diff --git a/spanner/stats.go b/spanner/stats.go
index 0515b5d8fc20..67bc19f003ae 100644
--- a/spanner/stats.go
+++ b/spanner/stats.go
@@ -43,6 +43,8 @@ var (
 	tagNumReadSessions  = tag.Tag{Key: tagKeyType, Value: "num_read_sessions"}
 	tagNumWriteSessions = tag.Tag{Key: tagKeyType, Value: "num_write_prepared_sessions"}
 	tagKeyMethod        = tag.MustNewKey("grpc_client_method")
+	// Deprecated: remove this exported flag
+	GFELatencyMetricsEnabled = false
 	// gfeLatencyMetricsEnabled is used to track if GFELatency and GFEHeaderMissingCount need to be recorded
 	gfeLatencyMetricsEnabled = false
 	// mutex to avoid data race in reading/writing the above flag