NYC-CC03: Mamdani pick for Council seat draws the ire of LGBTQ+ leaders

A special election this month for a Manhattan seat in the City Council has become a battle over representation in a part of town synonymous with the city’s LGBTQ+ history.

Former Councilmember Erik Bottcher won a state Senate seat last year, leaving his Council seat vacant. Mayor Zohran Mamdani called a special election for April 28, and Bottcher, along with some of the city’s most prominent gay leaders, backed his former Chief of Staff Carl Wilson, an out gay man.

Mamdani, however, endorsed Lindsey Boylan, Politico first reported this week. The decision has frustrated some of the city’s most prominent LGBTQ+ leaders, who say the mayor is ignoring the area’s hard-fought history: The district was deliberately drawn to give queer New Yorkers political representation in the West Village, Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen. And it’s delivered for more than three decades.

With LGBTQ+ rights under attack nationally, they say, New York can’t afford to lose one of its most symbolic seats.



https://gothamist.com/news/mamdani-pick-for-council-seat-draws-the-ire-of-lgbtq-leaders