Mayor Zohran Mamdani is establishing the first Mayor’s Office for LGBTQIA+ affairs and appointing the first out trans person to lead a New York City office as director.
The newly established city office comes amid significant rollbacks on federal protections and resources for queer Americans launched goby the White House since Donald Trump resumed office last year. The federal directives have routinely clashed with human rights law in New York, the birthplace of the modern Pride movement.
The city will create a central office solely focused on how agencies can benefit the queer New Yorkers, who are disproportionately more likely to suffer higher rates of homelessness, job insecurity and issues accessing healthcare.
“This day was a long time coming. It took years of activism from community leaders who recognize how often queer New Yorkers fall through the cracks while attempting to access our city’s social services,” Mamdani said. The mayor declined to address the office’s budget.
Taylor Brown — who previously worked in the state Attorney General’s office, where she assisted in a lawsuit launched against Nassau County and its ban on transgender women and girls from playing sports in county facilities — will head the new office.
Brown also worked for Lambda Legal and the American Civil Liberties Union, where she was a part of the legal team behind a landmark lawsuit for trans people looking to ammend birth certificates in West Virginia.
“We want the same things as everyone else, and we deserve the same things as everyone else, and that’s what this administration is about,” Brown said. “We’re all people.”
Mamdani said the new office would extend work done with the NYC Unity Project, which was established during the Bill de Blasio administration to coordinate citywide assistance for LGBTQ+ people.
The new office’s announcement comes amid ongoing discussions on the city budget for the upcoming fiscal year. Mamdani did not share specifics on how much would be allocated to the new office.