Out Spotlight

Today's Out Spotlight is the Executive Director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), a national legal organization that fights for the civil and human rights of LGBT people and their families. Today's Out Spotlight is Kate Kendell.

Kate Kendell (Kathryn Dean Kendell) was born April 15, 1960 and raised as a Mormon/Latter-day Saint in Utah. She received her J.D. from the University of Utah College of Law in 1988. After a few years practicing corporate law, she pursued her real love, civil rights advocacy.

In 1992, Kendell became the first staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah, where she litigated high-profile cases. She focused on LGBT, reproductive, and prisoners’ rights, and the separation of church and state.

In 1994, Kendell was hired as NCLR’s legal director. She was promoted to executive director in 1996. Under her leadership, NCLR’s impact has grown exponentially.

Each year, through litigation, public policy advocacy and public education, NCLR helps more than 5,000 LGBT people and their families nationwide. NCLR was one of the organizations that argued before the California Supreme Court for the overturn of Proposition 8.

She joined the NCLR in 1994, as its Legal Director. Two years later, she was named their Executive Director.

During her leadership, the issues facing the LGBT community—from homophobia in sports to immigration policy—have taken center stage in the United States’ discussion of LGBT civil rights issues.

She is a nationally recognized spokesperson for LGBT rights and has an active voice in major media, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal,The Advocate, NPR,CNN,and many others. Despite the national success of NCLR under her tenure, her most rewarding responsibilities still include fostering alliances on the community and organizational levels, and advocating from a grass-roots perspective on issues concerning social justice.

On May 26, 2009, when the California Supreme Court upheld Proposition 8, Kendell responded, “Today, the California Supreme Court diminished its legacy as a champion of equality. No minority group should have to defend its right to equality at the ballot, and the Court should not have permitted such a travesty of justice to stand.”

In 2002, Kendell received the National LGBT Bar Association’s Dan Bradley Award. In 2004, she was named one of California's Top 100 Attorneys and also won the Del Martin/Phyllis Lyon Marriage Equality Award at Equality California’s 2004 San Francisco Equality Awards. In October 2009 she was named a hero for National GLBT History Month.

On March 23, 2010, Kate was named a "woman who could be president" by the League of Women Voters of San Francisco at their annual “Women Who Could Be President” gala.

Kendell and her spouse, Sandy Holmes, were legally married in San Francisco in 2008,and live in San Francisco with their son, Julian,and daughter, Ariana. Their family includes Kate’s daughter Emily.

“The only way to win full equality is to engage in the hard work of making our lives real to everyone we know.”