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Who is Taylor Brown, NYC's highest-ranking openly trans official?
By
Giulia Heyward
Published Mar 20, 2026
Modified Mar 20, 2026
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Kara McCurdy | Mayoral Photography Office.
By
Giulia Heyward
Published Mar 20, 2026
Modified Mar 20, 2026
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Taylor Brown can remember the first time she tried accessing gender-affirming care as an 18-year-old living in rural North Carolina. She was denied.
She successfully appealed — overturning the decision in what would become the first of many times she would need to advocate for herself as a trans woman.
Years later, she’s now in a position to help others like her after being named the highest-ranking and first out trans person to lead a city office.
“I grew up in poverty,” Brown, 35, said in an interview. “There were not a lot of resources and it was very much a fight on my own behalf that led me into this fighting.”
Mayor Zohran Mamdani appointed Brown to lead New York City’s first-ever Office for LGBTQIA+ affairs, which will provide assistance for queer people and safeguard sanctuary protections for these New Yorkers, as well as those fleeing from elsewhere.
Both the creation of the new office and Brown’s appointment marked a turning point in city politics, or, to quote Brown, the culmination of both “my personal journey and my life's work.”
“The story of my life is about being born different from what is being considered ‘normal’ and being discriminated against based on something that I cannot change,” Brown said. “I want — and queer people want — the same things as everyone else, the ability to have a meaningful life.”
The establishment of the new city office comes amid significant rollbacks on legal protections for queer Americans since President Donald Trump’s second term began last year. The federal government has routinely clashed with local law in New York, which has some of the country's most progressive legislation and is the birthplace of the modern Pride movement.
Brown, who is Black, credited her family’s roots in advocacy and said it was those efforts that partly inspired her to become politically active. She said she has relatives who worked to integrate schools in North Carolina and advocated for housing equality for residents of color.
She said she followed in their footsteps as a college student, taking up similar fights on issues like unemployment discrimination and securing safe housing.
“I was so fortunate to just have the wherewithal to be able to just truly advocate for myself,” Brown said. “And so when I thought about next steps in my life, I knew that there were so many people who were not as fortunate as me from my communities. I very much saw it as a duty to fight for others, to make sure that their journey was a little bit easier.”
Brown would later become an attorney at the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, as well as the American Civil Liberties Union, where she was a part of the legal team behind a landmark lawsuit, working on behalf of trans people looking to amend birth certificates in West Virginia.
Taylor Brown previously worked as an attorney at the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, as well as the American Civil Liberties Union.
Courtesy of Taylor Brown
She is currently working in the New York attorney general’s office's Civil Rights Bureau and assisted in a lawsuit against Nassau County and its ban on trans women and girls playing sports in county facilities. It was unclear when Brown would officially begin her new role in city government.
In this new role, Brown said, “meeting the moment” will remain a top priority.
“The federal administration is trying to erase the contributions of Black people, LGBTQ people, people with disabilities, anyone who doesn’t reflect their view of what it means to be American,” she said. “We have been here. We will continue to be here. We can not be erased.”
Civil rights groups have applauded the creation of the new office and Brown’s appointment.
“This action comes at a critical moment,” said Kei Williams, who heads New Pride Agenda, a nonprofit that advocates for policy changes for queer people in New York. “Federal attacks on trans New Yorkers are intensifying, exemplified by the removal of the Pride Flag at Stonewall and hospitals’ cancellation of gender-affirming care amid funding threats.”
State Sen. Erik Bottcher of Manhattan — who is openly gay — began his political career as the LGBTQ and HIV/AIDS community liaison for the City Council almost two decades ago and welcomed Brown’s appointment.
"There's an old saying that goes, ‘If you're not at the table, you're on the menu," he said. “And that's why it's so important that we have representation in government.”
Bottcher and other city councilmembers helped negotiate a record amount of funding for gender-affirming care in the current city budget last year. He said Brown's new role could help spark more action and advocacy.
“I feel the weight of history on us because the people who fought back at Stonewall, the people who made history,” he said. “They’re looking to us to continue that struggle and not to lose the progress that has been made.”
While there is no available data on the number of queer people appointed to public office, fewer than than 1% of all elected officials in the nation are openly LGBTQ+, per the most recent report from the Victory Institute, which tracks these numbers annually. Of the 1,334 known LGBTQ+ people in elected office, 95 identify as transgender, genderqueer or nonbinary, as of May 2025.
Those numbers underscore how rare it still is for openly LGBTQ+ people, especially transgender people, to reach positions of power. And Brown said she’s ready for any scrutiny that might come with that visibility.
“You have to have incredibly thick skin in this country to be any kind of a minority, especially these days,” Brown said. “Hate is not something that I pay any attention to.”
Correction: This story has been updated to correct Kei Williams' name.
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Giulia Heyward
Giulia Heyward is a breaking news reporter on the Day-Of desk. She previously worked at NPR, as a breaking news reporter, and the New York Times, as a reporting fellow on the national desk. Her work has also appeared in CNN, The Atlantic and Politico. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or more securely on signal at 917-715-1458.
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