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Comings & Goings
Kendell named CEO of Gill Foundation
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Congratulations to Kate Kendell who has accepted the position as CEO of the Gill Foundation. Board Co-Chairs Tim Gill and Scott Miller said in a statement, “Kate brings with her not only a remarkable legacy of LGBTQ advocacy, but a deep belief in the dignity and potential of every American, the values at the heart of everything we do at the Gill Foundation.”
To ensure a seamless transition, Kendell will work side-by-side with Brad Clark, who announced earlier this year that he would be leaving the foundation this spring, after a decade of work and advocacy. Clark said, “The fight ahead is full of challenges but I have every confidence in Kate, and in Tim and Scott’s continued leadership, as well as in the tireless work of our movement’s litigators, organizers, and agitators, and the courage of our community and allies to carry us forward to a better future.”
Upon accepting the position Kendell spoke to Foundation staff and other LGBTQ activists saying, “At this critical juncture for our movement, our nation, and the Gill Foundation, I feel inexorably pulled to do whatever I can. I spent 25 years at the forefront of the LGBTQ movement at a time of breathtaking gains. We now face a ferocious backlash and I cannot imagine a way to make a greater impact than to help lead the Gill Foundation at a moment that will define our legacy.”
Kendell is a former executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, where she spent 23 years advocating for LGBTQ people and their families through litigation, public policy advocacy, and public education. During her tenure, she was a key architect on a wide range of legal and policy victories for the LGBTQ community, including the right of same-sex couples to marry, nondiscrimination protections, protection of undocumented immigrants, the rights of incarcerated individuals, transgender rights, and the needs of youth and elders.
She also served as interim co-Legal Director at the Southern Poverty Law Center and served as the first staff attorney for the ACLU of Utah. Most recently Kate worked with the California Endowment, where she served as chief of staff. The California Endowment works to expand access to affordable, quality health care for underserved individuals and communities, and to promote fundamental improvements in the health of all Californians.
Iran
Grenell: ‘Real hope’ for gay rights in Iran as result of nationwide protests
Former ambassador to Germany claimed he has sneaked ‘gays and lesbians out of’ country
Richard Grenell, the presidential envoy for special missions of the United States, said on X on Tuesday that he has helped “sneak gays and lesbians out of Iran” and is seeing a change in attitudes in the country.
The post, which now has more than 25,000 likes since its uploading, claims that attitudes toward gays and lesbians are shifting amid massive economic protests across the country.
“For the first time EVER, someone has said ‘I want to wait just a bit,” the former U.S. ambassador to Germany wrote. “There is real hope coming from the inside. I don’t think you can stop this now.”
Grenell has been a longtime supporter of the president.
“Richard Grenell is a fabulous person, A STAR,” Trump posted on Truth Social days before his official appointment to the ambassador role. “He will be someplace, high up! DJT”
Iran, which is experiencing demonstrations across all 31 provinces of the country — including in Tehran, the capital — started as a result of a financial crisis causing the collapse of its national currency. Time magazine credits this uprising after the U.N. re-imposed sanctions in September over the country’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.
As basic necessities like bread, rice, meat, and medical supplies become increasingly unaffordable to the majority of the more than 90 million people living there, citizens took to the streets to push back against Iran’s theocratic regime.
Grenell, who was made president and executive director of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts last year by Trump, believes that people in the majority Shiite Muslim country are also beginning to protest human rights abuses.
Iran is among only a handful of countries in which consensual same-sex sexual relations remain punishable by death, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Virginia
Mark Levine loses race to succeed Adam Ebbin in ‘firehouse’ Democratic primary
State Del. Elizabeth Bennett-Parker won with 70.6 percent of vote
Gay former Virginia House of Delegates member Mark Levine (D-Alexandria) lost his race to become the Democratic nominee to replace gay state Sen. Adam Ebbin (D-Alexandria) in a Jan. 13 “firehouse” Democratic primary.
Levine finished in second place in the hastily called primary, receiving 807 votes or 17.4 percent. The winner in the four-candidate race, state Del. Elizabeth Bennett-Parker, who was endorsed by both Ebbin and Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger received 3,281 votes or 70.6 percent.
Ebbin, whose 39th Senate District includes Alexandria and parts of Arlington and Fairfax Counties, announced on Jan. 7 that he was resigning effective Feb. 18, to take a job in the Spanberger administration as senior advisor at the Virginia Cannabis Control Authority.
Results of the Jan. 13 primary, which was called by Democratic Party leaders in Alexandria, Arlington, and Fairfax, show that candidates Charles Sumpter, a World Wildlife Fund director, finished in third place with 321 voters or 6.9 percent; and Amy Jackson, the former Alexandria vice mayor, finished in fourth place with 238 votes or 5.1 percent.
Bennett-Parker, who LGBTQ community advocates consider a committed LGBTQ ally, will now compete as the Democratic nominee in a Feb. 10 special election in which registered voters in the 39th District of all political parties and independents will select Ebbin’s replacement in the state senate.
The Alexandria publication ALX Now reports that local realtor Julie Robben Linebery has been selected by the Alexandria Republican City Committee to be the GOP candidate to compete in the Jan. 10 special election. According to ALX Now, Lineberry was the only application to run in a now cancelled special party caucus type event initially called to select the GOP nominees.
It couldn’t immediately be determined if an independent or other party candidate planned to run in the special election.
Bennett-Parker is considered the strong favorite to win the Feb. 10 special election in the heavily Democratic 39th District, where Democrat Ebbin has served as senator since 2012.
Congress
Van Hollen speaks at ‘ICE Out for Good’ protest in D.C.
ICE agent killed Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis on Jan. 7
U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) is among those who spoke at an “ICE Out for Good” protest that took place outside U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s headquarters in D.C. on Tuesday.
The protest took place six days after a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old woman in Minneapolis.
Good left behind her wife and three children.
(Video by Michael K. Lavers)
Grenell: ‘Real hope’ for gay rights in Iran as result of nationwide protests
Rollback of health IT standards will harm LGBTQ patients
Mark Levine loses race to succeed Adam Ebbin in ‘firehouse’ Democratic primary
National LGBTQ Task Force brings Creating Change conference back to D.C.
Van Hollen speaks at ‘ICE Out for Good’ protest in D.C.
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