Following his desperate and failed bid to save his sinking mayoral campaign by cozying up to the current presidential administration — and just months after denouncing trans students using city public school bathrooms — outgoing New York City Mayor Eric Adams allocated $2 million in emergency funds to trans organizations suffering in the wake of sweeping federal aid cuts.

The former mayor’s’ final day in office was December 31. Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani was sworn in the following morning.

Related

MAGA explodes over Zohran Mamdani’s choice of a lesbian to head NYC’s Fire Department

Randy Mastro, First Deputy Mayor for Adams, called the outgoing mayor’s support of essential services for trans and nonbinary people “an imperative.”

“We saw a need after federal budget cuts, and we are responding to it,” he said in a statement reported by the Gothamist.

Never Miss a Beat

Subscribe to our newsletter to stay ahead of the latest LGBTQ+ political news and insights.
Subscribe to our Newsletter today

The city’s health department will administer the emergency funds, with up to $92,000 awarded to each of roughly 20 community-based organizations. 

The majority of award applicants’ clients must be transgender, gender-nonconforming or nonbinary, officials said. The money will go to nonprofits offering health care, housing, legal advocacy, community-building, and crisis response services.

The emergency allocation comes after intense criticism of Adams in September, when he curried favor with the president by slamming New York City school policies allowing trans students to use bathrooms that align with their gender identity.

“I don’t believe that should happen,” Adams said then of trans-inclusive school bathrooms. “I believe that we have become so politically correct that we are incorrect.”

Adams vowed he would “use whatever power I have” to roll back such policies.

But after becoming the first New York City mayor to be charged with crimes while in office — among them bribery, misuse of public funds, and soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations, as laid out in federal charges in 2024 — that power quickly disappeared. With record-low poll numbers, Adams dropped out of the mayor’s race days after his bathroom bow to the president.

The Democrat had already curried favor with the White House with his public ambivalence over the president’s return to office. He was rewarded with the Justice Department dropping all charges against him in February.

The emergency funding aligns with Adams’ previous public support for the transgender community, before jumping on the president’s anti-trans bandwagon.

In June 2023, Adams declared New York City a “safe haven” for trans people, barring city agencies from cooperating with investigations or prosecutions initiated by other states over gender-affirming care, and denying the use of city resources to detain anyone for providing or receiving it.

Mamdani has pledged to spend $57 million on medical centers that provide gender-affirming care and $8 million more to develop new and broader resources. While campaigning, he attended a Trans Day of Visibility rally and a trans community town hall in May.

Mamdani – whose campaign heavily focused on making the city more affordable – also vowed his administration would expand and protect gender-affirming care, make the city an LGBTQ+ sanctuary city, and create an Office of LGBTQIA+ affairs.

Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.