Jessica Stern on Global LGBTQ Human Rights

In a wide-ranging interview with David Hunt, Jessica Stern recounts pivotal moments in her career, from her work as a scholar and global human rights activist to her tenure as the top queer diplomat in the U.S. State Department during the Biden administration. 

Stern, now a senior fellow at the Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights at Harvard, critiques the Trump administration’s retreat on LGBTQ human rights and offers her optimistic prescription for reasserting progressive ideals in the U.S. and beyond.

Stern gives a behind-the-scenes look at a historic U.N. Security Council meeting she helped organize in August 2015 that focused the council’s attention — for the first time — on LGBTQ human rights. And she discusses the difficult decision to move to Washington, D.C., in 2021 to become the U.S. Special Envoy Advancing the Human Rights of LGBTQI+ Persons. During her three-year tenure at the State Department, Stern worked to raise the profile of LGBTQ rights in U.S. foreign policy and to assist LGBTQ people facing violence and discrimination around the world.

An edited version of this feature aired on This Way Out: The International LGBTQ Radio Magazine.

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David Hunt is an Emmy-winning journalist and documentary producer who has reported on America's culture wars since the 1970s. Explore his blog, Tell Me, David.