Table of Contents

Firsts for the American LGBTQ+ Community

Many barriers have been broken in politics, business, and 💛culture

By 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:Daniel Thomas Mollenkamp

Updated February 06, 2025

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Vikki Velasquez

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Celebrating LGBTQ+ Voices in Finance

same-sex marriage supporter waves a pride flag — Getty Images/Justin Sullivan/Staff

LGBTQ+ individuals have made strides toward equality, creating organizations focused on human rights, winning court cases, and gaining prominent positions in business and politics across the United States. This list includes some notable firsts by American LGBTQ+ people beginning in the 20th century.

Key Takeaways

The Society for Human Rights was the first LGBTQ+ rights organization in America.
Elected in 1974, Kathy Kozachenko was the first openly LGBTQ+ person to hold political office.
Pete Buttigieg is the first openly LGBTQ+ person to go through Senate confirmation and hold a cabinet-level position in the federal government.

Human Rights Groups

Henry Gerber: Founded the Society for Human Rights, the first LGBTQ+ rights organization in America. The group received a nonprofit charter in Illinois in 1924, but members were arrested for obscenity, bankrupting Gerber and costing him his job. Gerber published Friendship and Freedom, the first LGBTQ+ publication in the U.S.
Harry Hay: A 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:communist organizer who founded the Mattachine Society in 1950. Hay's group is occasionally credited as the “first sustained” gay rights organization.
Daughters of Bilitis: The country's first lesbian rights group formed in 1955 was surveilled by police, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Central Intelligence Agency. This group published the first lesbian periodical with national distribution.

Business and Labor Leaders

Tavern Guild: The first gay business association in the nation in 1962. The guild was started in San Francisco by alcohol merchants and bar owners as clashes between police and gay people intensified.
The American Federation of Teachers Labor Union: In 1970, the group advocated ending discrimination based on sexual orientation, the first 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:labor union to do so.
Dr. John Fryer: Disguised in a garish mask and an oversized suit, the psychiatrist came out at the 125th Annual Meeting of the American Psychiatric Association in 1972, using the pseudonym "Dr. Henry Anonymous."
David Geffen: The billionaire producer and co-creator of DreamWorks, came out at an AIDS charity event in 1992.
Tim Cook: In 2014, the 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:CEO of Apple came out in an editorial in Bloomberg writing "I don't consider myself an activist, but I realize how much I've benefited from the sacrifice of others."

Elected Officials and Government Firsts

Kathy Kozachenko: Elected to the Ann Arbor City Council in Michigan in 1974, becoming the first openly LGBTQ+ person to hold political office in the country.
Harvey Milk: In 1977, Milk was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.
Benjamin Cruz: Began his tenure as chief justice of the Supreme Court in 1999 in the American territory of Guam. He's the first LGBTQ+ person to hold this position in an American territory.
Rives Kistler: The first openly LGBTQ+ member of a state high court when named to the Oregon Supreme Court in 2003.
Richard Grenell: Served as acting national security secretary in 2020 under President Trump, making him the first openly LGBTQ+ person to head the intelligence sector.
Pete Buttigieg: Served as the 19th 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结🦋果体彩网:United States Secretary of Transportation under President Joe Biden from 2021 to 2025. He is the first openly LGBTQ+ person to go through Senate confirmation to hold a cabinet-level position in the federal government.

Transgender Visibility

Christine Jorgensen: A veteran of the Second World War, Jorgensen was reportedly the first person in the country to have a sex reassignment operation in 1952.
National Transsexual Counseling Unit: Founded in 1966 after the Compton Cafeteria Riot, which broke out in San Francisco's Tenderloin district after police harassed a transgender woman.

Legislation

Transgender Marriage Upheld: In 1976, the Superior Court of New Jersey upheld a marriage between a transgender woman and a man, in M.T. v. J.T. The court cited her transition surgery and her identification as a woman, rejecting the idea that biological sex is fixed at birth.
Same-Sex Marriage: A 2015 U.S. Supreme Court ruling opened up same-sex marriage across the country in Obergefell v. Hodges based on the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Transgender Rights: In 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court held that transgender people are included in the employment protections under Title VII of the 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:1964 Civil Rights Act.

Important

In 2023, more than 500 bills challenging LGBTQ+ rights were introduced in state legislatures across the country. At least 70 were enacted, according to an estimate from the LGBTQ+ advocacy group Human Rights Campaign.

Who Was the First Person to Come Out?

German writer Karl Heinrich Ulrichs is sometimes cited as the first person to officially come out. Ulrichs told his family after he was fired from a legal job because of his orientation. Ulrichs would go on to rally against anti-homosexual laws.

When Was Gay Marriage Legalized?

Gay marriage was legalized in 2015 in the United States when the U.S. Supreme Court decided, in Obergefell v. Hodges, that states cannot prevent same-sex couples from marriage. The decision followed years of fighting for marriage equality tracing back at least as far as the 1990s.

When Was the First Pride March?

In June of 1970. It was the first anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising of 1969, a six-day clash that erupted after police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in New York City.

The Bottom Line

These accomplishments speak to how LGBTQ+ persons have been able to break barriers of discrimination across all parts of American society.

Article Sources

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