New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has appointed a trans woman to his transition team and transphobes are, unsurprisingly, foaming at the mouth.

Mamdani’s historic victory in New York City, which made made him the city’s first Muslim mayor and the youngest since 1892, saw him secure 50.39 per cent of the vote and see off Democrat-turned-independent candidate and former NYC governor Andrew Cuomo.

Unashamedly pro-LGBTQ+, Mamdani’s campaign centred LGBTQ+ rights and following his win he pledged to protect trans New Yorkers amid on-going attacks by the Trump administration.

Earlier this week, the socialist heartthrob announced he had appointed more than 400 people to 17 transition committees to help him build his government.

“A love for hard-work, a deep belief in the promise of New York City, and a commitment to the affordability agenda that New Yorkers are demanding unite the more than 400 experts we have appointed to our Transition Committees today,” Mamdani said in a statement.

“By helping us recruit top talent and develop smart policy, these Committees will be instrumental to ensuring we hit the ground running on January 1st — and that our results align with the promises we’ve made.”

Amongst these appointees is trans rabbi Abby Stein.

Of course, right-wingers immediately expressed outrage at Stein’s appointment, with one online commentator scathingly labelling her a “transgender, an anti-Zionist — and a member of Jewish Voice for Peace/Gaza”.

Iconic activist Matt Bernstein, who is also Jewish, however responded: “so in other words an absolute queen”.

so in other words an absolute queen https://t.co/S0pySoade5

— matt (@mattxiv) November 28, 2025

Who is Abby Stein?

Stein, an ex-Orthodox Jew, is an author, activist and rabbi at Brooklyn’s progressive Kolot Chayein synagogue and she was part of the ‘Jews for Zohran’ campaign.

“We know Zohran will fight to make our city affordable and safe for our families,” Stein said in the campaign ad.

“As Jews, as rabbis, as New Yorkers, we believe that all people deserve to thrive. Zohran agrees.”

Stein grew up in Williamsburg, Brooklyn with her parents, who are parents are ultra-Orthodox Hasidic Jews, in what she has since described as a “an eighteenth-century Eastern European enclave” within New York City.

Despite being extremely sheltered from the outside world, Stein described realising she she was trans when she was four years old and it was this which also led her to question Judaism.

“If every authority in my life told me that I was a boy, and I knew I was a girl, how could I believe the rest of their claims? If they were wrong about my gender, they could be wrong about God, too,” she said.

Despite her inner feelings, Stein continued on the path which was set out for her by her community – which she labelled as being “groomed from birth” – and became a rabbi and got married as part of an arranged union, all of which she thought might make her transness go away but – of course – it did not.

She recalling thinking that “after I was married – and living with, sleeping with, and spending time with a ‘real’ girl – maybe all my feelings would magically go away. I hoped for that outcome with renewed intensity. I guess it was my own version of ‘praying the gay away,’ although it was more like ‘praying the girl away.’”

Stein eventually left the community in 2012, she and her wife divorced and agreed on a joint custody arrangement for their son, before coming out as trans in 2015.

In the years since, Stein has become an activist and reshaped her relationship with her religion, she wrote for the publication Alma: “When I left the Hasidic community, my brain made one thing clear: If I wanted to avoid reliving my trauma, my gender and religious identities could not in any way be the same femininity and Judaism that I knew growing up.”

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