HONEY MAHOGANY

Honey Mahogany is a performer, small business owner, and activist who grew up in San Francisco and received her MSW from Berkeley. Her work has earned her recognition from the City of San Francisco; the State of California; Sainthood from the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence; and awards from the Human Rights Campaign, the GLIDE Center for Social Justice, and the Women’s Foundation of California. She is a co-founder of the Transgender District, a co-owner of the Stud Bar, and Chair-Emerita of the San Francisco Democratic Party. Honey currently works as the Director of the Office of Transgender Initiatives in San Francisco.

DEBORAH WALD

Deborah Wald is a Certified Family Law Specialist whose legal work focuses almost entirely on children. Her practice is divided between family formation – including both assisted reproduction and adoption – and child-centered litigation including parentage disputes, guardianships, and child custody cases. She also serves as a Parenting Coordinator for chronically conflicted Bay Area families. She is the recent past-President of the Academy of California Adoption-ART Lawyers, and is the standing Chair of the National Family Law Advisory Council of the National Center for Lesbian Rights. In 2022, she received the Leading Family Law Practitioner Award from the National LGBT Bar Association. She has been involved for many years in both legislation and litigation that have helped frame California’s approach to protecting the rights of LGBTQ parents and their children. Deborah lives in San Francisco with her partner of 45 years, with whom she proudly shares two amazing sons now 30 and 32.

KATE KENDELL

Kate Kendell is the CEO of the Gill Foundation. She leads the team in executing the vision of Tim Gill and the board by prioritizing, implementing, and measuring the foundation’s work and grant-making toward its mission of securing full equality for LGBTQ Americans. For 22 years, Kate led the National Center for LGBTQ Rights (NCLR), a national legal organization committed to advancing the civil and human rights of LGBTQ people and their families through litigation, public policy advocacy, and public education. She later served as the Interim Chief Legal Officer at the Southern Poverty Law Center from 2019 through 2021. Kate then became the first-ever Chief of Staff at The California Endowment, a role she held until she joined the Gill Foundation in spring 2025.