In an era when it’s nigh on impossible to spot a Senator or Congressman with the backbone to stand up to The Orange Man in The White House, witnessing inauguration of Zohran Mamdani as the Mayor of New York seems to be the arrival of a man in shining armour that we so desperately need.   This 34-year-old man, who was elected with a very comfortable majority, started his first term like a breath of fresh air as he vowed to prioritize the needs of the LGBTQ community.

He emphasized support for LGBTQ rights and ultimately won overwhelming support from the queer community, pulling in 81% of the LGBTQ vote, according to exit polls. Mamdani’s wide-ranging proposals for the LGBTQ community also translated into the emergence of groups like Gays for Zohran, which held a National Coming Out Day rally for him in the weeks leading up to the general election.

During his campaign, Mamdani had a six-page platform dedicated to the LGBTQ community. The platform included goals to expand and protect gender-affirming care by investing $65 million in public providers to deliver gender-affirming care, with $57 million going to public hospitals, clinics, health centers, and non-profits, and $8 million going to telehealth and virtual care, aftercare, home health support, and a “city-based gender-affirming care access hub.”

The incoming mayor’s plan to shore up funding for gender-affirming care comes at a time when some private hospitals in New York City have restricted care in response to the Trump administration’s attacks on gender-affirming care. Mamdani pledged to hold private hospitals accountable by coordinating with the attorney general and district attorneys to conduct investigations and hold public hearings on hospitals denying care to trans youth.

The Office of LGBTQIA+ Affairs would oversee and implement LGBTQ-related initiatives across city agencies, expand LGBTQ liaisons to relevant agencies, and feature legal resources to make sure the city’s LGBTQ sanctuary status is upheld. Mamdani proposed that the new office provide $87 million in funding, including for housing programs, mental health services, organizations serving transgender individuals, administrative and coordination costs, workforce investments, healthcare funding, education funding, and public defense and legal investments.

During an interview with Gay City News back in October, Mamdani also expressed the need to protect transgender student-athletes in the midst of widespread attacks against the right of individuals to participate in sports in accordance with their gender identity. 

“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 at the time. “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.”

Ahead of the general election, Mamdani posted a video from the Christopher Street Pier, where he acknowledged the late trans activist Sylvia Rivera and denounced the transphobia coming out of the White House. He said at the time that his administration would “deploy hundreds of lawyers to combat Trump’s hate, make New York City an LGBTQIA+ sanctuary city, and create an Office of LGBTQIA+ Affairs to allocate millions for youth and adult housing programs, as well as gender-affirming care.”

Since November, Mamdani built a transition team featuring LGBTQ leaders such as Dr. Carla Smith, the CEO of the LGBT Community Center; Callen Lorde’s CEO, Patrick McGovern, and chief medical officer, Dr. Demetre Daskalakis; Mohamed Q. Amin of the Caribbean Equality Project; Rabbis Jason Klein of Congregation Beit Simchat Torah and Abby Stein of Rabbis for Repro; WIN CEO and former City Council Speaker Christine Quinn; and Jeffrey LeFrancois of the Meatpacking District Management Association. In the days leading up to the inauguration, Mamdani appointed fire commissioner Lillian Bonsignore, a longtime FDNY veteran who will serve as the agency’s first out commissioner.

LGBTQ representation was evident at City Hall on Inauguration Day. Bernie Wagenblast, an out trans woman who is among the voices of the New York City subway, was the event’s emcee, while out queer music artist Lucy Dacus, who is part of the band boygenius, performed “Bread and Roses.” At the inauguration, which also served as the swearing-in ceremony for some other citywide officials, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams urged New Yorkers to avoid scapegoating transgender individuals and other marginalized groups.

“The powers in place would rather create an ‘other’ to blame for our problems than address them, whether it be our immigrant communities or our trans siblings or our homeless neighbors or many marginalized groups,” Williams said. “Rejecting those ideas means naming the reason that the powers in place perpetuate them — because if we are divided, the status quo stands.”