America’s head lesbian: An interview with NCLR’s Kate Kendell

When I first met Kate Kendell, Executive Director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, she was pouring drinks for the women at the 2011 fundraising cocktail reception Out Boulder holds annually for NCLR. Kendell’s personality fills a room, belying her petite stature. I knew then and there I wanted to find out more about this woman and how she became the nation’s “head lesbian.”

Although you have a really big and pretty important job, you have always struck me as just “Kate” being authentically yourself.

Thank you. There are people that don’t like the social stuff and I always have liked it. I feel so blessed to be in this job. To get up every morning and feel like you enjoy what you’re doing and you feel like it makes a difference and you get to meet people all over the country. I mean I have to pinch myself. I feel so incredibly fortunate. I mean, how can you not be enthusiastic and excited to meet people?

You seem really in your element at these events, like you really are enjoying yourself.

I want it to be about more than just the job. I want to make connections with people – that’s my currency. That’s what keeps me going. Some people don’t like that; the idea of being in a crowd of people and meeting new people freaks them out. Then obviously this is a job you wouldn’t want. I have a wonder and awe about the world, about people. I like creating new relationships. For me it’s a perfect fit.

Let’s back up. How do you get to this place? Where did this journey start for you? 

I grew up in a very middle-class, striving family. My mom was a stay-at-home mom the whole time we were growing up. My dad owned a small insurance agency in Ogden, Utah where I grew up. I look back on it now and I know that there were years that we were really struggling financially. Even though we had a very nice house, in a very upscale neighborhood, I think that there were moments when my parents were hanging on by their fingernails. I remember one year my big Christmas gift was ski mittens. And that’s when I knew [we didn’t have a lot of money]. Although other families in our neighborhood had more, I still describe it as a middle-class to upper middle-class upbringing because I had opportunities.

Opportunities and a good education will certainly get you far, even without money.

My parents came from a working class background. So, neither one of them really emphasized education very much. And they weren’t students of the world necessarily. They weren’t very political. My dad was pretty conservative. I vividly remember beginning to understand that my dad was not like me when he was supporting George Wallace for President. Who of course, I could see was a total racist. And I knew what he was saying about black people.

So, your worldview didn’t come from your parents.

I had a current events teacher in junior high, totally progressive, really wild, politically involved. Her name was Lynn Miller. I don’t know how she ended up at this public junior high in Ogden, UT. That’s when I started to see the world bigger than my own world. She introduced me to Fredrick Douglas, Sojourner Truth, Chief Joseph and Caesar Chavez. All of a sudden I thought, whoa, that’s an amazing way to live; to be an agent for bigger change. I remember it igniting something in me that had I not run across if it weren’t for her I think I would be doing something where I was very unhappy and unfulfilled.

Wow. Teachers can truly make an amazing impact on our lives.  

Sometimes it only takes one person. I think she changed my life.

So, where did you go next?

I stayed in Utah the whole time. My first partner was a woman who had had a one year-old daughter. She lived in Utah. I thought about going somewhere else for college.  But, I had to pay for it. So, I went to the local college. It ended up being a great experience. Some of my professors are in my life to this day. And it was in college that I met Jane Marquardt who was a very politically active attorney. She ran for the legislature at one point. She really impressed me about lawyers. So, I decided to go to law school, mostly because of her mentorship.

You said that education wasn’t really emphasized in your family. Are you the only one to go?

When you come from a family that doesn’t put an emphasis on education, you know, no one was encouraging me to apply. There was just no expectation that I was going to go to college. My sister and I were the first to go to college in my family, I think, in several generations, on both my mom and my dad’s side. So, we had to make it as easy as possible to go to college in terms of both proximity and logistics and money, or it wasn’t gonna happen.

Do you have a motto?

I think life is worth living, with a capital L. It doesn’t mean you try heroin. But it does mean you try a range of experiences that are safe, not harmful and not demeaning, just to sort of live life.

Well you strike me as a grab life by the horns kind of gal. 

I think having new experiences and being out of one’s comfort zone, is not a bad thing. Again, within common sense boundaries, I mean, I like it when I challenge myself, when I do things that I thought were scary and I didn’t think I could do.

You’ve always been a champion of people first the ACLU and then NCLR with incredible purpose. What drives NCLR?

We’re about getting rid of the “buts” and the “ifs.” We’re about having the “ands” and the “mores.” Thinking in a way where anything is possible. We’re all about “glass half full.” Part of our work, even though we’re a legal organization, what it’s really about is getting rid of stigma and empowering people.

We’re not resting until everyone feels that they do see themselves reflected [in popular culture], they do feel a measure of protection [for their safety], they do feel greater acceptance from their families and their communities.

When that happens we can begin to talk about our job being done, but we’re not done yet.