A Politician Actually Defended Trans People. It Shouldn't Be This Rare.

Many Democrats are treating trans people as politically toxic. NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani released a two-minute video proving there's another way.

New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani released the fourth episode of his “Until It’s Done” series on Saturday, and it’s about Sylvia Rivera. The whole thing. Two minutes dedicated entirely to a trans activist who died in 2002, her fight for queer liberation, and what New York City owes trans people today.

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.

Katelyn Burns at her Burns Notice newsletter asked the same question: “Has this ever happened before?” She couldn’t think of one. I can’t either.

This comes at a moment when the Democratic Party is doing everything possible to run away from trans people. After the 2024 election losses, the prevailing wisdom among Democratic strategists became: trans issues are toxic, trans people are a liability, maybe we should just... not talk about them? Or at least be really, really quiet about it?

Mamdani went the other direction.

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Mamdani’s at the Christopher Street Pier, the spot where homeless queer kids ended up in the 1970s after being pushed to the city’s literal margins. He walks through Rivera’s life — arriving at age 11, befriending Marsha P. Johnson, protesting at Stonewall. But he doesn’t sanitize it. He talks about how even the gay rights movement excluded trans people, how Rivera and others were “discouraged from walking in Pride” and had “their participation erased from Stonewall history.”

Then this line: “Since taking office, Donald Trump has waged a scorched-earth campaign against trans people. The man with the most power has expended enormous energy targeting those with the least.”

That’s the line that got Burns. “It was the line that FINALLY made me felt seen by a Democratic politician,” she wrote. “This is the line that connects everything Democrats claim to fight for with trans rights.”

And 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.

Check out the video and transcript here:

Transcript:

SYLVIA RIVERA (VOICEOVER): Everyone calls me Sylvia. I’ve had this name for nine years. This is respect.

ZOHRAN MAMDANI: I’m on the Christopher Street Pier, or as it was called in Sylvia Rivera’s day, the Christopher Street Docks. In the 1970s, homeless queer New Yorkers had been pushed to the margins of a hostile society. But it was here, on the physical margins of our city, that they found a home. Sylvia was one of those New Yorkers. She arrived here at the age of 11, where she immediately landed in the center of the gay rights movement. She befriended the legendary Marsha P. Johnson, protested at Stonewall, and led marches for equality. But even among the queer community, trans New Yorkers were excluded. Rivera and others were discouraged from walking in Pride. Their participation erased from Stonewall history.

RIVERA (VOICEOVER): I believe in us getting our rights, or else I would not be out there fighting for our rights.

MAMDANI: This cruelty took a toll. Rivera developed a substance abuse problem and was often homeless. When she had nowhere left to turn, she would sleep here, waves lapping nearby. Yet no matter what hardships she faced, Sylvia Rivera advocated for others. She and Johnson founded STAR to house and feed trans kids.

The Christopher Street Pier is like our city, a place of immense contradictions. 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.

But even amidst this, we can chart a clear path forward that makes our city inclusive.

Since taking office, Donald Trump has waged a scorched-earth campaign against trans people. The man with the most power has expended enormous energy targeting those with the least.

New York will not sit idly by while trans people are attacked. We’ll 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 for youth and adult housing programs, as well as gender-affirming care.

We can’t bring Sylvia back, but we can honor her memory by building a city where trans New Yorkers are cherished. In a time of darkness, New York must be the light.

Burns pointed out something I missed on first watch: the music is an instrumental version of “It’s Okay to Cry” by Sophie, a British trans musician who died in 2021 after a fall in Athens. Sophie “revolutioniz[ed] the sound of underground dance and pop music,” according to Rolling Stone. She’s a legend in trans music circles, and using her work wasn’t an accident. Every piece of this video was thought through.

So were the policy specifics. Mamdani doesn’t just say nice things about trans people and call it a day. 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 for youth and adult housing programs, as well as gender-affirming care.”

Want to Know How Democrats Should Handle Trans Rights? Ask Zohran Mamdani

Compare that to what most Democrats are doing right now.

After Trump won in November 2024, Democratic operatives started workshopping their excuses. Trans people became the scapegoat. Too woke, too niche, too much of a distraction from “kitchen-table issues.” Never mind that Republicans spent hundreds of millions on anti-trans ads and Democrats mostly just... let them. The response wasn’t to fight back harder but to quietly distance themselves from the issue entirely.

You saw it in how Democratic politicians started talking — or more accurately, stopped talking — about trans rights. The careful pivots away from the topic in interviews. The sudden focus on “finding common ground” and “not getting distracted by culture wars.” As if trans people’s ability to exist in public is some kind of culture war distraction and not, you know, a basic civil rights issue.

Burns gets at why this matters: “Political issues aren’t siloes, they’re all connected, and Mamdani recognizes that. Other Democrats need to see it too.” Trans people aren’t some separate category that can be sacrificed for electoral convenience. The undocumented immigrants Democrats claim to defend? Some of them are trans. The people who can’t afford healthcare? Some of them are trans. The kids experiencing homelessness? A lot of them are trans.

Mamdani’s video doesn’t treat trans rights as this weird side issue that Democrats need to tiptoe around. He puts it front and center, connects it to the broader fight against people in power targeting the vulnerable, and makes a moral case for why it matters. Wild that this feels unusual.

I’m not going to pretend this fixes anything. One mayoral candidate in one city making one good video doesn’t undo the fact that most Democratic politicians have decided trans people are too politically risky to defend (while most Republican politicians continue their all-out assault on trans lives). It doesn’t stop the Trump administration’s attacks. It doesn’t bring back the politicians who had our backs in 2020 but went quiet after 2024.

But it does mean something to see a politician treat trans people like we’re worth defending, not despite the political climate but because of it.

The detail about Marsha P. Johnson stuck with me. Mamdani mentions that her body was found at the Christopher Street Pier, “the victim of a suspected murder no one was ever prosecuted for.” He didn’t have to include that. He could have kept it inspirational, focused on the wins, skipped the ugly parts. But he didn’t, because the ugly parts matter. The through-line from Marsha’s suspected murder going unprosecuted to Trump’s current attacks isn’t subtle. It’s the same indifference to trans lives, just in a different form.

When Burns wrote that Mamdani’s line about “the man with the most power” targeting “those with the least” finally made her feel seen by a Democratic politician, I got it. That’s the thing — it shouldn’t be this rare. Defending vulnerable people from powerful people attacking them is supposed to be what Democrats do. But somewhere along the way, a bunch of consultants decided that only applies to certain vulnerable people, and trans folks didn’t make the cut.

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What Mamdani’s doing isn’t complicated. He’s saying trans people deserve to be treated like human beings worth protecting, and he’s backing it up with actual policy. That this feels remarkable says more about the Democratic Party than it does about him.

Other Democrats should be watching this. Not because Mamdani cracked some impossible code, but because he’s showing them what’s actually possible when you stop being cowards about it.

The standard Democratic playbook right now is to concede ground. When Republicans bring up trans girls in sports or questions about youth transition, Democrats rush to validate “legitimate concerns” and promise they’re listening to “both sides.” It’s a trap, and they keep walking into it. Those issues aren’t being raised in good faith — they’re being used as wedges to make all attacks on trans people seem reasonable. You give an inch on sports, suddenly you’re also giving ground on healthcare, on documentation, on whether trans people should be allowed to exist in public at all.

Mamdani’s video shows a different approach: Don’t concede the premise. Don’t treat trans people as a liability that needs to be managed. Make the moral case. Connect it to the broader fight against powerful people targeting the vulnerable. Show trans people — and everyone else — that you won’t let marginalized communities get bullied into the closet or worse just because some consultant said it polls badly.

This isn’t about being politically reckless. It’s about recognizing that abandoning trans people doesn’t make the attacks stop. It just tells Republicans they were right to target us, and it tells trans people that Democrats don’t actually have their backs when things get hard.

If Democrats want to know how to talk about trans rights without running scared, they can start here. Two minutes. One video. It’s not that complicated.