Speaking before the OutWOMEN Cocktail party at the OutNEXT 2018 Global Summit, Kaleen Love, Vice President and Chief of Staff, Capital One, took a moment to discuss her personal investment in the idea of intersectional identity:
“We’ve started talking a little bit about intersectionality today, and I want to get personal for a moment. I am a gay, white, cisgendered woman. Being white and cisgendered, I’m afforded certain privileges, while being a gay woman I am denied others. I am married to a beautiful Egyptian woman, and she carried our twin girls. Due to the magic of science, one has her DNA and one has my DNA. So that means we have a brown daughter and a white daughter, and naturally I think a lot about intersectionality—both what it means for my daughters and what it means for my Arab-born, immigrant wife.”
“Recently, my wife was asked if she was a dog walker in front of our own house. It was one of those moments of sharp epiphany, where I had to ask myself: Would I ever be asked something like that? Again, I have to think about this in the context of my daughters, and the different life experiences they will undoubtedly have. Frankly, the prospect of navigating intersectional identities, both in my own life and the lives of those close to me, gives me a healthy dose of fear, in the world we live in now. Still, the optimist in me sees a lot of hope as well—in groups like this, in OutNEXT, in the work that Out Leadership does. Ultimately our part is to work towards an understanding of what a multiplicity of identities means for inclusion. We must continue to ask: How can I work to create a culture of belonging, a culture of inclusion, not just for the ‘gay thing,’ but also for every aspect of identity we carry?”
More than 200 emerging LGBT+ business leaders gathered at Barclays’ headquarters in New York in July 2018 for the 5th annual OutNEXT Global Summit. OutNEXT is the only global talent accelerator specifically targeted to LGBT+ business leaders.
Participants in the initiative are hand-selected by their firms as high-potential and high-performing, and receive best-in-class training content by PwC (also a Global Sponsor of OutNEXT).
On the evening of Day 1, Capital One hosted an OutWOMEN Cocktails party, held at the Norwood. LGBT+ women and their allies, ranging from OutNEXT Summit participants to Summit alumni to senior executives from OutWOMEN host companies Bloomberg, Hogan Lovells, IBM and Mastercard, gathered for networking and conversation.
Select photos from the OutWOMEN Cocktails are below; more can be viewed on Facebook:
