The same group of candidates who participated in an LGBTQ mayoral forum earlier this year gathered at Red Eye NY in midtown on May 31 for another discussion about how to tackle issues facing queer and trans New Yorkers.
The forum, hosted by Queers for Action and a group of non-profits, covered topics ranging from efforts to shore up funding for gender-affirming care to candidates’ plans to bolster the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB), which is an independent, civilian agency tasked with investigating, mediating, and prosecuting police misconduct. The event came less than a month before the candidates square off in the June 24 Democratic Primary.
Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, Comptroller Brad Lander, former Comptroller Scott Stringer, State Senator Jessica Ramos, former Assemblymember Michael Blake, and City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams were on hand for the forum, which was split into two rounds: Adams, Blake, and Lander participated in the first part of the forum, while Mamdani, Ramos, and Stringer closed out the event.
Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a clear frontrunner in several mayoral polls thus far, did not attend the forum, and Mayor Eric Adams is not running in the Democratic primary.
Gender-affirming care was a major topic during the forum in the wake of President Donald Trump’s executive order to restrict federal funding for institutions providing gender-affirming care to individuals 19 years of age or younger. That order prompted multiple hospitals, including NYU Langone, New York Presbyterian, and Mount Sinai to either cancel appointments or otherwise pull back on gender-affirming care for some individuals. Since then, State Attorney General Letitia James has warned providers against violating anti-discrimination law and federal courts on both coasts have issued rulings against the order.
“As someone who’s trans, the two issues that would either keep me in this country or get me to look for somewhere else is if I don’t have access to my healthcare and if I don’t have access to accurate identification,” said Miss Peppermint, who moderated the evening’s event. “And both of those things are on the table and under attack right now.”
Comptroller Lander, a former city lawmaker, conveyed his vision to create what he described as an independent authority consisting of city, state, and private dollars to cover abortion, gender-affirming care, and contraception. Notably, Lander also called for the tripling of the Trans Equity Fund, which is an initiative in both the state and the city to provide funding for trans-led organizations serving trans and non-binary individuals.
Speaker Adams noted that she seeks to set aside $1.9 billion in reserves to “Trump-proof” New York City and has asked the mayor “to one-up us.”
The speaker emphasized that the City Council has worked to advance LGBTQ rights under her leadership, citing last year’s fight to restore millions of dollars in HIV/AIDS funding and the recent passage of a legislative package to protect gender-affirming care in the city.
Blake, a former DNC vice chair, said a tax on vacant apartments and commercial spaces would help raise funds to replenish the city’s reserves, and he further suggested addressing what he described as “excessive obscene overtime” within the NYPD.
Mamdani, who ranked second among Democratic primary candidates in a recent mayoral poll by PIX 11, Emerson College, and The Hill, said if hospitals such as NYU Langone continue to waver on gender-affirming care, the city should “explore” whether such hospitals should continue to be exempt from property taxes. At the same time, he called to set aside $65 million in government funding to make up for the potential loss of Medicaid funding for gender-affirming care.
“We can tell hospitals and providers you can still stand on principle, you can still follow New York City and state law, and we will have the funding there for you,” he said.
Among other points, Mamdani discussed his commitment, if elected mayor, to create a new office of LGBTQIA+ Affairs, and he called out his top rival, Cuomo, over a video clip showing the former governor discussing the 2024 election. A video posted by Jael Holzman on Bluesky shows Cuomo speaking in front of a podium, saying, “My argument is, no, we lost because we were too far left, because we’re talking about bathrooms and who’s going to play on what team, boys and girls, meanwhile, you lose touch with the issues people care about.”
“And ultimately what that reflects is a willingness within our own party to betray trans and queer New Yorkers and Americans to deflect from the responsibility our party has to face up that we actually betrayed working class people so long ago and we’re finally paying the bill,” Mamdani said, referring to the video.
Many of the candidates leaned on their background and experience, including Stringer, who emphasized his long record of work in city government and his own efforts to pass marriage equality in New York State.
“Quite frankly, I did not, at the time, think that by sponsoring that bill we would see it passed in my lifetime,” Stringer said. “And yet, because of the tremendous coalition that was created and built, we were able to do that.”
The candidates were collectively in agreement about the need to provide more authority to the CCRB at a time when that board’s decisions have not always led to action. That was evident in the fallout stemming from the 2019 fatal police shooting of out gay 32-year-old Kawaski Trawick, who was killed by police officers who entered into his home without permission. While the CCRB substantiated multiple charges against the officers involved in that case, the NYPD ultimately announced that the officers would not face punishment, despite numerous calls for the mayor to terminate them.
Blake called for the formation of a police misconduct registry to track the wrongdoings of police officers, Speaker Adams said the CCRB needs to be “reconfigured to do the right thing by all the people of this city,” and Lander said the board should have disciplinary authority for “the things that they’re proposing.”
“Where there’s any difference between what the CCRB proposes and what the NYPD says, it needs to be adjudicated by the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings, not by the police commissioner,” Lander said.
Lander cited his work as a city lawmaker to spearhead the Community Safety Act, a legislative package to combat discriminatory policing — including anti-LGBTQ discrimination — as well as his role in co-sponsoring bills banning conversion therapy and allowing folks to change the gender marker on their birth certificates.
In addition to the CCRB, candidates also called to beef up other agencies responsible for protecting the community. Ramos, hailing the potential power of the New York City Commission on Human Rights, said that agency should be injected with more resources. Like during the previous LGBTQ forum, Ramos called on New York to consider withholding federal income taxes in the face of threats from the Trump administration.
“I believe that many times the law can be used as a shield, but many times, especially in the face of a fascist, it must be used as a sword,” Ramos said. “Expect from me an administration that would very deliberately litigate against a [presidential] administration that would take away the rights of this community or any community, because New York City is for everyone and it has to continue to be.”
Among other topics, candidates stressed the importance of protecting immigrants during yet another Trump era. Some of the candidates invoked their own personal stories, including Ramos, who said her dad was “abducted” by immigration officials during her youth, and Mamdani, who recalled coming to the United States at the age of 7 and obtaining citizenship in an area not far from where immigration agents have been spotted detaining individuals in New York City.
Queers for Action, which emerged from the grassroots organizing initiative known as Queers for Kamala, hosted the forum in conjunction with a group of non-profit organizations, including Ali Forney Center, Callen Lorde, Caribbean Equality Project, The Center, GMHC, New Pride Agenda, PFLAG NYC, and SAGE.
“This forum is a clarion call to the candidates — and to our community: wake the fuck up,” said Amit Singh Bagga, a Queers for Action forum organizer and a government veteran. “Time to fight for ourselves and get smart about who’s really going to fight for us.”
Bagga added: “Which candidates will get shots in arms during the next mpox and who’s going to keep our bottles full of PrEP if the Supreme Court ravages the ACA? Who’s going to make our hard-won protections mean more than the paper they’re printed on and who’s going to trade us like pawns in perverse politics? If we don’t demand these answers now, nobody will — and later will be too late.”
An out, non-binary individual with mayoral aspirations, Paperboy Prince, who was not on the list of candidates slated to attend, stepped on stage briefly during the event and made the case that queer candidates “get railroaded and sidelined.” The evening’s moderator, Miss Peppermint, invited Paperboy Prince to stay for the forum, but they declined and soon left the stage.
Watch the full forum on YouTube.
