New York City Mayor Eric Adams – Photo: Marc A. Hermann/MTA
Down in the polls and seeking to drag down rival Zohran Mamdani’s favorables, New York City Mayor Eric Adams said he will push the Department of Education to roll back the city’s policy allowing transgender students to use bathrooms aligned with their gender identity.
At a campaign stop in Harlem on September 17, standing outside a mosque, Adams launched into a rambling broadside against Mamdani, his Democratic Socialist allies, and left-leaning voters — whom Adams, echoing House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries, derided as gentrifiers and transplants.
In his remarks, Adams called Mamdani’s supporters “disrespectful” and accused them of bringing a “very negative, nasty energy.” He then turned his fire on Mamdani and DSA members over policy positions, eventually zeroing in on what he called “non-gendered bathrooms.”
“This city is not an experiment,” Adams said. “Everyone is just tiptoeing around this … I’m not going to do that. I’m not for boys going into the same bathroom with little girls. I don’t support that. And I’m not going to succumb to it.”
Even the right-leaning New York Post noted it could find no record of the DSA taking a position on non-gendered bathrooms, though the group does state that LGBTQ students should have “full access to facilities reflecting their gender.”
The next day, at an unrelated news conference outside United Nations headquarters, Adams continued discussing school bathrooms, striking a slightly more conciliatory tone.
“We are going to always respect how one identifies themselves,” Adams said, apparently remembering that he is technically still a Democrat, and that the Democratic Party’s general attitude towards transgender people — whatever differences may exist on certain specific issues — is not rooted in outright hostility.
But Adams added, “I do not believe a safe environment is allowing boys and girls to use the same facility at the same time.”
The mayor also took a jab at Mamdani’s Muslim faith, suggesting his stance on transgender restroom access conflicted with the teachings of Islam and with fellow Muslims. “The Muslims I know don’t believe that boys should be going into little girls’ bathrooms,” Adams said. “They believe there should be a separation.”
Adams claimed he would explore whether he has the executive power to change school bathroom policies. “I am going to use whatever power I have to stop it,” he said.
Under current policy, which complies with New York State’s Human Rights Law, transgender students must be allowed to use facilities “consistent with their gender identity asserted at school.” Schools may offer private alternatives, but cannot force trans students into them without consent or if it conflicts with their identity.
As S. Baum reported in Erin Reed’s Substack Erin in the Morning, Adams’ remarks followed a letter to city education officials from Craig Tainor, acting assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.
The letter, echoing similar notices sent to other pro-LGBTQ districts, demanded New York City Public Schools amend guidelines for transgender and gender-expansive students by September 19 — a deadline the city missed.
The department ordered schools to bar transgender students from bathrooms that don’t match their sex at birth, ban them from women’s sports teams, and use “biology-based” definitions of male and female under Title IX. The letter warned that failure to comply could cost the city $35 million in federal grants, including Magnet Schools funding.
In response, Mamdani wrote on Bluesky that it was “[a]wful and dangerous to hear the Mayor echo the transphobic bigotry coming from the Trump administration.”
“It’s completely at odds with the values of our city, and another reason why his single, disgraced term cannot end soon enough,” Mamdani wrote.
Adams faces long-shot re-election odds after skipping the Democratic primary to run as an independent. He is currently polling fourth in a four-way race behind Mamdani, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa.
On Sept. 10, the U.S. Supreme Court denied South Carolina's emergency request to enforce its bathroom ban, allowing a transgender boy at a public high school to keep using the boys' restroom while his legal challenge to the law moves forward.
South Carolina pointed to several recent actions by the Trump administration to justify its request, including an executive order threatening to pull federal funding from schools that don't maintain sex-segregated facilities, enforcement actions by the U.S. Department of Education, and the Supreme Court's June ruling upholding Tennessee's ban on gender-affirming care for minors.
The Trump administration is reportedly planning to classify specific transgender suspects as "violent extremists," according to journalist Ken Klippenstein. Writing on his Substack, Klippenstein said two national security officials told him that the FBI intends to treat transgender suspects as a subset of the Bureau’s newly created "Nihilistic Violent Extremists" (NVE) category.
The NVE designation was created earlier this year to replace the Biden-era label "Anti-Authority and Anti-Government Violent Extremists" (AGAAVE), which had been used to categorize participants in the January 6 Capitol riot and other right-wing or anti-government groups.
A federal judge has ruled in favor of William Saki, an Ohio man who sued after the state rejected his request for a personalized license plate reading "GAY," which he sought to mark National Coming Out Day and "express a central part of his identity."
The Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV) had rejected the plate as "Inappropriate/Invalid," according to its online registration tool.
Saki then tried to register other plates, including "QUEER" and "HOMO," but those were also rejected, according to the Ohio-based LGBTQ outlet The Buckeye Flame.
These are challenging times for news organizations. And yet it’s crucial we stay active and provide vital resources and information to both our local readers and the world. So won’t you please take a moment and consider supporting Metro Weekly with a membership? For as little as $5 a month, you can help ensure Metro Weekly magazine and MetroWeekly.com remain free, viable resources as we provide the best, most diverse, culturally-resonant LGBTQ coverage in both the D.C. region and around the world. Memberships come with exclusive perks and discounts, your own personal digital delivery of each week’s magazine (and an archive), access to our Member's Lounge when it launches this fall, and exclusive members-only items like Metro Weekly Membership Mugs and Tote Bags! Check out all our membership levels here and please join us today!
You must be logged in to post a comment.