Bruce Blakeman pledges a statewide ban on transgender students in girls’ bathrooms and lockers if elected New York governor, calling out Kathy Hochul for putting politics over daughters’ privacy.
The New York Post reported that Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman will push his “Protect Our Daughters” plan on day one if voters make him governor in November.
The Republican candidate’s initiative would set statewide standards for public school students from kindergarten through 12th grade. It would reserve girls’ bathrooms, locker rooms, and overnight trip accommodations exclusively for biological females.
Blakeman framed the move as a direct answer to the state Department of Education. With Gov. Kathy Hochul’s blessing, that agency has blocked similar local rules on Long Island.
Last year the department struck down policies from school boards in Locust Valley and Massapequa. Those boards had barred transgender students from using locker rooms and restrooms that matched their gender identity.
Blakeman did not speak evasively about the governor’s record.
He stated:
“Kathy Hochul has shown time and again that she would rather satisfy a political agenda than protect our daughters’ safety, privacy, and dignity.”
He added that the pattern ends if he takes office:
“That ends on Day 1 when I am Governor, and I enact the ‘Protect Our Daughters’ Initiative to keep biological men out of girls’ sports and bathrooms.”
The plan would also stop biological males who identify as female from rooming with girls on overnight school trips. Blakeman’s team said it would shield local boards from Albany pressure and block lawmakers from yanking funds or hitting districts that keep transgender students out of female sports.
His representatives did not spell out the exact enforcement tools. Albany sources noted any such rules would face an uphill fight because the far-left Legislature controls the Education Department.
Blakeman already acted in 2024. He issued an executive order barring transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports at Nassau County-run properties. It was described as a first-of-its-kind step.
He tied that record to the new school pledge.
Blakeman said:
“Kathy Hochul fought us every step of the way when we acted to save girls’ sports in Nassau County, and she is taking that same fight into our schools’ locker rooms and bathrooms.”
He continued:
“Protecting girls’ sports was the first step. Ensuring their privacy in school bathrooms, locker rooms, and on overnight field trips is the next. The Protect Our Daughters initiative will take these common-sense safeguards statewide and make them permanent.”
Hochul’s office did not respond to requests for comment on the latest proposal.
State Democratic Party spokesperson Addison Dick did weigh in. He accused Blakeman of chasing attention instead of kitchen-table issues and claimed the candidate was “playing from an old Trump playbook and palling around with extremists to get attention for his failing campaign.”
New York Democrats have spent recent months on other tracks, including Ocasio-Cortez keeps 2028 options open while touring the state.
A Siena College poll released Sept. 26 found Blakeman trailing Hochul by nine points. That gap is markedly smaller than the lead Hochul held over then-GOP candidate Lee Zeldin at the same point in the 2022 cycle.
Public opinion on related fairness questions lines up with Blakeman’s direction. A Pew Research Center analysis released two months ago found that almost three-quarters of Americans oppose transgender women competing against female athletes. Republicans and Democrats both back that view.
Parents watching school policies have watched progressive figures chase national headlines. One example is the Ocasio-Cortez launches upstate New York tour that mixed local stops with longer-term speculation.
Blakeman’s pitch centers on restoring local control and basic privacy rules that many school boards already tried to set before Albany intervened.
The same Democratic ecosystem that blocked those Long Island rules has also featured high-profile road shows. Coverage of how Ocasio-Cortez takes her socialist roadshow upstate captured that side of the party’s focus.
The Locust Valley and Massapequa boards passed concrete limits on who could enter girls’ locker rooms and restrooms. The state Education Department wiped those rules out last year under Hochul’s approach.
Blakeman now offers to reverse that pattern statewide and lock the standards in place. He presents the bathrooms, lockers, and overnight trips as the logical next layer after the Nassau sports order.
Critics on the left cast the whole effort as a distraction. Yet the candidate keeps returning to the same concrete points: biological reality in private spaces, protection from sanctions, and an end to state overrides of local common-sense rules.
Separate controversies continue to swirl around other New York Democrats. One recent episode involved how AOC’s Cornell gang-rape story collides with earlier records, underscoring the party’s uneven attention to accountability.
Another examination of the same matter showed how Ocasio-Cortez’s Cornell gang-rape account clashes with sworn statements on file.
None of that changes the core choice Blakeman is putting before voters. Either New York keeps letting the Education Department and the governor erase local bathroom and locker policies, or a new governor installs permanent statewide protections for girls’ privacy and safety.
Girls in public schools should not have to surrender privacy so politicians can score points with activists. Common-sense boundaries belong in law, not in the crosshairs of Albany.
