With Election Day less than a week away, Queens Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for mayor, is seeking to reassure LGBTQ voters that his administration would fight for trans rights and the broader queer community on day one.
“It is critically important that New York City show what it means to be an alternative to the Trump administration’s politics and policies of hatred and division,” Mamdani said in an Oct. 29 interview with Gay City News. “Trans New Yorkers, especially trans youth, are incredibly vulnerable right now and under attack by this federal administration.”
The 34-year-old lawmaker is in the final stretch of a contentious mayoral race against two key opponents — former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa — at a pivotal moment for the LGBTQ community. The Trump administration has worked ferociously to roll back trans rights since returning to the White House in January, and New York is not immune from that effort.
Earlier this year, several private hospitals in New York City canceled appointments or otherwise restricted care for some trans youth after the president signed an executive order stipulating that institutions providing gender-affirming care to those under the age of 19 would lose federal funding.
Mamdani was among several lawmakers who stepped up to protest those hospitals for caving to the Trump administration. He told Gay City News that he would seek to establish an agency dedicated to serving the LGBTQ community and protecting their health and well-being in the Big Apple.
“I will make New York City a true sanctuary for queer and trans New Yorkers, protecting them from persecution and ensuring access to life-saving gender-affirming care,” Mamdani said. “And I have put forward a plan that would establish the Office of LGBTQIA+ Affairs that would deliver funding and support for housing, legal services, and mental health, as well as putting forward $65 million in funding for gender-affirming care that would replace the amount of funding that the federal government is threatening to strip of this city in an attempt to attack trans and queer New Yorkers.”
Other issues creeping into New York’s political orbit include the battle over the rights of trans individuals to play sports and use bathrooms in accordance with their gender identity — both of which have come under attack by the Trump administration.
In September, the Trump administration announced plans to pull tens of millions of dollars in education funding from the city after it refused to meet a deadline to nix trans-inclusive policies in schools. Mayor Eric Adams has also criticized the city’s trans-inclusive bathroom policies and unsuccessfully sought to erase those protections, sparking widespread outrage.
For his part, Mamdani emphasized to Gay City News that New York’s laws protect LGBTQ individuals — and he’s committed to both safeguarding and bolstering the community’s rights if he’s elected mayor.
“I view the laws as something to follow, and I’m proud of the fact that our school system refused to give up trans kids when the Trump administration came for them recently,” Mamdani said. “And we know that the Trump administration’s acts of political retribution are ones that have already started, because they withheld more than $50,000,000 in funding that was set to be delivered to our school system purely as a result of our insistence that we stand up for every single student across our system.”
Of the remaining candidates, Mamdani is the only one with a dedicated LGBTQ platform — it spans six pages on his campaign website. He attended multiple LGBTQ forums during the Democratic primary and filled out mayoral questionnaires from the Stonewall Democratic Club of New York City and the Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club. Outside of his campaign, however, queer rights have rarely been discussed during the general election race for mayor.
At one point, Cuomo criticized Mamdani for taking a photo with anti-LGBTQ Ugandan Deputy Prime Minister Rebecca Kadaga, which prompted Mamdani to tell the New York Post that he was “unaware” of the politician’s stance. He would also condemn Uganda’s stance on gay rights.
As a state lawmaker, Mamdani has co-sponsored legislation such as the Gender Recognition Act, which gave New Yorkers the ability to update their state identification and birth certificates with an “x” gender designation, as well as a bill to repeal a discriminatory loitering law widely described as a ban on “walking while trans” due to the way in which law enforcement used the law to harass and arrest trans women for baseless reasons.
In the aftermath of the 2024 election, he joined a group of lawmakers at a town hall at the LGBT Center in Manhattan to stand in solidarity with the LGBTQ community.
Mamdani’s support for LGBTQ rights led to the emergence of a group known as Gays for Zohran, which held a rally for him on National Coming Out Day. At that rally, Mamdani delivered remarks to the crowd, stressing the importance of actively promoting LGBTQ rights. He echoed those sentiments during his interview with Gay City News.
“I would say that I am the only candidate in this race with a comprehensive platform to not just protect LGBTQIA+ New Yorkers, but to celebrate and to cherish them,” he said.
Mamdani envisions utilizing the Office of LGBTQIA+ Affairs to steer $87 million in funding towards housing programs, mental health services, trans-led organizations, workforce support, healthcare, education, and public defense and legal services for the LGBTQ community, according to his campaign platform. Mamdani also views the affordability crisis and the marginalization of queer New Yorkers as two intersecting issues.
“What I’ve heard from so many LGBTQI+ New Yorkers is the fact that, in a moment where the federal administration is looking to erase their existence from the very history of this country, it’s critically important that we have a mayor of this city who not only stands up for this community, but also ensures that we make this city more affordable because the affordability crisis is also one that disproportionately impacts queer New Yorkers across the five boroughs,” Mamdani said.
The issue of affordability, after all, is what helped carry Mamdani to victory in the Democratic primary contest. Now, even as he faces two opponents in the general election, much of Mamdani’s attention is focused on the president himself — and he’s making the case that he would be uniquely qualified to confront the Trump administration’s anti-LGBTQ agenda if he is elected as the next mayor.
“It’s time to have a mayor who understands that the responsibility of standing up for the queer community is in more ways than just one,” he said.
To read Gay City News’ coverage of how the mayoral candidates compare on LGBTQ issues, click here.
