The National Park Service Fumbled Pride Month. Its Employees Still Feel Wary.

On May 9, the National Park Service (NPS) sent employees a memo that effectively banned them from participating in Pride events in uniform. The memo from Deputy Director for Operations Frank Lands didn’t mention Pride specifically, but said that the agency was in the process of updating its uniform policy, which determines when and where employees can wear their official NPS apparel outside park property. “While in uniform we represent the NPS and have a responsibility to balance our personal and professional lives,” he wrote.

Until those updates came through (no date was specified), staff would be prohibited from “participating in or attending any demonstration or public event wherein the wearing of the uniform could be construed as agency support for a particular issue, position or political party,” the memo said.

When I saw the news, my heart sank. As a queer and transgender person, it felt like the agency was turning its back on me and my community. For years, the NPS has championed LGBTQ+ rights. An official Park Service unit has marched in San Francisco’s annual Pride parade since 2014. And just last year, Yosemite’s Instagram feed proudly featured uniformed staff with Pride flags. The agency’s own Stonewall National Monument in Greenwich Village, New York, commemorates an iconic piece of queer history. In 1969, police raids on LGBTQ+ patrons at the Stonewall Inn bar led to riots, then six days of demonstrations, marking a turning point for civil rights.

The initial memo raised enough questions that Lands sent a second, in which he noted NPS has not canceled in-park Pride events. He also explained that the process for uniform approvals in recent years had been inconsistent. “Approving participation in some events and not others could be seen as discrimination based on viewpoint, which we just cannot do,” Lands wrote. “While it may not feel like it, holding to our policy promotes equitable treatment of these requests.”

The memos led to pushback from employees, and in late May, LGBTQ+ advocates took to social media to raise their concerns. Drag queen and environmentalist Pattie Gonia posted on her Instagram, “National Park Service this is NOT what allyship looks like…this year pride really is a protest.”

Finally, on May 24, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland sent out a memo walking back the initial guidance. Her note didn’t specifically mention Pride, but talked more generally about upcoming “special emphasis months,” a designation that includes Pride, along with African American History Month, Native American Heritage Month, and others. Her memo specified that staff was now permitted to participate in uniform in external events related to these months.

It’s a fraught time to be a visibly queer or trans outdoor recreationalist. Anti-LGBTQ+ policies have gained momentum across the country, including in states that are home to some of our most beloved wild places. If you want to visit America’s most popular national park, the Great Smoky Mountains, you’ll pass through North Carolina or Tennessee, which have seen a combined 46 anti-LGBTQ+ bills introduced this year according to the ACLU. Yellowstone spans three states—Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana—where a combined 25 bills keep trans youth out of school sports, redefine gender in state law, and prohibit state contractors from using their preferred bathroom, among other rollbacks to LGBTQ+ rights.

When I was 17, my best friend and I drove through the night from Maryland to kayak in Everglades National Park. That was over 20 years ago, but I’d have to think very carefully before visiting that park today. In 2023, the Human Rights Campaign issued an advisory for LGBTQ+ people visiting Florida due to the political environment there.

I recently moved from Bozeman, Montana, to New York’s Hudson Valley, where Stonewall’s influence emanates well into Catskills and Adirondacks. It seems like I stumble into an LGBTQ+ event at every state park or ski area, and based on casual observations, I suspect our local climbing gym is majority queer. I’m protected by anti-discrimination laws, and my partner and I rarely draw any attention or negative commentary. But back in Bozeman, where I lived for 12 years, the police just evacuated my favorite cafe because of a bomb threat related to a drag story hour. My partner and I won’t let threats, U-hauls full of extremists in riot gear, anti-LGBTQ+ laws, or a wishy-washy Interior Department stop us from visiting western national parks this summer. But with two young kids in tow and their well-being on our minds, it does mean we will be looking over our shoulders in a way we don’t at home.

For people who’ve been told they don’t fit in for their entire lives, uniforms can signify a hard-won sense of belonging and help LGBTQ+ staff and visitors feel welcome in the parks. “I think for me, personally, growing up, I never saw park rangers that looked like me,” says a member of the Park Service’s LGBTQ+ employee resource group (ERG) who spoke with me on condition of anonymity. “So to be able to wear the uniform with my multiple identities, it means a lot in affirming who I am, and also my place in the agency. And that others like me can be in the Park Service as well.”

Now, imagine having that affirmation revoked, and being asked to show up as less than your whole self. It’s a little bit like dating someone who doesn’t want to be seen with you in public.

When I reached out for comment about the series of memos, the NPS sent along a short statement. “Regional Directors will determine the level and nature of NPS participation, considering operational and budgetary factors,” they wrote. “As we do every June, parks will be hosting and participating in Pride events and sharing stories that recognize the joy and perseverance of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer community.”

But while Lands indicated in his memos that the updated uniform guidance was largely a response to an influx of staff requests to wear uniforms at events, I spoke with several NPS staffers involved in the LGBTQ+ ERG who believe that their leadership is becoming more risk-averse.

“Community events have become more politicized,” says the ERG member we spoke with. “Instead of creating a distinction between a political event and an identity-based event, or civil rights-oriented event, leadership is just doing a blanket no.” Administrators denied approval for uniformed participation in at least one Latino heritage festival, according to two NPS staff members we interviewed.

I spoke with several employees who mentioned that the timing and nature of the memos have damaged staff morale and trust within the agency. According to members of the Park Service’s LGBTQ+ employee resource group, this isn’t an isolated incident, but part of a pattern of leadership denying staff requests to participate in Pride events while in uniform.

LGBTQ+ advocates fear the initial memo, although already reversed, could still affect future Pride event approvals. “The stuff that scares me is the non-official policy decisions that will be made as a result of this,” says Mikah Meyer, an LGBTQ+ advocate who became the first person to visit every NPS site in a single trip. “What well-intentioned superintendent is going to see all of this hubbub and think maybe it’s safer not to approve this Pride thing this year or this is controversial so let’s wait a year.”

Following Haaland’s memo, Pattie Gonia sent an email to reporters echoing that sentiment. “We remain cautious on how the updated policy will be implemented,” Pattie Gonia told reporters. She noted that she is advocating for safeguards that would allow NPS employees to appeal permission denials from park leadership. In her email, she congratulated queer Park Service employees for their successful advocacy and thanked the NPS and Haaland for listening to staff and the public.

There is a huge discrepancy between queer people and the rest of the population when it comes to safety and quality of life, which means that we need agencies like NPS to be stalwart in their support. Knowing that our civil rights are considered within the bounds of national parks could make the difference for whether or not an LGBTQ+ person chooses to take advantage of a system that is meant for everyone.

This is a tough political environment for public agencies, and I have to wonder if NPS was just trying to avoid legal conflict or becoming a target of extremism. But even if that were the case, the agency needs to support vulnerable employees and visitors who are at risk of harassment or worse—not cave to pressure from people who have politicized our existence. Continuing to allow uniformed Park Service staff at Pride is a simple way to signal that national parks should be, and hopefully are, safe places for queer people and staff.