Mayor Adams says he will review NYC school bathroom gender policy amid federal pressure

Josephine Stratman and Cayla Bamberger, New York Daily News on Sep 18, 2025

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NEW YORK — Mayor Eric Adams weighed in on the wedge issue of transgender identity and restrooms Thursday, saying he wants to review the city’s current policy that allows school kids to use the facilities that align with their identity.

The debate has become a rallying cry for many conservatives and some moderates. Trailing badly in the polls, the mayor, a Democrat running for reelection as an independent, was responding to a question from a reporter after he, unprompted, raised the subject with an attack earlier this week on front-runner Zohran Mamdani.

“We’re going so far away from common sense,” Adams said at an unrelated news conference outside the United Nations. “I don’t support girls and boys using the same restroom.”

Adams’ comments come as the Trump administration has threatened to withhold federal funding over city school’s gender-inclusive policies.

“We’re going to always respect how one identifies themselves. But my utmost importance is to ensure that when my children are in school, they’re in a safe environment. And I do not believe a safe environment is allowing boys and girls to use the same facility at the same time.”

Public schools rules dictate that students “must be provided access to facilities (restrooms, locker rooms, or changing rooms) consistent with their gender identity asserted at school.” Schools are required to offer students an alternative if they need more privacy, but any arrangements must be made in a “non-stigmatizing manner” that is “not marginalizing or disruptive for the student.”

Adams on Thursday said he would review the policy, which is in compliance with state law, for himself.

“If it permits young boys and young girls to share the same restroom at the same time, I’m going to look at my authority and power to change that,” the mayor said. “I think that we have become so politically correct that we are incorrect.”

Mamdani, the Democratic nominee, slammed the mayor’s comment on social media.

“Awful and dangerous to hear the Mayor echo the transphobic bigotry coming from the Trump administration,” Mamdani said. “It’s completely at odds with the values of our city and another reason why his single, disgraced term in office cannot end soon enough.”

In a Tuesday letter obtained by the Daily News, the U.S. Education Department’s Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor notified local education officials of a “compliance issue” with the guidelines for transgender students, threatening to pull funding for magnet schools. The memo quotes from the gender policy on school restrooms, as well as on sports and overnight field trip accommodations.

Five local districts within the city school system are currently under review for continued funding through the program, Trainor said.

The letter directed the school system to “adopt biology-based definitions” for male and female, and separate student bathrooms “on the basis of sex.” Trainor directed local officials to agree to take such “remedial steps” by end of day Friday.

“He’s a bigot and his position on transgender youth is disgusting and despicable,” Allen Roskoff, a longtime LGBTQ rights activist, said of Adams, adding that the mayor is “totally in line with Donald Trump on this.”

Roskoff told The New York Daily News the mayor’s comments were intended to appeal to conservative New Yorkers as Adams pursues an unlikely reelection bid.