Jessica Stern

Jessica Stern is an American diplomat who served as the second United States Special Envoy for the Human Rights of LGBTQI Persons from 2021 to 2025. She was previously the executive director of Outright International for ten years.

Life Stern grew up in a Jewish family within a predominantly Christian community in Setauket, New York. She stated that her understanding of human rights developed through her exploration of her Jewish identity and that she learned to be an LGBTQ activist through her Jewishness.

Stern completed a master's degree in human rights at the London School of Economics.

Stern worked in Philadelphia as a welfare rights community organizer. She was a founding member of the United Nations (UN) LGBTI core group and of its secretariat. She assumed the role on September 27, 2021. As an adjunct associate professor, Stern taught the first LGBTQI+ rights course at the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University.

As of 2012, Stern lived in Brooklyn with her partner, Lisa Davis, a clinical law professor at CUNY School of Law.

As of 2021, Stern has lived in the United States, Mexico, the United Kingdom, and Uruguay.

She ceased to serve in this capacity upon the inauguration of the Donald Trump government.