In January, the president’s executive orders purging trans and queer identity and diversity, equity, and inclusivity (DEI) efforts from the federal government began their devastating cascade through the federal bureaucracy.

One consequence speaks to the frightening authoritarian tactics deployed by the president and his MAGA loyalists: rewriting or erasing history not aligned with their Christian nationalist vision for the United States. That vision doesn’t include trans people — now or ever.

The most egregious example may have been removing all mentions of the trans women who instigated the Stonewall Riots in 1969, a watershed moment in the history of LGBTQ+ rights. Once reported faithfully by the National Park Service on their website, trans people have now been erased from both the history of the riots and from the LGBTQ+ acronym itself—thousands turned out at the monument in New York’s Greenwich Village to protest the changes.

But the same erasure is happening at similar sites of LGBTQ+ history-making across the country. The latest to come to light: the city of Boston.

The city’s History Project, a group “documenting LGBTQ Boston,” reports that in February, the National Park Service removed “Their Dreams, Their Rights, and Their Love,” an LGBTQ+ audio tour of Beacon Hill and Downtown Boston, from its website.

The tour includes the roles of influential queer figures like 19th-century novelists Sarah Orne Jewett and Annie Fields, gay rights activist Prescott Townsend, and popular gay gathering spots like the Sporters Bar in the city’s West End.

“This tour belongs to the public—not the politicians,” the group says. “Work created by government employees in their official roles is public domain, and should be available to our community as we continue to fight for visibility, truth and joy.”

Work created by government employees in their official roles is public domain, and should be available to our community as we continue to fight for visibility, truth and joy.The History Project, a group dedicated to preserving Boston’s LGBTQ+ history

So the History Project is rescuing the audio tour and other LGBTQ+ history officially erased by the NPS.

“The History Project exists to document, preserve, and share queer and trans stories; our work is especially vital when institutions fail to protect or respect our history. We’ve made this tour accessible again, and we invite you to walk through queer and trans history in resistance against those who want to erase us,” the group says.

In an investigation of the National Park Service’s history-altering changes in the Boston area, The Boston Globe found at least six instances where the service removed stories from its website on LGBTQ+ activism at Faneuil Hall; wiped guides on Black and LGBTQ+ history from the Longfellow House-Washington’s Headquarters web page; and shortened all mentions and tags of “LGBTQ+” to “LGB” (an acronym that is only ever used by transphobes). 

Earlier this month, it also removed mentions of Black abolitionist icon Harriet Tubman on its Underground Railroad page; those references were restored after widespread shock and outrage.

“The National Park Service has always had this reputability,” said Theo Linger, a former NPS Boston employee who contributed work and research to the Boston LGBTQ+ History section. “To have queer history included in that sort of prestige was a very big deal.”

But in February, Linger was given a choice: Eliminate any mention of trans and queer people from his work, or remove it—Linger walked away.

“I didn’t want to jettison my community, or any community,” Linger said.

In an eerie premonition of the censorship to come, the now-erased LGBTQ+ History title page stated, “As America’s storytellers, the National Park Service is committed to telling the history of all Americans in all of its diversity and complexity.”

“For many years, the rich histories of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer Americans have been erased through punishing laws and general prejudice,” the site said before eventually erasing transgender and queer Americans from its pages.