POLITICS
End of an Era for Council’s LGBT Caucus
Queer lawmakers close out historic terms in city offi ce
BY MATT TRACY
The seven new out LGBTQ
members of the
City Council are overhauling
the LGBT Caucus
in historic fashion and bringing
a dash of bipartisanship for the
fi rst time, but the changing of the
guard also marks the end of an era
that will go down in queer history.
The four departing out members
of the Council paved their own
paths on a number of fronts across
the city — and one of them, Corey
Johnson of Manhattan, climbed
the ranks to become speaker.
Johnson was the fi rst individual
living with HIV to lead the Council,
Jimmy Van Bramer and Daniel
Dromm of Queens were the fi rst
out city lawmakers in the borough,
and Carlos Menchaca became the
fi rst out lawmaker in Brooklyn
and the fi rst Mexican-American
lawmaker in New York City. Ritchie
Torres, who ascended to Congress
just months before the conclusion
of his second and fi nal term in the
City Council, was the fi rst out lawmaker
in the Bronx.
Johnson became speaker in 2018,
but Torres was the only one among
them who rose beyond City Hall.
Torres defeated his anti-LGBTQ rival,
Ruben Diaz, Sr., among others,
in a dramatic and crowded 2020
congressional primary campaign
before walking to the fi nish line in
the general election. Van Bramer
was unsuccessful in his bid for
Queens borough president, Johnson
lost a primary for city comptroller
after abandoning an exploratory
bid for mayor, and Menchaca was
one of many candidates enmeshed
in the crowded mayoral race before
he dropped out in the months leading
up to the primary.
Torres, now 33, was 24 years
old during his fi rst campaign for
City Council when he was elected
at the same time as Johnson
and Menchaca. Van Bramer and
Dromm fi rst took offi ce in 2010 and
were able to serve an extra term
because they were grandfathered
in when the city reinstated limits of
two terms. The Council also briefl y
Four former members of the City Council’s LGBT Caucus: Ritchie Torres of the Bronx, Jimmy Van Bramer
and Daniel Dromm of Queens, and Corey Johnson of Manhattan.
had seven members in 2016 and
2017 before Rosie Mendez of Manhattan
and Jimmy Vacca of the
Bronx concluded their tenures.
“I’m very proud to have served in
what was the largest LGBTQ Caucus
when we had seven members
after Jimmy Vacca came out,” said
Van Bramer, whose district includes
Sunnyside, Woodside, Long Island
City, Astoria, and Dutch Kills. “I am
enormously proud of the 12 years I
served in the Council.”
In interviews with Gay City
News, Dromm, Menchaca, and Van
Bramer looked back on their eventful
stints in city offi ce — which included
their leadership positions
during an era that encompassed
the converging coronavirus pandemic
and the Black Lives Matter
movement of 2020. By then, many
members of the LGBT Caucus had
long established themselves in the
City Council, which brought greater
responsibility and public accountability
to their roles: Dromm,
as the chair of the Finance Committee,
felt the weight of public
pressure during budget season
from activists who wanted a significant
reduction in police funding,
while Johnson took even more heat
on those issues as the leader of the
City Council.
Long before the dawn of that
era, the lawmakers had to fi nd
their footing to carve out their own
NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL/EMIL COHEN
place in city leadership. Johnson
was a gay activist and chaired
Community Board 4 before he
went on to prevail in a competitive
City Council race against out
lesbian attorney Yetta Kurland
to succeed out lesbian former
Speaker Christine Quinn in District
3, which includes Chelsea,
Hell’s Kitchen, Greenwich Village,
West SoHo, Hudson Square, Times
Square, the Garment District, the
Flatiron District, and the Upper
West Side. Four years later, Johnson
zigzagged the city to persuade
colleagues from every borough and
ideological background to back his
bid for speaker. At the same time,
he tapped into the emotions of
constituents when he conveyed his
personal story of growing up as a
closeted gay youth who struggled
with depression.
Dromm and Van Bramer both
gave credit to Thomas Duane, a
trailblazing former lawmaker who
was one of the city’s fi rst two out
councilmembers and the fi rst out
person elected to the State Senate,
as they refl ected on their journeys to
city offi ce. Dromm, a former teacher
who was engaged in LGBTQ activism
after coming out in 1992, said
he doubted his own ability to win
an election in what he thought was
a conservative district in Elmhurst
and Jackson Heights. But Duane
encouraged him to run for offi ce.
“Duane said ‘No, you should
defi nitely think about it,’ and it
took me 17 years to do it and do
it successfully and beat an incumbent,”
said Dromm, who toppled
two-term lawmaker Helen Sears
by a 10-point margin in District
25 in 2009. He went on to win two
more terms and was chair of the
LGBT Caucus.
Like Dromm, Menchaca had
doubts about his own candidacy
during his fi rst campaign in Brooklyn’s
District 38, which includes
Red Hook, Sunset Park, Greenwood
Heights and parts of Windsor
Terrace, Dyker Heights, and Boro
Park. He thought his identity as an
out gay Mexican-American man
would have a negative impact on
his ability to win there.
“What I found was it didn’t have
a negative impact at all,” said
Menchaca, who chaired the Council’s
Committee on Immigration.
“What people really appreciated
was the relationship to my identity
as it pertained to how I was going
to govern, and I say that because I
think it was very clear people saw
my own life story and saw how
much we had in common. That
led to the fact that Sunset Park
and Red Hook — not Park Slope —
elected the fi rst openly gay councilmember
in Brooklyn, and it was
because they could relate to my
family and my experience. They
saw themselves in me. They didn’t
have to be Mexican. They didn’t
have to be gay.”
Dromm, Menchaca, and Van
Bramer said they leaned on their
previous experience in public service
to navigate their surroundings.
Van Bramer, who served as
chair of the Council’s Cultural Affairs,
Libraries, and International
Intergroup Relations Committee,
acknowledged that he developed
a reputation for being “the library
guy” thanks to his past work in
libraries. Dromm carried his educational
background to his role
as chair of the Education Committee
during his fi rst term and
Menchaca entered offi ce having
➤ COUNCIL, continued on p.7
JANUARY 13 - January 26, 2 6 022 | GayCityNews.com
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