A list of notable LGBT rights activists who have worked to advance gay rights by political change, legal action or publication. Ordered by country, alphabetically.

Human rights defender is a term used to describe people who, individually or with others, act to promote or protect some variation of human rights. Human rights defenders (HRDs) are those men and women who act peacefully for the promotion and protection of those rights.

The United Nations adopted the Declaration on the right of individuals, groups and organs of society to promote and protect universally recognized human rights and fundamental freedoms on December 9, 1998, commonly known as the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders. It marks a historic achievement in the struggle toward better protection of those at risk for carrying out legitimate human rights activities and is the first UN instrument that recognizes the importance and legitimacy of the work of human rights defenders, as well as their need for better protection.

The Declaration codifies the international standards that protect the activity of human rights defenders around the world. It recognises the legitimacy of human rights activity and the need for this activity and those who carry it out to be protected. Under the Declaration, a human rights defender is anyone working for the promotion and protection of human rights. This broad definition encompasses professional as well as non-professional human rights workers, volunteers, journalists, lawyers and anyone else carrying out, even on an occasional basis, a human rights activity.

Laws affecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people vary greatly by country or territory—everything from legal recognition of same-sex marriage or other types of partnerships, to the death penalty as punishment for same-sex sexual activity or identity.

LGBT-related laws include but are not limited to: government recognition of same-sex relationships, LGBT adoption, sexual orientation and military service, immigration equality, anti-discrimination laws, hate crime laws regarding violence against LGBT people, sodomy laws, anti-lesbianism laws, and higher ages of consent for same-sex activity.

In 2011, the United Nations passed its first resolution recognizing LGBT rights, and followed up with a report documenting violations of the rights of LGBT people, including hate crime, criminalization of homosexuality, and discrimination.

Throughout Hindu and Vedic texts there are many descriptions of saints, demigods, and even the Supreme Lord transcending gender norms and manifesting multiple combinations of sex and gender. There are several instances in ancient Indian epic poetry of same sex depictions and unions by gods and goddesses. There are several stories of depicting love between same sexes especially among kings and queens. Kamasutra, the ancient Indian treatise on love talks about feelings for same sexes. Transsexuals are also venerated e.g. Lord Vishnu as Mohini and Lord Shiva as Ardhanarishwara (which means half woman).

David Kato Kisule (c. 1964 – January 26, 2011) was a Ugandan teacher and LGBT rights activist, considered a father of Uganda's gay rights movement. He served as advocacy officer for Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG). Kato was murdered in 2011, shortly after winning a lawsuit against a magazine which had published his name and photograph identifying him as gay and calling for him to be executed.

Born to the Kisule clan in its ancestral village of Nakawala, Namataba Town Council, Mukono District, he received the name "Kato" because he was the younger of a pair of twins. He was educated at King's College Budo and Kyambogo University and taught at various schools including the Nile Vocational Institute in Njeru near Jinja, it was here that he became aware of his sexual orientation and was subsequently dismissed without any benefits in 1991. Later, He came out to his family members, namely his older twin brother John Malumba Wasswa, before he left to teach for a few years in Johannesburg, South Africa during its transition from apartheid to multiracial democracy, becoming influenced by the end of the apartheid-era ban on sodomy and the growth of LGBT rights in the country. Coming back to Uganda in 1998, he decided to come out in public through a press conference; he was arrested and held in police custody for a week due to this action. He continued to maintain contact with pro-LGBT activists outside the country, with LGEP executive director Phumzile S. Mtetwa later citing an encounter with Kato at the 1999 ILGA World Conference

Wayne Besen is an American gay rights advocate. He is a former spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign and the founder of Truth Wins Out.

Besen says he has interviewed hundreds of former and current "ex-gays," and is an outspoken critic of organisations such as Homosexuals Anonymous.

He is married to Jamie Brundage.

In September 2000, he photographed ex-gay activist John Paulk in a Washington D.C. gay bar called Mr. P's. Paulk said he was simply there to use the washroom, but Besen and other witnesses allege he was drinking and flirting for over 20 minutes. Besen went public with the story, and wrote about it in his book Anything But Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth. The book was nominated for two Lambda Literary Awards in 2003.^{[dead link]}

Besen's photograph of Paulk (and subsequent release of the story) was instrumental in the ultimate removal of Paulk as Chair of Exodus International, a major organization in the "Ex-gay movement." As noted by The Washington Post in October 2002: "John Paulk had been the most famous success story of the Christian ex-gay movement, which seeks to persuade gay men and lesbians to accept Jesus and renounce homosexuality. He had appeared on 60 Minutes, Oprah and the cover of Newsweek."