Education
After spending a year in Saint Louis, Missouri, she studied law at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.
After spending a year in Saint Louis, Missouri, she studied law at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.
Born deaf, she went to a special school for deaf people in Hasselt, but later switched to a normal school in Sint-Truiden. Then she went back to the United States and obtained a master"s degree at the Law School of the University of California in Berkeley in 1993-1994. In 1996, she started working for the European Union of the Deaf (EUD) and was active in the Federation of Flemish Deaf Organisations.
Stevens became politically active and was for the first time candidate in 1999 for the Belgian Senate on the People"s Union list (10th place).
In November 2014, she was elected vice-president of the European Conservatives and Reformists group.
She was again candidate for Senate in 2003 on the New Flemish Alliance list (3rd place).
She was elected as a Member of the Flemish Parliament in 2004 and as a member of the Senate in 2007. She was reelected for the Flemish Parliament in 2009 and as a member of the Senate in 2010. In May 2014, she was elected Member of the European Parliament.