Record-Setting Trans Activist Launches Bid For BK Council Seat

BROOKLYN, NY — A civil rights attorney and activist who could become the first openly transgender person to serve in City Council has thrown her hat in the ring for Majority Leader Laurie Cumbo's Brooklyn seat.

Alejandra Caraballo, a Democrat, launched a campaign Tuesday for City Council District 35, which stretches from Fort Greene over Prospect Heights, Clinton Hill and parts of Crown Heights and Bed-Stuy. The district's seat will be vacant when Cumbo reaches her term limit at the end of 2021.

Caraballo — a self-described "Trans Latina progressive activist" — hopes to bring her lifelong mission of fighting for marginalized communities to the seat.

"As a civil rights attorney, I have seen up-close the many injustices built into our systems of housing, policing, and immigration,” Caraballo said in a release, noting that she was almost run over by a police cruiser when joining recent Black Lives Matter protests.

“It shouldn't take everyday citizens risking their lives to hold the system accountable. I am running to bring that accountability to the City Council.”

Caraballo says those systemic injustices were laid bare for her at a young age, when her father lost his arm in a work accident and went on disability. Her mother had to hire an attorney to help the family get by as worker's comp checks got lost in the mail or weren't delivered, Caraballo says on her website.

"I learned a lot about the system by how it treated our family after that," she writes. "Even then, times were tough, and the hardball tactics greatly affected my family but we made it through. Others weren’t so lucky."

Her career continued to reveal those difficulties.

Caraballo worked for the New York Legal Assistance Group with Trans Latinx immigrants and sex workers who needed help through family and immigration court.

Recently, she became the first openly trans board member in all of Brooklyn when joining Community Board 9, which oversees parts of Crown Heights, Prospect Lefferts Gardens and Flatbush. She has since been appointed as housing committee chair, chair of a district manager search committee and most recently as secretary.

Caraballo joins several others who have announced a bid for Cumbo's seat, including the majority leader's former staff member Crystal Hudson.

She is also at least the second trans person on the ballot for the legislature. Elisa Crespo is running for Council Member Ritchie Torres’ open Bronx seat, which will face a special election.

"I am thrilled to see Alejandra run for New York City Council," Crespo said. "Her decision to run for office is an act of resistance in and of itself. I’m proud to be in this journey with her and I have no doubt she’ll fight tooth and nail for her future constituents."

Caraballo's platform includes extending the eviction moratorium during the pandemic, creating a full healthcare program for New York City's uninsured and defunding the NYPD, which Cumbo has faced backlash for criticizing.

The new candidates campaign launch includes plans for "virtual house parties," where neighbors can come meet her and ask questions.