The New York City monument is based in a tiny park across the street from the Stonewall Inn, a bar that became ground zero for the gay rights movement.

Hundreds of people gathered at the Greenwich Village site to condemn what they saw as a chilling strike against the symbolic heart of the gay rights movement.

After the words “transgender” and “queer” were removed from the National Park Service’s website for the Stonewall National Monument, a landmark of the LGBTQ pride movement in New York City, protesters filled nearby Christopher Park Friday with a simple message: “You can’t erase us.