This list of LGBT ambassadors of the United States includes ambassadors of the United States who publicly identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or otherwise part of the LGBT community at the time of their appointment. This list includes ambassadors to individual nations of the world, to international organizations (also known as permanent representatives), and ambassadors-at-large. [1]
Ambassadors are nominated by the president of the United States and confirmed by the Senate. [2] Ambassadors serve "at the pleasure of the president", meaning they can be dismissed at any time.
Name | Accreditation | Credentials presented | Mission end | President(s) | Ref |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
James Hormel | Luxembourg | September 8, 1999 | January 1, 2001 | Bill Clinton | [3] [4] |
Michael Guest | Romania | September 24, 2001 | July 8, 2004 | George W. Bush | [5] |
Mark Dybul | President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief | August 11, 2006 | January 20, 2009 | George W. Bush | [6] |
David Huebner | New Zealand | December 4, 2009 | January 17, 2014 | Barack Obama | [7] |
Samoa | February 23, 2010 | January 17, 2014 | |||
Dan Baer | Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe | September 10, 2013 | January 20, 2017 | Barack Obama | [3] [4] |
David Pressman | United Nations Security Council | September 14, 2014 | January 20, 2017 | Barack Obama | [8] |
James Costos | Spain | September 24, 2013 | January 18, 2017 | Barack Obama | [3] [4] |
Andorra | April 4, 2014 | January 18, 2017 | |||
Rufus Gifford | Denmark | September 13, 2013 | January 20, 2017 | Barack Obama | [3] [4] |
Wally Brewster | Dominican Republic | December 9, 2013 | January 20, 2017 | Barack Obama | [3] [4] |
John Berry | Australia | September 25, 2013 | September 20, 2016 | Barack Obama | [3] [4] |
Howard Dean Pittman | Mozambique | November 23, 2014 | November 4, 2019 | Barack Obama | [9] [10] [11] |
Ted Osius | Vietnam | December 16, 2014 | November 4, 2017 | Barack Obama | [3] [4] |
Donald Trump | |||||
Ric Grenell | Germany | May 8, 2018 | June 1, 2020 | Donald Trump | [3] [4] |
Randy Berry | Nepal | October 25, 2018 | October 2, 2022 | Donald Trump | [12] [13] |
Joe Biden | |||||
Eric Nelson | Bosnia and Herzegovina | February 19, 2019 | February 1, 2022 | Donald Trump | |
Joe Biden | |||||
Jeff Daigle | Cape Verde | September 10, 2019 | present | Donald Trump | |
Joe Biden | |||||
Robert Gilchrist | Lithuania | February 4, 2020 | present | Donald Trump | |
Joe Biden | |||||
Scott Miller | Switzerland | January 11, 2022 | present | Joe Biden | |
Liechtenstein | February 16, 2022 | ||||
Erik Ramanathan | Sweden | January 20, 2022 | present | Joe Biden | [14] |
Christopher Lamora | Cameroon | March 21, 2022 | present | Joe Biden | [15] |
David Pressman | Hungary | September 14, 2022 | present | Joe Biden |
Michael E. Guest is an American diplomat who served as a U.S. Ambassador to Romania during the George W. Bush presidency. Guest was sworn in by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell on September 18, 2001, and took up his duties on September 24, 2001. His partner Alex Nevarez was acknowledged by Powell at the swearing-in ceremony in the State Department Diplomatic Reception Room. LGBT rights groups viewed Guest's appointment, and Powell's remarks, as historic and indicative of greater recognition of gay State Department employees and same-sex couples. Socially conservative groups expressed opposition to Guest's appointment and to Powell's gesture.
Steven Craig Gunderson is an American former politician who was a Republican U.S. Representative for Wisconsin's 3rd congressional district from 1981 to 1997, when he was succeeded by Democrat Ron Kind. After leaving office, he was president and CEO of the Council on Foundations, and then of Career Education Colleges and Universities.
GLIFAA is the officially recognized organization representing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender etc. (LGBT+) personnel and their families in the United States Department of State, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Foreign Commercial Service, Foreign Agricultural Service, and other agencies and entities working in foreign affairs in the U.S. Government. The acronym comes from its original name, Gays and Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agencies. As of 2014, the organization goes by GLIFAA and uses the slogan "LGBT+ pride in foreign affairs agencies" to underscore its inclusive composition. GLIFAA was founded in 1992 by fewer than a dozen employees who faced official harassment and potential loss of their jobs because of their sexual orientation. The organization has grown to hundreds of Foreign Service, Civil Service, and contract personnel and their families serving in Washington, throughout the U.S., and at U.S. embassies and missions around the world. Members also include retirees and straight allies in government agencies, while other supporters are affiliate members.
Morrell John Berry is an American former government official who was named President of the American Australian Association in 2016. Berry was director of the United States Office of Personnel Management from 2009 to 2013 and United States Ambassador to Australia from 2013 to 2016.
David Huebner is an American lawyer. He is an international arbitrator based in Southern California. He previously served as the United States Ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa. He was the first openly gay ambassador in the Obama administration and the third openly gay ambassador in United States history.
Chai Rachel Feldblum is an American legal scholar and activist for disability and LGBT rights. A former law professor at Georgetown University Law Center, she served as Commissioner at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). She was nominated to the position by president Barack Obama in 2009. In April 2010, she received a recess appointment to the EEOC, and in December 2010 she was confirmed by the United States Senate. The Senate confirmed her in December 2013 for a second term on the Commission which expired in July 2018.
Robert Lee Pitman is an American attorney and jurist who serves as a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas and former United States Attorney for the Western District of Texas. He was previously a United States Magistrate Judge of the same court.
LGBTQ history in the United States spans the contributions and struggles of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people, as well as the LGBTQ social movements they have built.
Michael Walter Fitzgerald is a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Central District of California.
Michael J. McShane is an American lawyer serving as the chief United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Oregon. He previously served as a state court judge on the Oregon Multnomah County Circuit Court from 2001 to 2013.
Todd Michael Hughes is a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
Elaine Debra Kaplan is the chief judge of the United States Court of Federal Claims. She served as General Counsel of the United States Office of Personnel Management from 2009 to 2013, and as acting director of the office in 2013.
Judith Ellen Levy is an American lawyer who has served as a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan since 2014.
James Walter Brewster Jr., commonly known as Wally Brewster, served as the United States Ambassador to the Dominican Republic. He was unanimously confirmed by the Senate of the United States on November 14, 2013. Brewster was the first person in a same-sex marriage to represent the United States at the ambassadorial level in the Americas. He left office on January 20, 2017. Ambassador Brewster currently serves as a Principal for Insignias Global, an international political and brand advisory firm. He also serves on the Advisory Board for the Atlantic Council, Parliamentarians for Global Action and the National Democratic institute.
Daniel Brooks Baer is an American politician and former diplomat from Colorado currently serving as Senior Vice President for Policy Research at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Baer served in the Obama administration's State Department, first as a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor from 2009 to 2013, and then as United States Ambassador to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe from 2013 to 2017. In 2018, Governor John Hickenlooper appointed Baer as the executive director of the Colorado Department of Higher Education.
Jane Dorothy Hartley is an American businesswoman and diplomat, serving as the United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom since 2022 under the Biden administration. She previously served as the U.S. Ambassador to France and Monaco from 2014 to 2017 during the Obama administration.
Randy William Berry is an American diplomat and the United States ambassador to Namibia since February 9, 2023. He has previously served as the United States ambassador to Nepal and the first U.S. special envoy for the human rights of LGBTI persons.
Theodore George Osius III is an American diplomat and the former United States Ambassador to Vietnam.
Eric George Nelson is an American diplomat who served as the United States Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina from 2019 to 2022.
Robert Stuart Gilchrist is an American diplomat who had served as the principal deputy assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights, and labor from September 2023 to August 2024. He served as the United States ambassador to Lithuania from February 2020 to August 2023. He is a career Foreign Service Officer with the rank of minister counselor. He was appointed by President Donald Trump and confirmed by the United States Senate on December 20, 2019. Gilchrist was the fifth US ambassador from the LGBT community nominated to serve by the Trump administration.