You Have to See This Mamdani Ad
I wasn't planning to post anything today. I dislike working and writing on weekends in general, but this was too important to ignore. You have to see this Zohran Mamdani campaign ad that came out this morning:
It's an entire political ad, from a major Democratic politician, that is exclusively defending trans rights. Has this ever happened before? I haven't had my morning coffee yet, but none are coming to mind. If you remember one from someone else, reply in the comments.
Let's quickly go through the major points of the ad. Firstly, it leads with a voiceover of legendary trans and gay rights activist Sylvia Rivera, explaining that her name is her name, it's what everyone calls her. One of the latest Trump administration efforts has been to make it illegal or at least difficult for anyone to call trans government colleague by their actual name rather than their birth name.
Another early note is the music, an instrumental version of "It's Okay to Cry," by British trans musician Sophie.
Sophie is a legend in trans musical circles. She came out as trans in 2017 and tragically died after a fall in Athens in 2021. Rolling Stone said her work "revolutioniz[ed] the sound of underground dance and pop music".
Moving further into Zohran's ad, he recounts the life of Sylvia Rivera and other queer New Yorkers in the early 70's explaining how a hostile society drove them to the very margins of the city, often ending up at the Christopher Street Docks, now called the Christopher Street Pier, where he was filming the video in his now trademark circular desk.
There's a snippet from Rivera's legendary "Y'all better quiet down" speech, which you can see here in full:
https://youtu.be/Jb-JIOWUw1o?si=pg-6EHsIiC5Hnchs (YouTube wouldn't let me embed it, sorry!)
Every time I watch this I'm struck by how hostile the crowd is to the idea of her even speaking. The multiple rally organizers on stage being heckled as they are clearly worried about the crowd's reaction. Then she gets on stage, and many in the crowd are hurling insults at her. The quality is not great, but you can hear a woman yelling about feminists.
Then she starts by telling them to quiet down and the invective gets worse. Then she talks about taking care of the gay and trans people in jail and how the white middle class gays ignore them and that it's up to her to take care of them. She talks about being raped by straight men in shelters and getting her nose broken for gay liberation.
And as she's speaking, she builds into a crescendo, doing a call and response with the once hostile crowd spelling out the letters in "gay power". By the end, she wins over the crowd, who are all cheering for her as she ends her speech.
It is a truly historic moment in history. I often think about the life Rivera could have lived if she wasn't so oppressed by the rest of society. She was not a politician, but there are few politicians today with the guts and ability to turn a hostile crowd like that. She was an organizer because she had to be for her and her friends to survive.
We could all use a little of that these days.
Mamdani's choice to highlight Rivera was a masterstroke. And after he lays the historical groundwork of her life, he talks about trans people today and how we are facing the same societal hatred that marginalized Rivera.
"The man with the most power has expended enormous energy targeting those with the least." - Zohran Mamdani, 10/11/2025
This is the line. It's the line that got me to tear up as I was watching it. It was the line that FINALLY made me felt seen by a Democratic politician. This is the line that connects everything Democrats claim to fight for with trans rights. Trans issues aren't this shameful thing that Democratic consultants suggest we hide from, it's the same fight undocumented immigrants are fighting, or those who can't access health care are fighting. Sometimes the undocumented immigrants and the people who can't afford health care are also trans.
Political issues aren't siloes, they're all connected, and Mamdani recognizes that. Other Democrats need to see it too, and I hope they are paying attention.
He goes on in the video to state his platform for helping trans people in the city. He promises to deploy attorneys to fight for the rights of trans New Yorkers, and make NYC an LGBTQIA+ sanctuary city, and create the NYC Office of LGBTQIA+ Affairs to allocate millions in to fund youth and adult housing programs and gender affirming care.
Thank you for this message of hope for my people.
As my friend Gwendolyn Ann Smith said about this ad on BlueSky, this was "water in a desert" for trans people.
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-Katelyn
