Like most Americans, I love visiting old places, whether Savannah, Seattle, or Santa Fe. I love historic architecture, gardens, and sacred sites. I like nothing better than hearing music in an old church, eating at a legacy restaurant, or staying at an old Airbnb.

But until a few years ago, I didn’t see myself in the historic sites I toured—not in the grand mansions built by the robber barons in the 19th century from Newport to the Coast of California, nor even in the homes of the founding fathers, from George Washington to John Adams. Though I enjoyed visiting and learned a lot, it was as if the place had to be for fancy or rich people to be a place people cared to save.

In recent years, historic places have begun to tell more stories about the many people who lived and worked there. Those stories can help people see themselves in the place and feel that sense of belonging that is essential for our mental and emotional health and to recognize the connections between us.

The descendants of Italian immigrants see themselves in the stories told at New York’s Tenement Museum and how their experience was like that of Irish immigrants. Jewish people can see themselves in the historic Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, and hear how religious freedom was equally essential to Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians. African-Americans can see themselves in the Sixth Avenue Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, and understand how civil rights impact everyone.

Lesbian, gay, bi, transgender, and queer people can see themselves at places that now tell these stories. From Iberia, Lousiana’s Shadows-on-the-Teche, which tells the story of not only of the plantation economy, but also of Weeks Hall and the creative society of straight and queer preservationists in Louisiana. The Pauli Murray House in Durham, North Carolina, tells the story of the lawyer, writer, and Episcopalian saint, Pauli Murray, who questioned her gender. These places tell stories that are layered and complex and include everyone in the history of America.

I’m deeply grateful we tell these stories. I wish these stories had been told when I was younger, because historic places do more than just educate visitors about the past. For many Americans, they are sources of profound personal meaning. But as the Trump Administration moves to erase stories about the fight for equality and equal representation, the stakes have never been higher.

Recently, the National Park Service removed references to transgender and queer people from the website for the Stonewall National Monument. This move completely negates the instrumental role of transgender and queer people who participated in the revolt that jump-started a more activist gay rights movement. This erasure not only prevents transgender and queer people from seeing themselves in our history, and knowing that they will be part of our future, it also erases the connections and complexity for everyone who cares about the progress of the United States toward a more perfect union.

This erasure can also be a matter of life and death for young people.

When I first consciously knew I was gay, my first thought was, Oh, that’s what I am. My second, and immediate, thought was, if anyone ever finds out, I will be killed. For over a decade after that, I was closeted. From time to time, I considered suicide. The rate of suicide among LGBTQ teens is four times the national average.

I wish I had heard and known the stories of LGBTQ+ people like Pauli Murray or Weeks Hall in the places I visited back then. The stories of these places may have given me a sense of belonging, of seeing myself in the world, and in this place we call the United States of America.

The same principle applies to all of us, regardless of who we love or what we look like. That’s why we must continue to tell these stories. They represent the history of our country’s quest to form a more perfect union and ensure that we live up to the ideals on which it was founded.