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New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani released a campaign ad this week honoring transgender trailblazers in the city and vowing to make New York City a sanctuary for trans people.
The ad marks a notable departure from the Democratic Party’s current tone on trans rights. Since the party’s 2024 presidential loss to Donald Trump, strategists have increasingly peddled the myth that support for transgender people is a liability for candidates — a notion that Mamdani appears to reject.
In the campaign ad, Mamdani sits behind a large desk near the Christopher Street Pier, where many Black and Latinx unhoused LGBTQ people sought refuge in the 1970s after being pushed to the margins of the city. In the background of the ad is the song “It’s Okay to Cry” by legendary transgender artist SOPHIE.
Mamdani tells the story of Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson, trans activists who led the Stonewall Inn uprisings of 1969 and laid the foundation for the city’s first Pride celebration. The Christopher Street pier is “a place of immense contradictions,” he says— just like New York City itself.
“It’s where outsiders found belonging, and it’s also where Marsha P. Johnson’s body was found, the victim of a suspected murder no one was ever prosecuted for,” he says.
As a result of the “cruelty” Rivera faced, Mamadani says, she developed a substance use problem and often faced homelessness. But despite these challenges, Rivera continued her fight for trans liberation, even when many in the mainstream gay rights movement at the time sought to exclude trans people.
Citing Rivera and Johnson’s struggle for equality and recognition, Mamdani says, “We can chart a clear path forward that makes our city inclusive.”
He also calls out Trump specifically, noting that the president “has waged a scorched-earth campaign against trans people,” expending “enormous energy” targeting them.
“New York will not sit idly by while trans people are attacked,” Mamdani says. If elected mayor, he promises to “deploy hundreds of lawyers to combat Trump’s hate, make New York City an LGBTQIA+ sanctuary city, and create the Office of LGBTQIA+ Affairs to allocate millions [of dollars] for youth and adult housing programs as well as gender-affirming care.”
He concludes by stating that voters in the city can honor the memory of Rivera and Johnson “by building a city where trans New Yorkers are cherished.”
“In a time of darkness, New York must be the light,” Mamdani says.
Transgender commentators praised the ad, suggesting that other Democratic candidates should take a page out of Mamdani’s playbook.
“When’s the last time you saw that? A major Democratic politician releasing a campaign video that’s just… about trans rights? Not a 10-second aside in a broader equality montage. Not a single line buried in a stump speech. An entire video,” wrote trans writer Parker Molloy.
Molloy added:
Look, I get it. Not everyone cares about a New York City mayoral race. But this matters because it shows what’s possible when a politician decides trans people aren’t disposable.
Columnist Katelyn Burns, who was the first openly trans Capitol Hill reporter in U.S. history, agreed. “It’s an entire political ad, from a major Democratic politician, that is exclusively defending trans rights. Has this ever happened before?” she asked, adding that “trans issues aren’t this shameful thing that Democratic consultants suggest we hide from.”
“Political issues aren’t siloes, they’re all connected, and Mamdani recognizes that. Other Democrats need to see it too, and I hope they are paying attention,” Burns said.
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