The Biden State Department was a top donor to an international LGBT activist organization, according to records exclusively shared with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
A State Department official was indignant when ILGA Europe, a regional division of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, declined a staffer’s request to attend the group’s annual conference in 2023, despite the State Department being one of their “largest donors,” emails obtained by the Center to Advance Security America (CASA) reveal.
“I think you are well-positioned to understand how utterly gob-smacked I am — and embarrassed for the movement,” Jessica Stern, who served as “Special Envoy to Advance the Human Rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Intersex (LGBTQI+) Persons” at the State Department, wrote to one of her advisors in a September 2023 email.
“ILGA Europe won’t let [redacted] attend their regional conference — even though he would be the sole policy lead from the US in attendance and even though State is one of their largest donors,” Stern wrote. “Can you even imagine?”
ILGA Europe operates a “Rainbow Map” ranking “legal and policy practices for LGBTI people” across European countries. Countries gain points for policies like legislation on “hate crimes” and “hate speech” based on sexual orientation and gender identity, processes for allowing “legal gender recognition based on self-determination” and permitting “trans parenthood.”
It docked points from the United Kingdom’s rank after the country’s high court found in April 2025 the term “woman” is based on “biological sex.”
The activist group indicated they could have accommodated Stern as a speaker at the conference but could not allow a staff member to attend in her place because registration was full, emails show.
“Since taking office, President Trump has taken bold action to realign America’s wayward foreign assistance programs, ensuring that every dollar spent directly advances American national interests and strategic prerogatives,” a State Department spokesman told the DCNF.
“President Trump has ended woke foreign assistance, including protecting foreign assistance from subsidizing gender ideology, discriminatory equity ideology, and DEI,” the spokesperson said. “Under his leadership, we no longer fund ILGA programs.”
ILGA Europe did not respond to a request for comment. The Alliance for Diplomacy and Justice, where Stern is listed as a co-president, also did not respond to a request for comment.
ILGA Europe received more than $1.2 million from the Global Equality Fund between 2022 and 2023, according to the organization’s reports from the two years.
The Global Equality Fund is a public-private partnership involving 19 countries that aims to support “protect LGBTQI+ persons from violence and abuse, criminalization, discrimination, and stigma, and to empower local LGBTQI+ movements and people.”
Congress approved $25 million for the Global Equality Fund during the 2023 fiscal year, which was $10 million more than it did in 2022.
The Trump administration removed the fund from the State Department’s website, the Daily Signal reported in April 2025. Its last grant application to support “LGBTQI+ individuals and communities” was announced on Jan. 6, 2025.
The fund previously “dedicated over $100 million to more than 100 countries,” former Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in 2023.
ILGA World, the parent organization, was awarded a $2.1 million grant from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in September 2024. Trump’s State Department announced USAID was shutting down in July 2025 and foreign assistance programs that “advance American interests” would be instead administered by the department.
‘Disrespect For The American Taxpayer’
The records, which were uncovered through “aggressive litigation,” show the Biden State Department and Stern’s “disrespect for the American taxpayer and their extreme worldviews, CASA Director James Fitzpatrick told the DCNF.
“The hard-working American people should not be forced to fund left-wing advocacy organizations, nor foot the bill for a ‘Special Envoy’ to gallivant through Amsterdam on government time,” Fitzpatrick said. “Thankfully, this nonsense at State has ended, and it’s returned to the core mission of protecting and promoting American interests around the world.”
Stern worked remote in Amsterdam for a month in 2022, according to another email. It’s unclear whether she was out-of-country for personal or official reasons.
“Greetings from Amsterdam, where I’m working for the month of February,” Stern wrote in a Feb. 9, 2022 email reaching out to a colleague about speaking at a “LGBTQI Task Force meeting.”
Before joining the administration in 2021, Stern led LGBTQ activist organization Outright International for 1o years and helped found the United Nations LGBTI Core Group, according to her bio.
Stern is now a senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights. She recently facilitated a “Pride and Power” spring semester study group.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to include comment from the State Department.
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