This edition, we have news about the executive and mom who just became the first out queer woman to lead a Fortune 500 company (one best known for its butter), plus more news from round and about.
Profiles
- Beth Ford, who has 31 years of corporate experience across six industries, most recently as executive vice president and chief operating officer for Land O’Lakes Businesses, has been named the agricultural cooperative’s new CEO.
She becomes not only the first known queer woman to lead a Fortune 500 company, but only the third queer person overall, according to Fortune. The Minneapolis Star Tribune adds that she and her spouse have three teenage children. (Not that we should promote the old idea that it’s okay for women to have careers as long as they also have kids. Women shouldn’t feel pressure to be moms, if that’s not their thing—but in an era where some folks still question LGBTQ people’s ability to parent, it’s nice to have some high-profile queer parents around.) Land O’ Lakes’ website proudly proclaims “Butter Is Everything.” - Rabbi Georgette Kennebrae is “a black, lesbian, female rabbi” who also has three children and spoke recently with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about her combination of identities.
- Lara Lillibridge, whose memoir Girlish: Growing Up in a Lesbian Home
I reviewed in April, has a nice piece in the Guardian about growing up with two moms in the 1980s.
Politics and Law
- The Kansas Department for Children and Families has clarified that the state’s religious exemption law does not allow companies with state grants to manage child welfare services within a designated region of the state to use that law to turn away families—but smaller agencies that DCF asks to find homes for individual children, and which get reimbursed for each child they house with a family, can use the religious exemption to do so, reports KCUR. Thanks for the clarification, Kansas. It’s still discrimination.
- Lots of news from Israel lately: Tens of thousands of people protested in Tel Aviv, Israel, after a new surrogacy law passed that does not allow two-men couples to become parents via surrogacy. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had said he would support their inclusion, but then withdrew his support “to appease ultra-Orthodox cabinet members,” reports the Times of Israel, although it also says Netanyahu claims he voted against the measure because he didn’t think it would pass, and will support a separate bill on surrogacy for two-men couples at a later Knesset session.
- A day later, Israel’s attorney general declared that when two men adopt a child, they should both be listed as the fathers on the child’s birth certificate. The interior minister, however, whose ministry issues the certificates, believes only one father should be registered. Stay tuned for how this plays out.
- Legislation is also moving forward in Israel that would equalize adoption laws for same- and different-sex couples.
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