Rudy Giuliani claims Mamdani’s childcare plan will teach kids to be trans
Rudy Giulani and Zohran Mamdani (Getty Images)
Rudy Giuliani has a new theory about Zohran Mamdani’s universal childcare plans, which Giuliani presumes involves influencing six-month-old babies to hate their parents and become transgender.
In a 5 August episode of his web show America’s Mayor Live, the former New York City mayor launched into a lengthy attack on Mamdani, focusing in part on his plan to expand access to free childcare for New York City residents.
Giuliani questioned what a six-month-old could possibly be taught in pre-K before suggesting the answer would be how to “hate the parents” alongside encouraging children to question their gender and, as he crudely put it, “chop their penises off”.
He then escalated, claiming children would be taught that it is “OK to be a transvestite”, that transgender people would come into schools to give lectures, and that children could change their gender without telling their parents because “parents are the enemy”.
None of this reflects what Mamdani’s childcare proposal actually does.
Giuliani’s claims fit into a much broader pattern of misinformation about transgender people, LGBTQ+ visibility, LGBTQ+ education, and gender-affirming care. Giuliani’s comments also echoed claims repeatedly promoted by former President Donald Trump and conservative influencers about schools somehow facilitating gender-affirming surgeries for children.
Gender-affirming surgeries on minors are exceedingly rare and are not some routine service being provided through public schools. A 2024 study by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found that “little to no utilisation of gender-affirming surgeries by transgender and gender-diverse minors in the US. The study also found that cisgender minors and adults had substantially higher utilisation of analogous gender-affirming surgeries than their [gender-diverse] counterparts.”
Mamdani has made LGBTQ+ rights a visible part of his political agenda as New York City’s mayor. During his first LGBTQ+ Pride Month as mayor this year, his administration launched a “Trans Rights Are Human Rights” campaign. He also announced a $15million investment in gender-affirming care to deliver on campaign promises amid escalating federal restrictions targeting trans people.
His childcare agenda, meanwhile, is solely focused on expanding access to affordable or free care for New York City families.
Giuliani also used his segment to attack Mamdani as an “out-and-out communist,” claimed he has “never had a job” and mocked his broader platform of publicly funded services.
But perhaps the strangest part of the rant was the suggestion that if parents were to utilise a free, voluntary, Pre-K program, it would lead to six-month-old babies sitting in classrooms across New York City, weighing the pros and cons of gender transition.
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