National Park Rangers rebel against queer erasure on Trans Day of Visibility
While the Trump administration continues its campaign to erase transgender people from public life—including from historic federal landmarks—those who once wore the National Park Service uniform are refusing to stay silent.
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On Monday, to mark Transgender Day of Visibility, a group of over 1,000 off-duty, fired, and retired National Park Service employees launched Rangers Uncensored, an online archive that restores and amplifies LGBTQ+ stories quietly scrubbed from government websites since President Donald Trump's second inauguration. The initiative is the latest move by the Resistance Rangers, a growing network of former federal workers turned grassroots watchdogs who say they're stepping in where federal agencies are falling silent.
Related: No LGB without the T — queer community protests Trump's transgender erasure at Stonewall
'As America's storytellers, rangers have a duty to tell all Americans' stories,' one NPS historian, who spoke anonymously due to fear of retaliation, said in a statement. 'Attempts to rewrite the truth and erase Americans, their identities, and their impact on our country are unacceptable.'
The website—rangersuncensored.org—compiles deleted and altered pages from the National Park Service's online archives, including tributes to Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, two trans women of color who helped ignite the 1969 Stonewall Uprising; a profile of Jack Bee Garland, a trans man who served as a medic in the Spanish-American War; and an exploration of two-spirit people from the Pimería Alta.
The initiative follows a now-notorious update made on February 13, when the words 'transgender' and 'queer' were removed from the Stonewall National Monument website. The acronym 'LGBTQ+' was also replaced with 'LGB' in over 230 known instances across NPS webpages—rhetoric commonly used by the trans-exclusionary LGB Alliance.
Ryan Grippi/DontEraseUs
The edit sparked a Valentine's Day protest at the Stonewall Inn, with community leaders and LGBTQ+ organizations condemning what they called 'a deliberate attempt to erase our history.' The Stonewall Inn Gives Back Initiative called it a 'blatant act of erasure' that dishonors 'the immense contributions of transgender individuals—especially transgender women of color—who were at the forefront of the Stonewall Riots.'
The Resistance Rangers were watching.
Related: 'Transgender' references erased from Stonewall National Monument website
'We are a community of off-duty, illegally fired, and former National Park Service employees,' the group says on its website. 'We are biologists and EMTs, budget techs and helicopter pilots, law enforcement rangers and trail crews. And we're united by one goal: to protect and preserve our shared history—especially when those in power try to erase it.'
Ryan Grippi/DontEraseUs
Their mission includes more than preserving digital archives. The group is also fighting for the reinstatement of wrongfully dismissed NPS staff, speaking out against the privatization of public lands, and shining a light on what they call the 'invisible labor' of public servants across the park system. By connecting with the public in ways current federal employees cannot, they aim to empower everyday people to push back.
Alyssa Samek, associate professor of rhetorical studies at Cal State Fullerton, said the erasure of transgender, queer, and gender-expansive people from NPS stories 'silences and obscures folks who have long been here and queer, actively enriching our nation's history.' She added that these stories remind both straight and queer audiences that LGBTQ+ people 'have a long, fierce legacy of resistance to the forces of domination that persist today.' Samek said that is precisely why they're being targeted for deletion.
'There is no American history without queer history. Since time immemorial, queer people have been part of the land and its history. To hide these stories is to hide our shared history,' a current National Parks Service Ranger told The Advocate on condition of anonymity to speak freely without reprisal. 'This does not just disenfranchise and harm the marginalized; hiding history cheats everyone from their heritage as part of the American experience. Transgender people have always existed and always will exist, and their stories are all of our stories, deserving of being shared and treasured. No administration can take that away."
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