Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Friday signed an executive order establishing the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQIA+ Affairs and appointed Taylor Brown, currently an Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights Bureau of the New York State Attorney General, as its director.
The appointment makes Brown the first transgender person to lead a city office or agency and the highest-ranking transgender person in the history of New York City government.
“New York City is proud of its LGBTQIA+ community and will refuse to deny healthcare, safety or dignity to anyone on the basis of their identity,” Mamdani said in a statement. “With Taylor Brown as Director of the new Office of LGBTQIA+ Affairs, the city’s queer community will not only be celebrated, but protected at every turn.”
The Office of LGBTQIA+ Affairs will oversee and coordinate implementation of initiatives across city agencies that serve LGBTQIA+ New Yorkers. These initiatives include:
- Assisting agencies in developing and supporting liaisons to the LGBTQIA+ community
- Advancing measures to ensure agencies do not engage in discrimination based on gender, gender identity, or sexual orientation
- Developing legal resources to ensure the City’s sanctuary protections for LGBTQIA+ individuals are upheld
- Providing support for LGBTQIA+ people and their families fleeing anti-LGBTQIA+ oppression
The office will absorb and expand upon the NYC Unity Project, which launched in September 2017 as the city’s first initiative focused on delivering and coordinating affirming
"New York has given me everything -- life-saving health care, education, a home, a career, my chosen family, and a life of purpose," said Brown. "I am so proud to serve this city as the inaugural Director of the Mayor's Office for LGBTQIA+ Affairs. I will work every day to ensure that the doors of New York City remain open to all and to continue New York City's legacy as a beacon of opportunity and hope for those who have been ignored, discriminated against, and intentionally excluded."
Brown serves as an Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights Bureau at the Office of the New York State Attorney General. Brown’s work includes cases addressing unlawful discrimination against transgender people in public accommodations and housing, disparities in race- and disability-based discipline in public schools, and challenges to federal actions undermining civil rights protections.
Before joining the Attorney General’s Office, Brown spent nearly seven years at Lambda Legal Defense & Education Fund and the national office of the American Civil Liberties Union’s LGBTQ+ & HIV Project. Brown is a first-generation graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.
