The newly elected mayor’s policy proposals would benefit and proactively protect LGBT+ people
Editor’s Note: This article is an edited version of The Needle’s election-night coverage, re-used with permission from The Needle.
Zohran Mamdani will be New York City’s new mayor.
Mamdani’s win, with 51% of the vote at the time it was called, reflects that Democrats win when they stand up for something.
Mamdani was elected at a time when Democrats are telling themselves that victory requires running away from minority issues- especially trans rights.
It is also a time when Trump’s second administration has used executive fiat to reduce or remove trans healthcare across the nation, including in blue states like Colorado, by pressuring hospitals directly.
Leading up to the election, Mamdani’s campaign supported ambitious and proactively defensive policies for trans people. Mamdani published policy proposals to make NYC a LGBTQIA+ sanctuary city, expanding and protecting both access and funding for trans people’s medicine (the campaign calls it ‘gender affirming healthcare’) citywide, and creating a citywide office of LGBTQIA+ affairs.
As for transition medicine, the campaign proposed $65 million in funding.
According to the policy memo, $8 million of that total would go to creating telehealth options, adding telehealth benefits for gender-affirming healthcare coverage to the hospital plans in the city, and creating a citywide hub for connecting people to providers.
Mamdani’s policy proposal to codify New York City as a sanctuary city is based on existing legislation and models from several other U.S. cities, according to the campaign.
Another element of the pro-queer policy proposed by Mamdani’s campaign was $87 million to create the office of LGBTQIA+ affairs. Over one-third of this new office’s proposed budget would be for ensuring housing support for LGBT+ people.
These policies don’t come out of nowhere.
The policies are tied to clear and specific objectives, including funding amounts and goals, revealing a candidate–now Mayor-elect–who understands the importance of concrete policy.
Mamdani’s policy proposals show that he either deeply understands the issues he is attempting to fix, listens to experts, or both.
As an Assembly Member, Mamdani voted in favor of legislation that repealed the “walking while trans law”- sections of penal law that effectively made trans people, especially trans women, targets of disproportionate policing, including sexual exploitation by police.
In Mamdani’s legislative comment on that vote, back in 2021, he stated-
“I vote for every trans woman that has ever faced police harassment as a result of this law and for every trans woman whose dignity has ever been taken from them by our carceral state. And as it is always the case with the carceral state, it is black and Latinx people who are most targeted. In 2018, 91% of people arrested under this statute were black and Latinx. 80% identified as women.”
The housing policy proposed by Mamdani’s campaign during the election was to freeze the rent in rent-stabilized units, fast-track 200,000 affordable housing units, and a zero-tolerance policy for landlords who don’t follow housing law.
As proposed, exceptionally abusive landlords could see their properties forced from their control and placed in public stewardship through litigation, negotiation, or buy-outs.
Considering that homelessness and housing discrimination disproportionately impact LGBT+ people, having enforcement of anti-discrimination and fairness regulations could change a lot of LGBT+ lives.
Mayor-elect Mamdani isn’t only an ally to LGBT+ people; he ran to represent all of New York. His campaign’s central focus was on affordability.
Mamdani, as a candidate, proposed fare-free buses and an expansion to public transit in NYC, a progression to a citywide $30 an hour minimum wage, and other pro-worker, pro-affordability policies.
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