National
ExxonMobil to consider barring anti-LGBT job discrimination
Resolution pushed by N.Y. official not likely to succeed: sources
All eyes will be on one of the nation’s largest publicly traded companies next week when shareholders will vote on whether the company should make LGBT protections part of its formal non-discrimination policy.
At a meeting set for May 30 in Dallas, shareholders for the ExxonMobil Corp. will vote on a resolution to include sexual orientation and gender identity in the equal employment opportunity policy for its estimated 82,000 workers — a change the company has resisted.
Thomas DiNapoli (Photo by Thomas Good via Wikimedia)
The resolution is being put before shareholders by New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli. He’s trustee of the New York State Common Retirement Fund, which owns more than 16 million shares of ExxonMobil at an estimated market value of $1.3 billion.
In an interview with the Washington Blade, DiNapoli said he introduced the resolution because of the large investment the New York State Common Retirement Fund has in ExxonMobil. In the past three years, DiNapoli has reached agreements with 27 companies to adopt new non-discrimination policies.
“By ExxonMobil not having a clear policy based on sexual orientation and gender identity, it really leaves the corporation to not getting access to the best talent that’s available,” DiNapoli said. “We’re looking at it very much from the point of view of shareholding and wanting our companies to do very well, and we think that this lack of addressing this issue of discrimination is an impediment to ExxonMobil getting the best performance that will benefit our shares.”
ExxonMobil hasn’t included protections for LGBT workers in its equal employment opportunity policy — nor has it offered domestic partnership benefits for employees with same-sex partners — since the company was created as a result of the merger between Exxon and Mobil in 1999.
Mobil protected employees on the basis of sexual orientation and offered domestic partner benefits prior to the merger, but Exxon didn’t. Once the companies joined, the sexual orientation protections were rescinded and new employees were barred from receiving domestic partner benefits.
A vote on reinstating domestic partner benefits within the company won’t take place on May 30 because no such resolution has been proposed.
LGBT advocates are pushing for ExxonMobil shareholders to adopt a more LGBT-friendly policy at the shareholders meeting next week.
Tico Almeida, president of Freedom to Work, called on all private companies like ExxonMobil to adopt LGBT-inclusive non-discrimination policies because they’re “morally right and good for business.”
“Non-discrimination policies improve worker productivity, worker retention, worker recruitment and increase profits — and that’s why a vast majority of Fortune 500 companies have adopted LGBT non-discrimination rules, and that’s why it’s so jarring that ExxonMobil continues to be such an outlier with such outdated policies,” Almeida said.
Tico Almeida, president of Freedom to Work (Blade file photo by Michael Key)
Almeida discounted the importance of having a shareholder vote on whether to adopt the policy and said the board should skip the vote and on its own accord make LGBT protections part of the company’s equal employment opportunity policy.
One of the chief advocates of an executive order barring federal contractors from discriminating against LGBT workers, Almeida said the situation with ExxonMobil also speaks to the need for the Obama administration to pursue administrative action against workplace discrimination. The White House announced last month it wouldn’t at this time take such action.
“As taxpayers, we have a right to demand that companies that profit from our taxpayer money do not discriminate against LGBT Americans,” Almeida said. “It is our money as American citizens, and we should exercise that right because LGBT discrimination is not only morally wrong, it’s inefficient.”
According to Freedom to Work, ExxonMobil has raked in more than $1 billion in federal contracts over the course of the last decade. In the last fiscal year, ExxonMobil won $158 million in federal contracts.
But Almeida is taking the matter a step further and saying the White House should call on ExxonMobil to adopt the LGBT protections as part of its policy. Almeida said he’s had conversations with White House staff on this matter.
As evidence that the administration has promised to educate companies on the need for non-discrimination protections, Almeida pointed to a news conference on the day after the White House announced it wouldn’t issue the executive order for federal contractors.
During the briefing, White House press secretary Jay Carney said the administration was committed to “directly engaging with and educating all sectors of the business community — from major corporations to contractors to small business — and raising public awareness about the human and financial costs of discrimination in the work force.”
Almeida said, “We are urging them to take a strong stand in the next week or two to push ExxonMobil to accept the New York State shareholder resolution, which is a promise that Jay Carney made at that press briefing.”
The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment on the call for ExxonMobil to add non-discrimination protections as part of its policy.
Additionally, Freedom to Work set up an online petition at Change.org to encourage ExxonMobil to update its policy. As of early Tuesday, the petition had 200 signatures.
“The corporation ExxonMobil takes millions of dollars in American taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars every year through federal contracts, but Exxon’s corporate bosses refuse to follow American values – like judging their employees based on their talent and hard work rather than whom they love,” the petition letter states.
Cece Cox, CEO of Resource Center Dallas, a local LGBT and HIV/AIDS organization, said she wants to see the Dallas-based company change its policy because the company operates in close proximity of her organization.
“It’s the only remaining Fortune 10 company that doesn’t have an inclusive policy of sexual orientation, and they’re right here in our backyard,” Cox said. “As our neighbors, we would like to encourage and be in conversation with ExxonMobil about this issue.”
Cox said the Resource Center has contacted ExxonMobil’s vice president of human resources, M.A. Farrant, to encourage the company to adopt an LGBT-inclusive policy and sent a letter to Marilyn Carlson Nelson, an ExxonMobil board member and CEO of Carlson Companies whom they think may be amendable to the resolution because she wrote an op-ed against the proposed anti-gay amendment in Minnesota.
The company has sought to block the vote on adopting an LGBT-inclusive non-discrimination policy from taking place. The company’s board had asked the Securities & Exchange Commission to block the resolution from coming before shareholders, but the agency rejected the request in March.
According to ExxonMobil, the company already has protections for LGBT workers. An ExxonMobil spokesperson referred to protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity that are already included in the employment policies and practices page on the company’s website, which specifically states the company has a “zero-tolerance policy” for discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
A letter dated Jan. 20, 2012 from James Parsons, ExxonMobil’s coordinator for corporate securities and finance, suggests this policy statement is sufficient protection for LGBT employees.
“To be clear, in my opinion the statement of our employment policy specifically referencing sexual orientation and gender identity set forth on ExxonMobil’s internet employment policy page gives employees and potential employees precisely the same legal standing and access to rights and remedies — including the internal enforcement remedies available for violations of ExxonMobil policy, up to and including termination of the offending employee — as would be the case if these categories were instead referenced in the Standards of Business Conduct booklet,” Parsons writes.
In response, DiNapoli said this policy isn’t enough and noted the Securities & Exchange Commission denied that inclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity in this policy was a reason to block the resolution.
“We really think that they should have it stated in their policies, not just something on the website,” DiNapoli said. “[The EEO policy] is part of their written policies and procedures that follow from it. Obviously, the SEC made a resolution that our determination could go ahead because they basically found that what we were suggesting wasn’t in effect at ExxonMobil. So, I think that they are not accurate in what they’re portraying.”
ExxonMobil, the largest company in the world in terms of revenue, is known for having anti-gay policies. The most recent Corporate Equality Index from the Human Rights Campaign scored the company at “-25” — the lowest rating of any company.
LGBT advocates speaking with the Washington Blade couldn’t identify any incidents of LGBT job discrimination at ExxonMobil, but nonetheless said a change in company policy is necessary.
Paul Guequierre, an HRC spokesperson, emphasized the importance of ExxonMobil adopting an LGBT-inclusive equal employment opportunity policy as a way to make it more competitive with other companies.
“It’s important that non-discrimination policies include sexual orientation and gender identity,” Guequierre said. “We know the vast majority of Fortune 500 companies — including ExxonMobil’s competitors in the oil industry — offer these protections.”
Crosby Burns, research associate on LGBT issues at the Center for American Progress, said the adoption of an LGBT-inclusive policy is particularly important for ExxonMobil because the company is based in Texas, which has no statutory protections against LGBT job bias.
“ExxonMobil is one of the largest employers in Texas, and adding sexual orientation and gender identity to its EEO policy would give LGBT workers significant employment protections in a state where there sadly are none,” Burns said.
The upcoming meeting won’t be the first time ExxonMobil shareholders have had to vote on adopting an LGBT-inclusive non-discrimination policy. The New York State Common Retirement Fund has been the sponsor of similar resolutions each year since 2008.
According to ExxonMobil, votes cast in favor of the proposal have declined in recent years, from a high of 39.6 percent in 2008 to 19.9 percent at last year’s annual meeting. Still, the 2011 vote represented more than 500 million shares at a market value of more than $42.4 billion.
While emphasizing the need for ExxonMobil to adopt the policy, advocates weren’t confident about whether shareholders would ultimately vote to approve the LGBT non-discrimination resolution next week.
DiNapoli said “we’re always optimistic” that shareholders will adopt the new policy as opposed to rejecting it and the chances are better that they’ll support it this year.
“As a nation generally, and certainly in terms of shareholders being informed about what’s going on, the prospects are better than they were in other years, but obviously, we’ll have to wait and see what the vote is,” DiNapoli said. “I’m certainly confident at some point we’re going to have success in regard to ExxonMobil’s policies; I’m hoping it will be this year.”
The Resource Center’s Cox said she doesn’t think shareholders will approve the resolution — just as they’ve rejected it in years past — but said she isn’t normally in the business of predicting.
“I don’t have reason to think that it’s going to get approved,” Cox said. “I’d be surprised if it does this year, but I think there’s opportunity to work with Exxon leadership, and that’s what we’re trying to do.”
Almeida said he thinks the shareholder resolution will face a close vote, but added if it fails, the outcome will be another reason for Obama to issue an executive order barring workplace discrimination for federal contractors.
“That will increase the need for President Obama to fulfill his campaign promise of signing the executive order for federal contractors because there’s no way ExxonMobil would risk losing lucrative federal contracts in order to keep its antiquated anti-LGBT policies,” Almeida said. “If the president signs the executive order, they will immediately cave.”
State Department
State Department implements anti-trans bathroom policy
Memo notes directive corresponds with White House executive order
The State Department on April 20 announced employees cannot use bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity.
The Daily Signal, a conservative news website, reported the State Department announced the new policy in a memo titled “Updates Regarding Biological Sex and Intimate Spaces, Including Restrooms.”
The State Department has not responded to the Washington Blade’s request for comment on the directive.
“The administration affirms that there are two sexes — male and female — and that federal facilities should operate on this objective and longstanding basis to ensure consistency, privacy, and safety in shared spaces,” State Department spokesperson Tommy Piggot told the Daily Signal. “In line with President Trump’s executive order this provides clear, uniform guidance to the department by grounding policy in biological sex as determined at birth.”
President Donald Trump shortly after he took office in January 2025 issued an executive order that directed the federal government to only recognize two genders: male and female. The sweeping directive also ordered federal government agencies to “effectuate this policy by taking appropriate action to ensure that intimate spaces designated for women, girls, or females (or for men, boys, or males) are designated by sex and not identity.”
The Daily Signal notes the new State Department policy “does not prohibit single-occupancy restrooms.”
National
I’m telling the scared little girl I once was it’s okay to feel free
This week is Lesbian Visibility Week
Uncloseted Media published this article on April 23.
By SOPHIE HOLLAND | At 13 years old, I remember looking in the mirror in my Toronto bathroom and thinking, “Yeah, I’m a lesbian.” At the time, I thought it was a dirty word. Thinking back, it could be because the first time I heard it was when a family member said, “I don’t know what a lesbian is, they are like aliens.”
And although I walked around in camouflage Crocs with a rainbow My Little Pony charm, plaid knee-length shorts and a shark tooth necklace (yes, these are all, in my opinion, stereotypically lesbian apparel!), I didn’t feel like I fit the mold. The longer I thought about it, the worse I felt, so I buried my feelings deep inside.
Now I am 25, and I have been out since I was 22. Three years ago, I never could have imagined that I’d be working for a queer news publication and celebrating Lesbian Visibility Week, an annual event meant to honor and uplift lesbian perspectives and highlight the hardships our community faces. To me, LVW is so important because, frankly, it has been an absolute shit show getting here, to a place where I feel love and joy most days.
I think back to the frustration of constantly being asked, “Do you have a boyfriend?” Of watching princess movies and seeing a broken girl only find herself when her prince charming arrives. I remember listening to music that was always about heterosexual relationships. I remember feeling left out in high school when, one by one, my friends got boyfriends.
I tried the boyfriend, and I tried really hard for it to work at a large detriment to my wellbeing. I brainwashed myself into thinking I was probably bisexual, which I told my closest friends around 16 and unsuccessfully told my parents at the same age. I was probably subconsciously using this as a litmus test of their acceptance and to soothe the anxiety I felt around my sexuality.
Learning to love who I am did not only come from me unraveling my internalized lesbophobia and dissecting the oppressive societal messages of heteronormativity. It came from meeting an awesome community of lesbians and queers. I found people who understood my worldview and who showed me the ropes. I no longer had to stutter over concepts like lesbian loneliness or my frustration with misogynistic straight men.
They all just got it.
Without this community, I am not sure if I could be as warm and confident in myself as I am today.
And while I still experience homophobia, like being spat on while walking with an ex in downtown Toronto or having a stranger yell in my face “Are you fucking lesbians?” in Kensington Market, the joy and love still outweighs the nasty.
So, as the sentimental dyke that I have become, I decided to ask a set of lesbians in my orbit — including my friends as well as Uncloseted staffers, board members and followers — if they would share a little bit about what makes them love being a lesbian. And now, I can share it with all of you. Here they are. Happy LVW!
Timi Sotire
Falling in love with her was a reset. I felt like a kid again, hopeful about the future. We’ve had to overcome many obstacles to be together, but I’d choose her in every lifetime. I was sick with a long-term health condition when we met, and hanging out with Sophia really helped me with my recovery after my surgery.
Bella Sayegh
Being a lesbian is one of the most beautiful things in the world. To be authentically yourself in resistance and joy is so special within the lesbian community.
Parker Wales
When I met Liv, I finally understood why almost every song is about love.
Gillian Kilgour
There is no connection quite as perfect as between lesbians, no one sees me like my lesbians do.
Chyna Price
There’s many things I love about being a lesbian. But here are my top three:
- There’s just a deeper understanding when it comes to being loved by another woman.
- The next one would be the sense of community, especially being a POC masculine-presenting lesbian. I don’t feel like I’m cosplaying as someone else like I felt like I was doing before I came out.
- There’s so much history going back to the 1800s on how we found and fought for our love. That fight makes me proud because it shows me … that we’ve [found] ways to express our love even when it was misunderstood, illegal and deemed as madness.
Hope Pisoni
Before I knew I was a lesbian, romantic relationships seemed suffocating — it felt like everyone would expect me to act my part in the meticulous performance that is heterosexuality. But meeting my spouse and discovering our identities together showed me just how freeing it could be to love without a script to follow.
Leital Molad
It was the joy of watching the New York Sirens defeat the Toronto Sceptres at our first professional women’s hockey game — surrounded by hundreds (maybe thousands?) of cheering lesbians.
Angela Earl
I spent years building a life that looked right. But I never felt settled, and eventually I started asking what would actually make me happy. Coming out was about more than who I love, it was letting go of everything I was told to be. The last few years have felt like coming home to a life that had been waiting for me.
Tali Bray
What I love about being a lesbian is what I love about being in love … the wonder and joy of “oh, this is what it’s supposed to feel like.” I love moving through the world with women.
Izzy Stokes
I didn’t fall in love until I realized that queerness was an option. My queer friends have helped me see so much more than I grew up seeing. I’m so proud of us, and I’m so grateful for my lesbian community.
Nandika Chatterjee
When I met my fiancée is when I started to feel most like myself. That meant loving myself for who I am and embracing my identity as a lesbian. I felt free in a way I have never before. That’s the long and short of it.
Liz Lucking
The love and joy of being a lesbian is getting to live the life I dreamed of but never thought I would get to have!
Reflections
As I read these beautiful entries, it’s not lost on me that we’re still living in a world where lesbians are more likely to struggle with maternity problems, fetishization, and compulsory heterosexuality — not to mention the intersectional pressures of racism from both inside and outside the queer community. That’s part of why, according to a 2024 survey, 22 percent of LGBTQ women have attempted suicide, and 66 percent have sought treatment for trauma.
So if you are a lesbian who isn’t out or doesn’t feel safe, I hope you read this and can glean some hope from these messages. So when you look in the mirror, you know that it’s okay to release the weight — which can feel so heavy — of a heteronormative world.
We still have a long fight until all lesbians can feel safe to be themselves, but this is a community that does not back away from the tough, from the joy, from being loud and from all the other things that it takes to start a small revolution.
Hell yeah, lesbians! Here’s to you.
*I am signing off with my cat on my lap and a pride flag over my head <3.
Cuba
Trans parent charged with kidnapping, allegedly fled to Cuba with child
Cuban authorities helped locate Rose Inessa-Ethington
Federal authorities have charged a transgender woman with kidnapping after she allegedly fled to Cuba with her 10-year-old child.
An affidavit that Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Jennifer Waterfield filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Utah on April 16 notes the child is a “biological male who identifies as a female” and “splits time living with divorced parents who share custody” in Cache County, Utah.
Waterfield notes the child on March 28 “was supposed to be traveling by car to” Calgary, Alberta, “for a planned camping trip with his transgender mother, Rose Inessa-Ethington, Rose’s partner, Blue Inessa-Ethington, and Blue’s 3-year-old child.”
The affidavit notes the group instead flew from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Mexico City on March 29. Waterfield writes the Inessa-Ethingtons and the two children then flew from Mérida, Mexico, to Havana on April 1.
The 10-year-old child called her biological mother on March 28 after they arrived in Canada. The custody agreement, according to the affidavit, required Rose Inessa-Ethington to return the child to her former spouse on April 3.
“Interviews of MV [Minor Victim] 1’s family members provided significant concerns for MV 1’s well-being, as MV 1 was born a male, however, identifies as a female child, which is largely believed to be due to manipulation by Rose Inessa-Ethington,” reads the affidavit. “Concerns exist that MV 1 was transported to Cuba for gender reassignment surgery prior to puberty.”
The affidavit indicates authorities found a note in the Inessa-Ethingtons’ home with “instruction from a mental health therapist located in Washington, D.C., including instruction to send the therapist the $10,000.00 and instructions on gender-affirming medical care for children.”
The affidavit does not identify the specific “mental health therapist” in D.C.
A Utah judge on April 13 ordered Rose Inessa-Ethington to “immediately” return the child to her former spouse. The former spouse also received sole custody.
“Your affiant believes that due to the extensive planning and preparation exhibited by both Rose Inessa-Ethington and Blue Inessa-Ethington to isolate MV 1 and take MV 1 to Havana, Cuba, without notifying or requesting permission from MV 1’s mother indicates they are likely not planning to return to the United States,” wrote Waterfield.
The affidavit notes Cuban authorities found the Inessa-Ethingtons and the child.
A press release the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Utah issued notes the Inessa-Ethingtons “were deported from Cuba” on Monday “with the assistance of the FBI.”
The couple has been charged with International Parental Kidnapping. The Inessa-Ethingtons were arraigned in Richmond, Va., on Monday. The press release notes a federal court in Salt Lake City will soon handle the case.
The New York Times reported the child is now back with their biological mother.
“We are grateful to law enforcement for working swiftly to return the child to the biological mother,” said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Melissa Holyoak of the District of Utah in the press release.
The case is unfolding against the backdrop of increased tensions between Washington and Havana after U.S. forces on Jan. 3 seized now former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores.
President Donald Trump shortly after he took office in January 2025 issued an executive order that directed the federal government to only recognize two genders: male and female. A second White House directive banned federally-funded gender-affirming care for anyone under 19.
The U.S. Supreme Court last year in the Skrmetti decision upheld a Tennessee law that bans gender-affirming care for minors.
Cuba’s national health care system has offered free sex-reassignment surgeries since 2008.
Activists who are critical of Mariela Castro, the daughter of former President Raúl Castro who spearheads LGBTQ issues as director of Cuba’s National Center for Sexual Education, have previously told the Washington Blade that access to these procedures is limited. The Blade on Wednesday asked a contact in Havana to clarify whether Cuban law currently allows minors to undergo sex-reassignment surgery.
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