JESSICA ESQUIVEL (she/her) is a Program Coordinator at the California LGBTQ Health and Human Services Network. She is a first-generation, Latinx, pansexual, health equity advocate and educator born and raised in the Central Valley of California. Having joined the Network in June of 2023, Jess has led a countywide campaign towards addressing the health disparities within the LA County queer community. Under this program, she has been able to provide trainings create inclusive resource documents, and partake in community-building efforts by hosting internships and community engagement programs for queer-identifying individuals invested in public health work. Some of her most proud pieces of work include:
Training: Understanding How Environmental Injustices Affect the LGBTQIA+ Community
Article: Sex & The City: An Unlikely Intersection of Tobacco-Control Advocacy, Generational Reconfiguration, and Queerness
Educational Document: Tobacco Use & (A)Sexual Desire
Jess is also an Adjunct Faculty within the Public Health Sciences department at Bakersfield College. She especially aims to uplift cultural competency within her classrooms, both through inclusive pedagogical practices and developing spaces that capture the nuances that LGBTQ+ folx experience in all levels of public health.
With over five (5) years of teaching experience, coupled with six (6) years of advocacy work within the realms of sexual and gender minority rights, inclusion, and public health, Jess is keen on both the patience and diligence required to initiate change but also ensure the sustainability of change on all fronts.
Jess graduated from Bakersfield College with an A.A. in Anthropology, the University of California, Irvine with a B.A in Anthropology and Gender & Sexuality Studies, and Goodwin University with a Master’s in Public Health. Jess enjoys reading, learning and unlearning, and spending time with her loved ones, and finding ways to integrate her professional work with her personal life, as she ultimately tries to achieve a sense of harmony and self-fulfillment in all that she does.
