Opinion: The queer community has everything at stake in this election

That the next mayor of New York is going to have their hands full is quite the understatement. With a bully pulpit rivaling that of the president, the mayor is going to have to manage this restive city of 8.5 million, as always, and also going to have to fight for the rule of law, for democratic values, and for democracy itself in a way they’ve never had to before.

Where to begin with this fight? Well, Washington’s given us a clue: we’ve got to start by fighting for the very communities being sacrificed at the altar of authoritarianism: immigrants and queer people. Millions of livelihoods and lives are on the line. So what’s the plan to defend us?

While we await meaningful answers to this question from the candidates, we have a direction we can point them in. Defending our communities is going to require litigation, direction, and action (and all of this requires money).

Let’s be clear - we’ve come far. New York City and state have the best social services and the strongest anti-discrimination protections anywhere, including brand new ones for the trans*, gender nonconforming, and non-binary community just passed by the Council. But these laws are only as good as the political, financial, and legal capital invested to enforce them. And they mean nothing at all if the mayor, either because of open animus or political expediency (both on colorful display by Mayor Adams) decides that our community doesn’t matter at all. 

Let’s start with litigation. Our human rights law protects our communities from discrimination in housing, in the workplace and in the marketplace. But the understaffed and underfunded City Commission on Human Rights can take months or years to bring a case. Even when it does, its ability to actually extract an actual pound of legal or financial flesh is limited by the fact that constitutionally, administrative law judges just don’t have that much power. Achieving real results often requires bringing a case in state Supreme Court. And that requires the City’s Law Department. Well, good luck with that. 

While we honor the tremendous service of our Law Department lawyers, there simply aren’t enough of them. Is the next mayor going to commit to building an army of litigators to fight the Anschluss against our communities from Washington? Or how about fighting the bad-actor employers and businesses that might now feel free to threaten, retaliate against or fire us simply for being who we are? And it’s not just CCHR. While our Department of Consumer & Worker Protection has a great track record, it can only bring cases when it gets complaints. And people only file complaints when they feel it’s safe to do so. Immigrants and queer people certainly don’t feel safe right now. 

The mayor also has enormous soft and hard power over both public and private institutions. In what direction is the next mayor going to take us? From the emergency room to the classroom, we’re already under grave threat.

Just recently, we saw private hospitals pre-capitulate to President Donald Trump on providing gender affirming care. Despite the anti-trans executive order being enjoined by a federal court, NYU Langone went ahead and canceled all of their appointments. It took multiple state legislators, City Council members, advocates and the 1199SEIU health care workers union to get them to once again open up their doors. Meanwhile, the mayor was nowhere to be found. 

During the 2022 MPox outbreak, it took the advocacy of local electeds and LGBTQ+ leaders in the right positions in government to actually get vaccines to our community. And let’s be clear - the state was more organized than the city. What’s the next mayor’s plan to prepare for another such event? Additionally, if SCOTUS overturns the Affordable Care Act’s no-cost coverage mandate for preventative care services, what’s going to be the next mayor’s plan to continue to guarantee PreP coverage for the hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers who rely on it?

We know NYC Health + Hospitals relies heavily on Medicaid reimbursements and we know those cuts are coming. Can we get a commitment from the next mayor that our public hospital budgets aren’t going to be balanced on the backs of immigrants and trans New Yorkers?

And in our schools, we know that Bruce Blakeman’s ideology doesn’t stop at the borders of Nassau County. We’ve already seen it in the Maud Marons attempting to take over our Community Education Councils. We know there are plenty of our neighbors who share their views on trans kids. Will the next mayor take a stand or lie right down?

Then there is the perennial question: “public safety.” 

Hate crimes against queer and trans New Yorkers surged 140% from 2018 to 2023. The Stonewall National Monument (which the Trump Administration has actively attempted to erase trans people from) was vandalized four separate times last year. We can still see the face of O’Shae Sibley, a promising young Black dancer, brutally stabbed to death at a gas station in Brooklyn for listening to Beyonce. 

Conservative politicians and their media organizations have attempted to manipulate specific incidents of heinous crimes as an indication of bedlam on the streets of Gotham. Funny how they never cite crimes against us as examples. Will the next mayor have a plan to protect us while not criminalizing us? 

From the bully pulpit to the budget process, we expect the next mayor to use every tool and venue available to protect us from harm, not leave us even more vulnerable to it. So what can the next mayor do? 

There are plenty of qualified candidates with smart teams running for mayor. It’s up to them to sell their ideas to us. In the meantime, we have some suggestions.

1. Triple our agency investigation and Law Department litigation teams. The threat from Washington demands this.
2. Enhance and protect our commitment to gender-affirming care and care for undocumented immigrants at the city’s public hospitals, as well as invest heavily in epidemiological research within our communities via the Department of Health. Basically, do the opposite of what California Gov. Gavin Newsom did, freezing new enrollments for unauthorized immigrants in the state’s insurance plan.
3. Engage us to build trust. Show up to where we are. Have every nonprofit organizational head, bar owner, and party promoter on speed dial. Prioritize groups serving the most vulnerable among us in your budgets and make sure that trusted messengers know how to reach the government installed to serve and protect us.
4. Truly embody New York values. What does this mean? Use your words, actions, rhetoric and time in a way that makes clear you’re a mayor for all New Yorkers, especially immigrants and queer people. What you say and how you act matters. The moment those with bad intentions sense an opening, they’ll take it and run. Don’t let them. 

And finally, a message for our community. We get it. Knowing how to engage in this mayoral cycle, with personalities and politics dominating over people and policy, and with ranked choice looming large, is confusing. 

If you want to know how the candidates are going to fight for you - show up to our mayoral forum, in partnership with the city’s leading LGBTQ+ advocacy groups - on Saturday May 31st and ask your questions and demand your answers. The vast majority of Democratic primary candidates will be there: Adrienne Adams, Michael Blake, Brad Lander, Zohran Mamdani, Zellnor Myrie, Jessica Ramos, Scott Stringer are all confirmed. Ask the ones who are not there – Whitney Tilson and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo – why they’ve chosen to opt out. Cuomo, the current front-runner in particular, has been dodging questions from everyone all over the city. And as the forum is only for those participating in the Democratic primary, Mayor Eric Adams, who is now running as an independent, will not be involved. 

From Hell’s Kitchen to Harlem, from the West Village to Williamsburg, from Sunnyside to South Slope to Staten Island, from across The Bronx to every corner of brownstone Brooklyn, we do vote - and we must vote. We know how to fight for ourselves. We’ve been doing it a long time –  and we’ve still got a long way to go.