trump’s executive order, and the judge has sided with them.
“The denial of the precious right to citizenship will cause irreparable harm,” Judge Boardman as she handed down her order.
“It has been said the right to U.S. citizenship is a right no less precious than life or liberty. If the court does not enjoin enforcement of the executive order, children subject to the order will be denied the rights and benefits of US citizenship and their parents will face instability.”
The judge added: “A nationwide injunction is appropriate and necessary because it concerns citizenship.”
In her ruling delivered on Wednesday (February 5), the judge concluded Trump’s executive order “conflicts with the plain language of the 14th Amendment.”
“The U.S. Supreme court has resoundingly rejected the president’s interpretation of the citizenship clause,” Judge Boardman added.
“In fact, no court has endorsed the president’s interpretation, and this court will not be the first.”
A federal judge made the ruling on Wednesday (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Meanwhile, the plaintiffs’ attorney Joseph Mead added: “The executive order’s departure from settled law is so abrupt … it is such a departure from what we’ve been doing for over a century. Being a citizen is the foundation for so many rights.”
While the Department of Justice argued for the executive order to make its way through into law.
“Text, history, and precedent support what common sense compels: the Constitution does not harbor a windfall clause granting American citizenship to, inter alia: the children of those who have circumvented (or outright defied) federal immigration laws,” they argued, as per ABC News.
Before today’s ruling, Trump’s executive order had already been put on hold by US District Judge John Coughenour in Seattle.
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The FBI has uncovered thousands more undisclosed JFK assassination files following President Donald Trump’s executive order to release them.
I think Trump’s first three weeks in office can be described with two simple words… executive orders.
Yep, the 47th POTUS signed off on numerous executive orders, which included halting the ban of TikTok, changing laws on immigration, and declaring that there are ‘only two genders’, just hours upon his return to the Oval Office.
A few days into the job, Trump signed off an executive order that would see the files connected to the deaths of Marin Luther King Jr., President John F. Kennedy and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy declassified.
Donald Trump loves an executive order (Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Roc Nation)
Part of the newly signed order states, as per Mail Online: “More than 50 years after the assassinations of President John F Kennedy, Senator Robert F Kennedy, and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Federal Government has not released to the public all of its records related to those events.
“Their families and the American people deserve transparency and truth. It is in the national interest to finally release all records related to these assassinations without delay.”
It was Axios who first reported 2,400 records tied to the infamous assassination had been released following a review.
The FBI told Fox News: “In 2020, the FBI opened the Central Records Complex and began a multi-year effort to first ship and then electronically inventory and store closed case files from FBI field offices across the country.
“The resulting, more comprehensive records inventory, coupled with the technologic advances in automating the FBI’s record keeping processes, allows us to more quickly search and locate records.”
They added: “The FBI conducted a new records search pursuant to President Trump’s Executive Order issued on January 23, 2025, regarding the declassification of the assassination files of JFK, RFK, and MLK. The search resulted in approximately 2400 newly inventoried and digitized records that were previously unrecognized as related to the JFK assassination case file.
JFK was assassinated in 1963 (Getty Stock Photo)
“The FBI has made the appropriate notifications of the newly discovered documents and is working to transfer them to the National Archives and Records Administration for inclusion in the ongoing declassification process.”
Before the latest revelation, a JFK assassination expert detailed the ’embarrassing’ secrets which might be revealed once Trump releases the files.
Speaking to Fox News, Gerald Posner, the author of Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK, said: “I think that we could actually find the files that are very embarrassing to the CIA and one of the reasons they’ve held on to these for so long.”
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Multiple of Donald Trump’s executive orders have been challenged and temporarily halted as a result of them potentially not complying with an Act established in 1946.
After being sworn in as the 47th President of the United States, Donald Trump wasted no time signing off on multiple executive orders – over 50 in around two weeks.
However, that’s not to say all have gone on to be easily achieved, with one in particular persistently blocked all thanks to the Administrative Procedure Act.
What happens before the Administrative Procedure Act?
Well, before a president even enters office, they typically have an agenda that they’ve been pushing to help them achieve the votes – an agenda which they may ultimately continue to rally behind once they’ve been sworn in.
Now, some laws go through Congress to become policies, however, some presidents will choose to sign off on executive actions which don’t have to go through Congress in a bid to turn them into law.
Executive actions involve setting a policy and then designating the policy to certain specific federal agencies – also known as executive agencies – to enact it.
However, everything executive agencies do must follow the Administrative Procedure Act, which ultimately means if an executive order doesn’t comply with the Act, it can’t simply pass through and become a law – unlucky Trump.
But what it the Administrative Procedure Act exactly?
Unlucky Trump ( Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
What is the Administrative Procedure Act?
The Administrative Procedure Act is a federal statute signed off in 1946 which requires all administrative agencies – i.e. organizations that are part of the US federal government – ‘to satisfy procedural requirements (referred to as notice-and-comment rule-making) in developing and issuing regulations,’ Thomson Reuters explains.
Under the act, an administrative agency must ‘publish a general notice of proposed rule-making in the Federal Register’ and ‘allow interested parties to be involved in the rule-making process by submitting written data, views, or arguments’.
It must include a ‘general statement of the regulations basis and purpose,’ which help ‘provide the public [with] a chance to participate in the rule-making process’ alongside helping ‘an agency educate itself before promulgating regulations and procedures that have a substantial effect on the regulated community’.
If there’s a question of whether the act has been followed within an executive order, the order can be challenged and taken to court and temporarily halted in the process.
Trump can keep signing away, but that doesn’t mean all his executive orders will end up as law (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
How does this affect Trump’s executive orders?
Basically, it means Trump doesn’t simply have free reign to just sign off on any executive order he wants and it gets enacted as a law.
If any of Trump’s orders are found to go against the Act or someone challenging an order can convince a judge its ‘arbitrary and capricious’, then the order can be prevented from being put into action.
Multiple of Trump’s orders have been temporarily blocked by various courts, meaning the action cannot be enforced at least for now until a federal court has determined whether or not it can lawfully go ahead.
And even if a court did decide against one of the executive orders, this decision can also be appealed and taken to the Supreme Court, which has the ultimate say.
So, which of Trump’s orders are potentially hanging in the balance?
Multiple of Trump’s executive orders have been halted so far (BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
Trump’s blocked orders so far
Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is not yet allowed access to sensitive federal government payments, as a legal challenge was filed by union members and others, and a federal judge later agreed to place a temporary block on it.
Another suit was filed by other union members, but a judge denied issuing a temporary restraining order and nineteen states filed a similar suit arguing it’s unconstitutional for Musk to access personal data too.
And that’s not all:
- Trump’s attempt to strip down the US Agency for International Development to a few hundred workers by placing them on leave – a Washington district judge issued ‘very limited’ temporary restraining order.
- Requiring agencies to work with DOGE and cut down federal workforce, administration offering to pay workers if they agree to resign – Labor unions for federal workers argued the offer was illegal and the date for workers to agree or disagree was later delayed by a federal judge in Boston.
- ‘Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship’ order – this was met with a number of lawsuits and later seeing Maryland and Washington federal judges issue nationwide preliminary injunctions, one since appealed by Trump.
- Funding freeze for federal aid and programs such as the diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) – federal judges in Washington and Rhode Island have signed off on temporary restraining orders.
- Transgender inmates – Four transgender women prisoners filed two lawsuits and two judges blocked the prisoners from being removed from their prisons and transferred to male prisons.
Warning: This article contains discussion of discrimination against the trans community which some readers may find distressing.
Donald Trump has signed an executive order to ‘protect children from chemical and surgical mutilation’.
Within 24 hours of being sworn in as the 47th President of the United States, Donald Trump wasted no time signing off on a list of executive orders, including an official policy declaring there are ‘only two genders’.
Since then, he’s signed a new executive order regarding the future of transgender people in the military, and yesterday (January 28), Trump signed off another executive order relating to transgender care.
Trump’s newest executive order on transgender care
Titled ‘Protecting children from chemical and surgical mutilation,’ the executive order accuses medical professionals of ‘maiming and sterilizing a growing number of impressionable children under the radical and false claim that adults can change a child’s sex through a series of irreversible medical interventions’.
Branding it a ‘dangerous trend,’ the executive order calls it a ‘stain on our Nation’s history’ and calls for it to ‘end’.
“Countless children soon regret that they have been mutilated and begin to grasp the horrifying tragedy that they will never be able to conceive children of their own or nurture their children through breastfeeding. Moreover, these vulnerable youths’ medical bills may rise throughout their lifetimes, as they are often trapped with lifelong medical complications, a losing war with their own bodies, and, tragically, sterilization,” it argues.
Trump orders it to be the policy of the US to ‘not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called “transition” of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures’.
Who’s impacted and what specific care will be restricted
Donald Trump is restricting transgender care (ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP via Getty Images)
The executive order notes by ‘child’, it means anyone under the age of 19.
Calling gender affirming care ‘chemical and surgical mutilation,’ the order states the policy will ultimately ban those under the age of 19 from the ‘use of puberty blockers, including GnRH agonists and other interventions, to delay the onset or progression of normally timed puberty in an individual who does not identify as his or her sex [and] the use of sex hormones, such as androgen blockers, estrogen, progesterone, or testosterone, to align an individual’s physical appearance with an identity that differs from his or her sex’.
The order will also see the ban for those under the age of 19 of any ‘surgical procedures that attempt to transform an individual’s physical appearance to align with an identity that differs from his or her sex or that attempt to alter or remove an individual’s sexual organs to minimize or destroy their natural biological functions’.
The order is aimed at cutting transgender support from federally-run insurance programs – including Medicaid and TRICARE for military families.
If you’ve been affected by any of these issues and want to speak to someone in confidence, contact the LGBT national hotline at 888-843-4564, available Monday to Friday 4pm-12am ET and 12pm-5pm ET on Saturdays.
