Timeline of LGBT history

The following is a timeline of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) history.

Pre-history

9660 to 5000 BCE

• Mesolithic rock art in Sicily depicts phallic male figures in pairs that have been interpreted variously, including as hunters, acrobats, religious initiates and depictions of male intercourse.

7000 to 1700 BCE

• Among the sexual depictions in Neolithic and Bronze Age drawings and figurines from the Mediterranean are, as one author describes it, a "third sex" human figure having female breasts and male genitals or without distinguishing sex characteristics.
• In Neolithic Italy, female images are found in a domestic context, while images that combine sexual characteristics appear in burials or religious settings.
• In Neolithic Greece and Cyprus, figures are often dual-sexed or without identifying sexual characteristics.

Antiquity

25th century BCE

• ca. 2400 BCE  – Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum are believed by some to be the first recorded same-sex couple in history.

22nd century BCE

• Between 2900 and 2500 BCE in a burial of a suburb of Prague, Czech Republic, a male is buried in the outfit usually reserved for women. Archaeologists speculate that the burial corresponds to a transgender person or someone of the third sex.
• Pepi II Neferkare governs as Egyptian pharaoh. A later tale, King Neferkare and General Sasenet, suggests a homosexual interpretation around nocturnal visits to his General.

11th century BCE

• 1075 BCE – The Code of Assura from Middle Assyrian Empire prescribes castration for soldiers caught engaging in passive male-to-male intercourse and a ban on homosexual rape. The punishment for both laws is castration. This is the earliest known law condemning the act of male same-sex intercourse in the military and homosexual rape.

7th century BCE

• ca. 630 BCE – Dorian aristocrats in Crete adopt formal relations between adult aristocrats and adolescent boys; an inscription from Crete is the oldest record of the social institution of paiderastia among the Greeks (see Cretan pederasty). Marriage between men in Greece was not legally recognized, but men might form life-long relationships originating in paiderastia ("pederasty," without the pejorative connotations of the English word). These partnerships were not dissimilar to heterosexual marriages except that the older person served as educator or mentor.
• Sappho, a Greek lyric poet born on the island of Lesbos, was born between 630-612 BCE, and died around 570 BCE. The Alexandrians included her in the list of nine lyric poets. She was famous for her lesbian themes, giving her name and that of her homeland to the very definition of lesbianism (and the lesser used term of "sapphism"). She was exiled c. 600 BCE.

6th century BCE

• ca. 540–530 BCE – Wall paintings from the Etruscan Tomb of the Bulls (Italian: Tomba dei Tori), found in 1892 in the Monterozzi necropolis, Tarquinia, depict homosexual intercourse. The tomb is named for the pair of bulls who watch human sex scenes, one between a man and a woman, and the other between two men; these may be apotropaic, or embody aspects of the cycle of regeneration and the afterlife. The three-chamber tomb was inscribed with the name of the deceased for whom it was originally built, Aranth Spurianas or Arath Spuriana, and also depicts Achilles killing the Trojan prince Troilus, along with indications of Apollo cult.

5th century BCE

• ca. 486 BCE  – Darius I adopts the Holiness Code of Leviticus for Persian Jews of the Achaemenid Empire, enacting the first state sanctioned death penalty for male same-sex intercourse.
• ca. 440 BCE  – Herodotus publishes Histories, stating in the book that Persians welcomed foreign customs, including adopting pederasty from the Greeks.

4th century BCE

• 385 BCE – Plato publishes Symposium in which Phaedrus, Eryixmachus, Aristophanes and other Greek intellectuals argue that love between males is the highest form, while sex with women is lustful and utilitarian. Socrates, however, differs. He demonstrates extreme self-control when seduced by the beautiful Alcibiades.
• 350 BCE – Plato publishes Laws in which the Athenian stranger and his companions criticize homosexuality as being lustful and wrong for society because it does not further the species and may lead to irresponsible citizenry.
• 346 BCE - Aeschines speech Against Timarchus on trial for male prostitution, reveals Athenian attitudes to homosexuality.
• 338 BCE – The Sacred Band of Thebes, a previously undefeated elite battalion made up of one hundred and fifty pederastic couples, is destroyed by the forces of Philip II of Macedon who bemoans their loss and praises their honour.
• 326 BCE – Military leader Alexander the Great completes conquest of most of the then known Western world, launching the Hellenistic Age in which millions of people are converted to a Hellenistic culture that views homosexual relationships positively.

3rd century BCE

• ca. 250 BCE  – During the Parthian Empire, the Zoroastrian text, the Vendidad, was written. It contains provisions that are part of sexual code promoting procreative sexuality that is interpreted to prohibit same-sex intercourse as a form of demon worship, and thus sinful. Ancient commentary on this passage suggests that those engaging in sodomy could be killed without permission from the Dastur. However, a strong homosexual tradition in Iran is attested to by Greek historians from the 5th century onward, and so the prohibition apparently had little effect on Iranian attitudes or sexual behavior outside the ranks of devout Zoroastrians in rural eastern Iran.

3rd or 2nd century BCE

• 227 BCE, 226 BCE, 216 BCE, or 149 BCE  – During the Roman Republic, the Lex Scantinia imposed penalties on those who committed a sex crime (stuprum) against a freeborn youth; infrequently mentioned or enforced, it may also have been used to prosecute male citizens who willingly took the passive role in homosexual relations. It is unclear whether the penalty was death or a fine. For an adult male citizen to desire and engage in same-sex relations was considered natural and socially acceptable, as long as his partner was a male prostitute, slave or infamis, a person excluded from the legal protections accorded a citizen. In the Imperial period, the Lex Scantinia was revived by Domitian as part of his program of judicial and moral reform.

2nd century BCE

• ca. 90s–80s BCE - Quintus Lutatius Catulus was among a circle of poets who made short, light Hellenistic poems fashionable in the late Republic. Both his surviving epigrams address a male as an object of desire, signaling a new homoerotic aesthetic in Roman culture.

1st century BCE

See also: Sexuality in ancient Rome and Homosexuality in ancient Rome

• 57–54 BCE  – Catullus writes the Carmina, including love poems to Juventius, boasting of sexual prowess with youth and violent invectives against "passive" homosexuals.
• ca. 50 BCE  – The Lex Julia de vi publica, a Roman Republic law, was passed to define rape as forced sex against "boy, woman, or anyone" and the rapist was subject to execution. Men who had been raped were exempt from the loss of legal or social standing suffered by those who submitted their bodies to use for the pleasure of others; a male prostitute or entertainer was infamis and excluded from the legal protections extended to citizens in good standing. As a matter of law, a slave could not be raped; he was considered property and not legally a person. The slave's owner, however, could prosecute the rapist for property damage.
• 42–39 BCE – Virgil writes the Eclogues, with Eclogue 2 a notable example of homoerotic Latin literature.
• 27 BCE  – The Roman Empire commences with the reign of Augustus. The first recorded same-sex marriage occurs during his reign, homosexual prostitution is taxed, and if someone is caught being sexually passive with another male, a Roman citizen could lose his citizenship.
• 26, 25 and 18 BCE – Tibullus writes his elegies, with references to homosexuality.

1st century CE

• 1st century CE  – The Warren Cup is made - a Roman silver drinking cup decorated in relief with two images of male same-sex acts.

Wall painting of female couple from the Suburban Baths at Pompeii

• 54 – Nero becomes Emperor of Rome. Nero married two men, Pythagoras and Sporus, in legal ceremonies, with Sporus accorded the regalia worn by the wives of the Caesars. Juvenal and Martial note (with disapproval) that male couples are having traditional marriage ceremonies.
• 79 – The eruption of Mount Vesuvius buries the coastal resorts of Pompeii and Herculaneum, preserving a rich collection of Roman erotic art, including representations of male-male and female-female.
• 98 – Trajan, one of the most beloved of Roman emperors, begins his reign. Trajan was well known for his homosexuality and fondness for young males. This was used to advantage by the king of Edessa, Abgar VII, who, after incurring the anger of Trajan for some misdeed, sent his handsome young son to make his apologies, thereby obtaining pardon.

2nd century

• 130  – Antinous, a 19-year-old boy who was the Roman Emperor Hadrian's favorite dies under mysterious circumstances in the Roman Province of Egypt (Aegyptus), and Hadrian creates a cult giving Antinous the status of a god, commissioning numerous sculptures of him throughout the Roman Empire.
• 165  – Christian martyr Giustino writes: "We have learned that is an evil thing to show newborns, since we see that almost everyone, not only the girls but boys too, are forced into prostitution".
• ca. 200  – The Outlines of Pyrrhonism is published. In the book, Sextus Empiricus states that "amongst the Persians it is the habit to indulge in intercourse with males, but amongst the Romans it is forbidden by law to do so". He also stated in the book that "amongst us sodomy is regarded as shameful or rather illegal, but by the Germanic they say, it is not looked on as shameful but as a customary thing. It is said, too, that in Thebes long ago this practice was not held to be shameful, and they say that Meriones the Cretan was so called by way of indicating the Cretans' customed and some refer to this the burning love of Achilles for Patroclus. And what wonder, when both the adherents of the Cynic philosophy and the followers of Zeno of Citium, Cleanthes and Chrysippus, declare that this practice is indifferent?".

3rd century

• 218 – The emperor Elagabalus begins his reign. He marries a man named Zoticus, an athlete from Smyrna, in a lavish public ceremony at Rome amid the rejoicings of the public.
• 244–249 – Emperor Philip the Arab outlaws male prostitution.

4th century

• 305- 306 – Council of Elvira (now Granada, Spain). This council was representative of the Western European Church and among other things, it barred pederasts the right to Communion.
• 314 – Council of Ancyra (now Ankara, Turkey). This council was representative of the Eastern European Church and it excluded the Sacraments for 15 years to unmarried men under the age of 20 who were caught in homosexual acts, and excluded the man for life if he was married and over the age of 50.
• 306  – 337  – Eusebius writes the Life of Constantine. In the panegyric, it describes a temple at Aphaca in Phoenicia, on a remote summit of Mount Libanus, being used by effeminate homosexual pagan priests and was destroyed by the command of Roman emperor Constantine I. It also states that Emperor Constantine I passed a law commanding the extermination of effeminate homosexual pagan priests in Egypt.
• 342 – The first law against same-sex marriage was promulgated by the Christian emperors Constantius II and Constans.
• 390 – The Christian emperors Valentinian II, Theodosius I and Arcadius declared homosexual sex to be illegal and those who were guilty of it were condemned to be burned alive in front of the public.
• 390- 405 – Nonnus' Dionysiaca is the last known piece of literature for nearly 1,000 years to celebrate homosexual passion.

5th century

• 498 – In spite of the laws against gay sex, the Christian emperors continued to collect taxes on male prostitutes until the reign of Anastasius I, who finally abolishes the tax.

6th century

• 506 – The Visigothic Code of Alaric II decreed burning at the stake for same-sex couples in the Visigothic Kingdom. Other punishments included public ostracism, shaving of the head, whipping, and castration.
• 529 – The Christian emperor Justinian I (527–565) made homosexuals a scapegoat for problems such as "famines, earthquakes, and pestilences."
• 576 – Death of Anastasia the Patrician who had spent much of her life living disguised as a male monk in a monastery at Alexandria.
• 589 – The Visigothic kingdom in Spain, is converted from Arianism to Catholicism. This conversion leads to a revision of the law to conform to those of Catholic countries. These revisions include provisions for the persecution of gays and Jews.

7th century

• 654 – The Visigothic Kingdom criminalized sodomy and the punishment for it is castration. This is the first European secular law to criminalize sodomy.
• 693 – In Iberia, Visigothic ruler Egica of Hispania and Septimania, demanded that a Church council confront the occurrence of homosexuality in the Kingdom. The Sixteenth Council of Toledo issued a statement in response, which was adopted by Egica, stating that homosexual acts be punished by castration, exclusion from Communion, hair shearing, one hundred stripes of the lash, and banishment into exile.

9th century

• 800–900 – During the Carolingian Renaissance, Alcuin of York, an abbot, wrote love poems to other monks in spite of numerous Church laws condemning homosexuality.

11th century

• 1007 – The Decretum of Burchard of Worms equates homosexual acts with other sexual transgressions such as adultery and argues, therefore, that it should have the same penance (generally fasting).
• 1051 – Peter Damian writes the treatise Liber Gomorrhianus, in which he argues for stricter punishments for clerics failing their duty against "vices of nature."
• 1100 – Ivo of Chartres tries to convince Pope Urban II about homosexuality risks. Ivo accused Rodolfo, archbishop of Tours, of convincing the King of France to appoint a certain Giovanni as bishop of Orléans. Giovanni was well known as Rodolfo's lover and had relations with the king himself, a fact of which the king openly boasted. Pope Urban, however, didn't consider this as a decisive fact: Giovanni ruled as bishop for almost forty years, and Rodolfo continued to be well known and respected.

12th century

• 1102 – The Council of London took measures to ensure that the English public knew that homosexuality was sinful.
• 1120 – Baldwin II of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, convenes the Council of Nablus to address the vices within the Kingdom. The Council calls for the burning of individuals who perpetually commit sodomy.
• 1140 – The Italian Monk Gratian compiles his work Concordia discordantium canonum in which he argues that sodomy is the worst of all the sexual sins because it involves using the member in an unnatural way.
• 1164 – The English monk, Aelred of Rievaulx writes his De spiritali amicitia giving love between persons of the same gender a profound expression.
• 1179 – The Third Lateran Council of Rome issues a decree for the excommunication of sodomites.

13th century

• 1232 – Pope Gregory IX starts the Inquisition in the Italian City-States. Some cities called for banishment and/or amputation as punishments for 1st- and 2nd-offending sodomites and burning for the 3rd or habitual offenders.
• 1260 – In the Kingdom of France, first-offending sodomites lost their testicles, second offenders lost their member, and third offenders were burned. Women caught in same-sex acts could be mutilated and executed as well.
• 1265 – Thomas Aquinas argues that sodomy is second only to bestiality in the ranking of sins of lust.
• 1283 – The Coutumes de Beauvaisis dictats that convicted sodomites should not only be burned but also that their property would be forfeited.

14th century

• 1308-14 – Philip IV of France orders the arrest of all Templars on charges of heresy, idolatry and sodomy, but these charges are only a pretext to seize the riches of the order. Order leaders are sentenced to death and burned at the stake on 18 March 1314 by Notre Dame.
• 1321 – Dante's Inferno places sodomites in the Seventh Circle.
• 1327 – The deposed King Edward II of England is killed, allegedly by forcing a red-hot poker through his rectum. Edward II had a history of conflict with the nobility, who repeatedly banished his former lover Piers Gaveston, the Earl of Cornwall.
• 1347 – Rolandino Roncaglia is tried for sodomy, an event that caused a sensation in Italy. He confessed he "had never had sexual intercourse, neither with his wife nor with any other woman, because he had never felt any carnal appetite, nor could he ever have an erection of his virile member". After his wife died of plague, Rolandino started to prostitute himself, wearing female dresses because "since he has female look, voice and movements – although he does not have a female orifice, but has a male member and testicles – many persons considered him to be a woman because of his appearance".
• 1370s – Jan van Aersdone and Willem Case were two men executed in Antwerp in the 1370s. The charge against them was same sex intercourse which was illegal and strenuously vilified in medieval Europe. Aersdone and Case stand out because records of their names have survived. One other couple still known by name from the 14th century were Giovanni Braganza and Nicoleto Marmagna of Venice.
• 1395 – John Rykener, known also as Johannes Richer and Eleanor, was a transvestite prostitute working mainly in London (near Cheapside), but also active in Oxford. He was arrested in 1395 for cross-dressing and interrogated.

15th century

• 1424 – Bernardino of Siena preached for three days in Florence, Italy against homosexuality and other forms of lust, culminating in a pyre in which burned cosmetics, wigs and all sorts of articles for the beautification. He calls for sodomites to be ostracized from society, and these sermons alongside measures by other clergy of the time strengthens opinion against homosexuals and encourages the authorities to increase the measures of persecution
• 1432 – In Florence the first organization specifically intended to prosecute sodomy is established, the "Night Officials", which over the next 70 years arrest about 10,000 men and boys, succeeding in getting about 2,000 convicted, with most then paying fines.
• 1451 – Pope Nicholas V enables the papal Inquisition to persecute men who practice sodomy.
• 1475 – In Peru, a chronicle written under the Capac Yupanqui government describes the persecution of homosexuals with public burnings and destruction of homes (a practice usually reserved for conquered tribes).
• 1476 – Florentine court records of 1476 show that Leonardo da Vinci and three other young men were charged with sodomy twice, and acquitted.
• 1483 – The Spanish Inquisition begins. Sodomites were stoned, castrated, and burned. Between 1540 and 1700, more than 1,600 people were prosecuted for sodomy.
• 1492 – Desiderius Erasmus writes a series of love letters to a fellow monk while at a monastery in Steyn in the Netherlands.
• 1494 – Girolamo Savonarola criticizes the population of Florence for its "horrible sins" (mainly homosexuality and gambling) and exhorts them to give up their young and beardless lovers.
• 1497 – In Spain the Ferdinand and Isabella strengthen the sodomy laws hitherto applied only in the cities. An increase is made in the severity of the crime equating to treason or heresy, and the amount of evidence required for conviction is lowered, with torture permitted to extract confession. The property of the defendant is also confiscated.

16th century

• 1502 – A charge is brought against the Italian artist Sandro Botticelli on the grounds of sodomy.
• 1513 – Vasco Núñez de Balboa, a conquistador in modern-day Panama is described as throwing forty homosexual native indians to his dogs.
• 1523 – First of several charges of sodomy brought against the Florentine artist Benvenuto Cellini.
• 1532 – The Holy Roman Empire makes sodomy punishable by death.
• 1532 – The Florentine artist Michelangelo begins writing over 300 love poems dedicated to Tomasso dei Cavalieri.
• 1533 – King Henry VIII passes the Buggery Act 1533 making anal intercourse and zoophilia punishable by death throughout England.
• 1542 – Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca documents same sex marriages and men "who dress like women and perform the office of women, but use the bow and carry big loads" among a Native American tribe in his publication, The Journey of Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca and His Companions from Florida to the Pacific 1528-1536.
• 1543 – Henry VIII gives royal assent to the Laws in Wales Act 1542, extending the buggery law into Wales.
• 1553 – Mary Tudor ascends the English throne and removes all of the laws that had been passed by Henry VIII during the English Reformation of the 1530s.
• 1558–1563 – Elizabeth I reinstates Henry VIII's old laws, including the Buggery Act 1533.
• 1561 – process of Wojciech z Poznania, who married Sebastian Słodownik, and lived with him for 2 years in Poznań. Both had female partners. On his return to Kraków, he married Wawrzyniec Włoszek. Wojciech, considered in public opinion as a woman was burned for 'crimes against nature'.

17th century

• 1610 – The Colony of Virginia enacts a military order that criminalizes male sodomy, making it punishable by death.
• 1610 – In the Colony of Virginia, the military order banning sodomy ended when martial law was terminated upon the change in control of Virginia Colony.
• 1620 – Brandenburg-Prussia criminalizes sodomy, making it punishable by death.
• 1624 – Richard Cornish of the Virginia Colony is tried and hanged for sodomy.
• 1648 – In Canada's first-ever criminal trial for the crime of homosexuality, a gay military drummer stationed at the French garrison in Ville-Marie, New France is sentenced to death by the local Sulpician priests. After an intervention by the Jesuits in Quebec City, the drummer's life is spared on the condition that he accept the position of New France's first permanent executioner.
• 1649 – The first known conviction for lesbian activity in North America occurs in March when Sarah White Norman is charged with "Lewd behaviour with each other upon a bed" with Mary Vincent Hammon in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Hammon was under 16 and not prosecuted.
• 1655 – The Connecticut Colony passes a law against sodomy, which includes a punishment for lesbian intercourse as well.
• 1661 – The Colony of Virginia enacts English common law, thus criminalizing male-to-male sodomy again.
• 1683 – The Kingdom of Denmark criminalizes "relations against nature", making it punishable by death.
• 1688 - 1704 – Kagemachaya(ja) was open in Japan.

18th century

Main article: 18th century in LGBT rights

• 1721 – Catharina Margaretha Linck is executed for female sodomy in Germany.
• 1726 – Mother Clap's molly house in London is raided by police, resulting in the execution of three men.
• Between 1730 and 1811, a widespread panic in the Dutch Republic leads to a spectacular series of trials for sodomy, with persecutions at their most severe from 1730 to 1737, 1764, 1776, and from 1795 to 1798.
• 1785 – Jeremy Bentham is one of the first people to argue for the decriminalization of sodomy in England.
• 1791 – The Kingdom of France (and Andorra) adopts a new penal code which no longer criminalizes sodomy. France thus becomes the first West European country to decriminalize homosexual acts between consenting adults.
• 1791 – The novel Dream of the Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin is published in China. It includes an openly bisexual character as well as an account of a gay-bashing.
• 1794 – The Kingdom of Prussia abolishes the death penalty for sodomy.

19th century

Main article: 19th century in LGBT rights

Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (1825–1895), a pioneer of LGBT rights

• 1800s – The earliest published studies of lesbian activity were written in the early 19th century.
• 1811 – Netherlands and Netherlands' Indies (Indonesia) decriminalizes homosexual acts.
• 1814 – The term "Crime against nature" first used in the Criminal code in the United States.
• 1830 – Brazil decriminalizes homosexual acts.
• 1832 – Russia criminalizes homosexual acts making them punishable by up to five years exile in Siberia under Article 995 of its new criminal code.
• 1835 – For the first time in history, homosexuality becomes illegal in Congress Poland, Russian part of the Poland acquired after the Partitions of Poland after it became part of the Russian Empire.
• 1836 – The last known execution for homosexuality in Great Britain. James Pratt and John Smith are hanged at Newgate prison, London after being caught together in private lodgings
• 1852 – Portugal decriminalizes homosexual acts.
• 1856 – The first known reference to lesbians in Mormon history occurred in 1856, when a Salt Lake man noted in his diary that a Mormon woman was "trying to seduce a young girl.".
• 1858 – The Ottoman Empire (predecessor of Turkey) decriminalizes homosexuality; Timor-Leste legalises homosexuality.
• 1861 – In England, the Offences against the Person Act 1861 is amended to remove the death sentence for "buggery" (which had not been used since 1836). The penalty became imprisonment from 10 years to life.
• 1865 – San Marino decriminalizes sodomy.
• 1867 – On 29 August 1867, Karl Heinrich Ulrichs became the first self-proclaimed homosexual to speak out publicly for homosexual rights when he pleaded at the Congress of German Jurists in Munich for a resolution urging the repeal of anti-homosexual laws.
• 1869 – The term "homosexuality" appears in print for the first time in a German-Hungarian pamphlet written by Karl-Maria Kertbeny (1824–1882).
• 1870 – Joseph and His Friend: A Story of Pennsylvania is published, possibly the first American novel about a homosexual relationship.
• 1871 – Homosexuality is criminalized throughout the German Empire by Paragraph 175 of the Reich Criminal Code; Guatemala and Mexico decriminalize homosexual acts.
• 1880 – The Empire of Japan decrimiminalized homosexual acts (anal sodomy), having only made them illegal during the early years of the Meiji Restoration.
• 1886 – In England, the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885, outlawing sexual relations between men (but not between women) is given Royal Assent by Queen Victoria. Argentina decriminalizes homosexuality, while Portugal re-criminalizes homosexual acts.
• 1889 – In Italy, homosexuality is legalised; the Cleveland Street Scandal erupts in England.
• 1892 – The words "bisexual" and "heterosexual" are first used in their current senses in Charles Gilbert Chaddock's translation of Kraft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis.
• 1892 – Popular openly bisexual poet Edna St. Vincent Millay is born on 22 February.
• 1894 – Biologist and pioneer of human sexuality Alfred Kinsey is born on 23 June.
• 1895 – The trial of Oscar Wilde results in his being prosecuted under the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 for "gross indecency" and sentenced to two years hard labor in prison. In Brazil Adolfo Caminha publishes his controversial novel Bom-Crioulo (in English:The Black Man and the Cabin Boy) with homosexuality at its center and with a black man as the story's hero.
• 1897 – Magnus Hirschfeld founds the Scientific Humanitarian Committee on 14 May as the first ever official organization for homosexual rights and the repeal of Paragraph 175.
• 1897 – George Cecil Ives organizes the first homosexual rights group in England, the Order of Chaeronea.

20th century

Main article: 1900-1949 in LGBT rights

1900s

• 1903 – In New York City on 21 February 1903, New York police conducted the first United States recorded raid on a gay bathhouse, the Ariston Hotel Baths. 26 men were arrested and 12 brought to trial on sodomy charges; 7 men received sentences ranging from 4 to 20 years in prison.
• 1906 – Potentially the first openly gay American novel with a happy ending, Imre, is published.
• 1907 – Adolf Brand, the activist leader of the Gemeinschaft der Eigenen, working to overturn Paragraph 175, publishes a piece "outing" the imperial chancellor of Germany, Prince Bernhard von Bülow. The Prince sues Brand for libel and clears his name; Brand is sentenced to 18 months in prison.
• 1907–1909 – Harden-Eulenburg Affair in Germany

1910s

• 1910 – Emma Goldman first begins speaking publicly in favor of homosexual rights. Magnus Hirschfeld later wrote "she was the first and only woman, indeed the first and only American, to take up the defense of homosexual love before the general public."
  

  14 May 1928 issue of German lesbian periodical Die Freundin (Friedrich Radszuweit)
• 1912 – The first explicit reference to lesbianism in a Mormon magazine occurred when the "Young Woman's Journal" paid tribute to "Sappho of Lesbos "; the Scientific Humanitarian Committee of the Netherlands (NWHK), the first Dutch organization to campaign against anti-homosexual discrimination, is established by Dr. Jacob Schorer.
• 1913 – The word faggot is first used in print in reference to gays in a vocabulary of criminal slang published in Portland, Oregon: "All the fagots [sic] (sissies) will be dressed in drag at the ball tonight".
• Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time is published in France, marking the first time a modern Western author treats homosexuality openly in literature.
• 1917 – The October Revolution in Russia repeals the previous criminal code in its entirety—including Article 995. Bolshevik leaders reportedly say that "homosexual relationships and heterosexual relationships are treated exactly the same by the law."
• 1919 – In Berlin, Germany, Doctor Magnus Hirschfeld co-founds the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Institute for Sex Research), a pioneering private research institute and counseling office. Its library of thousands of books was destroyed by Nazis in May 1933.
• 1919 - Different From the Others, one of the first explicitly gay films, is released. Magnus Hirschfeld has a cameo in the film and partially funded its production.

1920s

• 1921 – In England an attempt to make lesbianism illegal for the first time in Britain's history fails.
• 1922 – A new criminal code comes into force in the USSR officially decriminalizing homosexual acts.
• 1923 – The word fag is first used in print in reference to gays in Nels Anderson's The Hobo: "Fairies or Fags are men or boys who exploit sex for profit."
• 1923 – Lesbian Elsa Gidlow, born in England, published the first volume of openly lesbian love poetry in the United States, titled "On A Grey Thread."
• 1924 – The first homosexual rights organization in America is founded by Henry Gerber in Chicago— the Society for Human Rights. The group exists for a few months before disbanding under police pressure. Panama, Paraguay and Peru legalize homosexuality.
• 1926 – The New York Times is the first major publication to use the word "homosexuality".
• 1927 - Karol Szymanowski, Poland's openly gay composer, is appointed chief of Poland's state-owned national music school, the Fryderyk Chopin Music Academy.
• 1928 – The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall is published in the UK and later in the United States. This sparks great legal controversy and brings the topic of homosexuality to public conversation.
• 1929 – On 22 May, Katharine Lee Bates, author of America the Beautiful dies. On 16 October, a Reichstag Committee votes to repeal Paragraph 175; the Nazis' rise to power prevents the implementation of the vote.

1930s

• 1931 - Mädchen in Uniform, one of the first explicitly lesbian films and the first pro-lesbian film, is released.
• 1931 - In Berlin in 1931, Dora R became the first known transgender woman to undergo vaginoplasty.
• 1932 – Poland codifies the homosexual and heterosexual age of consent equally at 15. Polish law had never criminalized homosexuality, although occupying powers had outlawed it in 1835.
• 1933 – New Danish penalty law decriminalizes homosexuality.
• 1933 – The National Socialist German Workers Party bans homosexual groups. Homosexuals are sent to concentration camps. Nazis burn the library of Magnus Hirschfeld's Institute for Sexual Research, and destroy the Institute; Denmark and Philippines decriminalizes homosexuality. Homosexual acts are recriminalized in the USSR. (Certain persons, including Scott Lively (presently charged with Crimes against humanity), assert that the Nazi opposition to homosexuality was 'selective'. In order to persecute other 'types' of people, the Nazi party used homosexual behavior as a convenient excuse. The faithful Nazis, who were themselves blatant homosexuals, were tolerated.) Scholars and historians in general reject this allegation and Lively is named a holocaust revisionist by both the Southern Poverty Law Center and by the ADL
• 1934 – Uruguay decriminalizes homosexuality. The USSR once again criminalizes muzhelozhstvo (specific Russian definition of "male sexual intercourse with male", literally "man lying with man"), punishable by up to 5 years in prison – more for the coercion or involvement of minors.
• 1936 – Mona's 440 Club, the first lesbian bar in America, opened in San Francisco in 1936. Mona's waitresses and female performers wore tuxedos and patrons dressed their roles.
• 1936 – Federico García Lorca, Spanish poet, is shot at the beginning of the Spanish civil war.
• 1937 – The first use of the pink triangle for gay men in Nazi concentration camps.
• 1938 – The word Gay is used for the first time on film in reference to homosexuality.
• 1939 – Frances V. Rummell, an educator and a teacher of French at Stephens College, published an autobiography under the title Diana: A Strange Autobiography; it was the first explicitly lesbian autobiography in which two women end up happily together. This autobiography was published with a note saying, "The publishers wish it expressly understood that this is a true story, the first of its kind ever offered to the general reading public".

1940s

• 1940 – Iceland decriminalizes homosexuality; the NWHK is disbanded in the Netherlands in May due to the German invasion, and most of its archive is voluntarily destroyed, while the rest is confiscated by Nazi soldiers.
• 1941 – Transsexuality was first used in reference to homosexuality and bisexuality.
• 1942 – Switzerland decriminalizes homosexuality, with the age of consent set at 20.
• 1944 – Sweden decriminalizes homosexuality, with the age of consent set at 20 and Suriname legalizes homosexuality.
• 1945 – Upon the liberation of Nazi concentration camps by Allied forces, those interned for homosexuality are not freed, but required to serve out the full term of their sentences under Paragraph 175; Portugal decriminalises homosexuality for the second time in its history. Four honourably discharged gay veterans form the Veterans Benevolent Association, the first LGBT veterans' group. Gay bar Yanagi opened in Japan.
• 1946 – "COC" (Dutch acronym for "Center for Culture and Recreation"), one of the earliest homophile organizations, is founded in the Netherlands. It is the oldest surviving LGBT organization.
• 1947 – Vice Versa, the first North American lesbian publication, is written and self-published by Lisa Ben (real name Edith Eyde) in Los Angeles.
• 1948 – "Forbundet af 1948" ("League of 1948"), a homosexual group, is formed in Denmark.
• 1948 – The communist authorities of Poland make 15 the age of consent for all sexual acts, homosexual or heterosexual.

1950s

Main article: 1950s in LGBT rights

Mattachine Review published by the Mattachine Society

• 1950 – The Organization for Sexual Equality, now Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights (RFSL), is formed in Sweden; East Germany partially abrogates the Nazis' emendations to Paragraph 175; The Mattachine Society, the first sustained American homosexual group, is founded in Los Angeles (11 November); 190 individuals in the United States are dismissed from government employment for their sexual orientation, commencing the Lavender scare.
• 1951 – Greece decriminalizes homosexuality.
• 1951 – Jordan In 1951, a revision of the Jordanian Criminal Code legalized private, adult, non-commercial, and consensual sodomy, with the age of consent set at 16.
• 1952 – "Spring Fire," the first lesbian paperback novel, and the beginning of the lesbian pulp fiction genre, was published in 1952 and sold 1.5 million copies. It was written by lesbian Marijane Meaker under the false name Vin Packer.
• 1952 – In the spring of 1952, Dale Jennings was arrested in Los Angeles for allegedly soliciting a police officer in a bathroom in Westlake Park, now known as MacArthur Park. His trial drew national attention to the Mattachine Society, and membership increased drastically after Jennings contested the charges, resulting in a hung jury.
• 1952 – Christine Jorgensen becomes the first widely publicized person to have undergone sex reassignment surgery, in this case, male to female, creating a world-wide sensation.
• 1952 – In Japan the male homosexual magazine "Adonis" is launched with the writer Mishima Yukio as a contributor.
• 1953 – The Diana Foundation was founded on 19 March 1953 in Houston, TX by a small group of friends. The Diana Foundation is a nonprofit organization and recognized as the oldest continuously active gay organization in the United States and hosts two annual fundraising events including its Diana Awards.
• 1954 – 7 June–Mathematical and computer genius Alan Turing commits suicide by cyanide poisoning, 18 months after being given a choice between two years in prison or libido-reducing hormone treatment for a year as a punishment for homosexuality. A succession of well-known men, including Lord Montagu, Michael Pitt-Rivers and Peter Wildeblood, were convicted of homosexual offences as British police pursued a McCarthy-like purge of Society homosexuals. Arcadie, the first homosexual group in France, is formed.
• 1955 – The Daughters of Bilitis (DOB) was founded in San Francisco in 1955 by four lesbian couples (including Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon) and was the first national lesbian political and social organization in the United States. The group's name came from "Songs of Bilitis," a lesbian-themed song cycle by French poet Pierre Louÿs, which described the fictional Bilitis as a resident of the Isle of Lesbos alongside Sappho. DOB's activities included hosting public forums on homosexuality, offering support to isolated, married, and mothering lesbians, and participating in research activities. Mattachine Society New York chapter founded.
• 1956 – Thailand decriminalizes homosexual acts.
• 1957 – The word "Transsexual" is coined by U.S. physician Harry Benjamin; The Wolfenden Committee's report recommends decriminalizing consensual homosexual behaviour between adults in the United Kingdom; Psychologist Evelyn Hooker publishes a study showing that homosexual men are as well adjusted as non-homosexual men, which becomes a major factor in the American Psychiatric Association removing homosexuality from its handbook of disorders in 1973. Homoerotic artist Tom of Finland first published on the cover of Physique Pictorial magazine from Los Angeles.
• 1958 – The Homosexual Law Reform Society is founded in the United Kingdom; Barbara Gittings founds the New York chapter of Daughters of Bilitis.
• 1958 – The United States Supreme Court rules in favor of the First Amendment rights of a gay and lesbian magazine, marking the first time the United States Supreme Court had ruled on a case involving homosexuality.
• 1959 – ITV, at the time the UK's only national commercial broadcaster, broadcasts the first gay drama, South, starring Peter Wyngarde. The first homosexual uprising in the world, at Cooper’s Doughnuts in Los Angeles, USA, rioters arrested by LAPD.

1960s

Main article: 1960s in LGBT rights

• 1960 – Cpls. Fannie Mae Clackum and Grace Garner, U.S. Air Force reservists in the late 1940s and early 1950s, became the first people to successfully challenge their discharges from the U.S. military for being gay, although the ruling turned on the fact that there wasn’t enough evidence to show the women were lesbians — rather than that there was nothing wrong with it if they were.
• 1961 – Czechoslovakia and Hungary decriminalize sodomy; the Vatican declares that anyone who is "affected by the perverse inclination" towards homosexuality should not be allowed to take religious vows or be ordained within the Roman Catholic Church; The Rejected, the first documentary on homosexuality, is broadcast on KQED TV in San Francisco on 11 September 1961; José Sarria becomes the first openly gay candidate for public office in the United States when he runs for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.
• 1961 – Illinois becomes the first U.S. state to remove sodomy law from its criminal code through passage of the American Law Institute's Model Penal Code. While the adopted code did not penalize private sexual relations, it criminalized acts of "Open Lewdness."
• 1963 – Israel de facto decriminalizes sodomy and sexual acts between men by judicial decision against the enforcement of the relevant section in the old British-mandate law from 1936 (which in fact was never enforced).
• 1964 – Canada sees its first gay-positive organization, ASK, and first gay magazines: ASK Newsletter (in Vancouver), and Gay (by Gay Publishing Company of Toronto). Gay was the first periodical to use the term 'Gay' in the title and expanded quickly, including outstripping the distribution of American publications under the name Gay International. These were quickly followed by Two (by Gayboy (later Kamp) Publishing Company of Toronto).
• 1964 – Canada March 1964, Ted Northe founds the 'Imperial Court of Canada' a monarchist society compromised primarily of drag personalities and becomes a driving force in the effort to achieve equality in Canada. The Courts of Canada now have over 14 chapters across the country and is the oldest, continuously running, LGBT Organization in Canada.
• 1964 – The first photograph of lesbians on the cover of lesbian magazine The Ladder was done in September 1964, showing two women from the back, on a beach looking out to sea.
• 1965 – Everett George Klippert, the last person imprisoned in Canada for homosexuality, is arrested for private, consensual sex with men. After being assessed "incurably homosexual", he is sentenced to an indefinite "preventive detention" as a dangerous sexual offender. This was considered by many Canadians to be extremely homophobic, and prompted sympathetic articles in Maclean's and The Toronto Star, eventually leading to increased calls for legal reform in Canada which passed in 1969.
• 1965 – Conservatively dressed gays and lesbians demonstrate outside Independence Hall in Philadelphia on 4 July 1965. This was the first in a series of Annual Reminders that took place through 1969.
• 1966 – The Mattachine Society stages a "Sip-In" at Julius Bar in New York City challenging a New York State Liquor Authority prohibiting serving alcohol to gays; the National Planning Conference of Homophile Organizations is established (to become NACHO—North American Conference of Homophile Organizations later that year); the Compton's Cafeteria Riot occurred in August 1966 by transgender women and Vanguard members in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco. This incident was one of the first recorded transgender riots in United States history, preceding the more famous 1969 Stonewall Riots in New York City by three years. Vanguard was founded to demonstrate for equal rights.
• 1966 – The first lesbian to appear on the cover of the lesbian magazine The Ladder with her face showing was Lilli Vincenz in January 1966. A coalition of Homosexual organizations organized demonstrations for Armed Forces Day to protest the exclusion of LGBT from the U.S. armed services. The Los Angeles group held a 15-car motorcade, which has been identified as the nation’s first gay pride parade.
• 1967 – The Black Cat Tavern in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles is raided on New Year's day by 12 plainclothes police officers who beat and arrested employees and patrons. The raid prompted a series of protests that began on 5 January 1967, organized by P.R.I.D.E. (Personal Rights in Defense and Education). It's the first use of the term "Pride" that came to be associated with LGBT rights.
• 1967 – The Advocate was first published in September as "The Los Angeles Advocate," a local newsletter alerting gay men to police raids in Los Angeles gay bars.
• 1967 – The Sexual Offences Act decriminalised homosexual acts between two men over 21 years of age in private in England and Wales.; The act did not apply to Scotland, Northern Ireland nor the Channel Islands; The book Homosexual Behavior Among Males by Wainwright Churchill breaks ground as a scientific study approaching homosexuality as a fact of life and introduces the term "homoerotophobia", a possible precursor to "homophobia"; The Oscar Wilde Bookshop, the world's first homosexual-oriented bookstore, opens in New York City; "Our World" ("Nuestro Mundo"), the first Latino-American homosexual group, is created in Argentina; A raid on the Black Cat Tavern in Los Angeles, California promotes homosexual rights activity. The Student Homophile League at Columbia University is the first institutionally recognized gay student group in the United States.
• 1968 – Paragraph 175 is eased in East Germany decriminalizing homosexual acts over the age of 18; Bulgaria decriminalizes adult homosexual relations. In Los Angeles, following the arrest of two patrons in a raid, The Patch owner Lee Glaze organized the other patrons to move on the police station. After buying out a nearby flower shop, the demonstrators caravanned to the station, festooned it with the flowers and bailed out the arrested men.
• 1969 – The Stonewall riots occur in New York City; Paragraph 175 is eased in West Germany; Bill C-150 is passed, decriminalizing homosexuality in Canada. Pierre Trudeau, the Prime Minister of Canada, is quoted as having said: "The state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation."; Poland decriminalizes homosexual prostitution; An Australian arm of the Daughters of Bilitis forms in Melbourne and is considered Australia's first homosexual rights organisation.
• 1969 – On 31 December 1969, the Cockettes perform for the first time at the Palace Theatre on Union and Columbus in the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco.

1970s

Main article: 1970s in LGBT rights

• 1970 – The first Gay Liberation Day March is held in New York City; The first LGBT Pride Parade is held in New York; The first "Gay-in" held in San Francisco; Carl Wittman writes A Gay Manifesto; CAMP (Campaign Against Moral Persecution) is formed in Australia; The Task Force on Gay Liberation formed within the American Library Association - now known as the GLBT Round Table, this organization is the oldest LGBT professional organization in the United States.
• 1971 – Society Five (a homosexual rights organization) is formed in Melbourne, Australia; Homosexuality is decriminalized in Austria, Costa Rica and Finland; Colorado and Oregon repeal sodomy laws; Idaho repeals the sodomy law — Then re-instates the repealed sodomy law because of outrage among Mormons and Catholics. The Netherlands changes the homosexual age of consent to 16, the same as the straight age of consent; The U.S. Libertarian Party calls for the repeal of all victimless crime laws, including the sodomy laws; Dr. Frank Kameny becomes the first openly gay candidate for the United States Congress; The University of Michigan establishes the first collegiate LGBT programs office, then known as the "Gay Advocate's Office." The UK Gay Liberation Front (GLF) was recognized as a political movement in the national press and was holding weekly meetings of 200 to 300 people.; George Klippert, the last man jailed for homosexuality in Canada, is released from prison. Ken Togo ran for national election, in Japan. During a UCLA conference called "The Homosexual in America," Betty Berzon became the first psychotherapist in the country to come out as gay to the public. Boys in the Sand was the first gay porn film to include credits, to achieve crossover success, to be reviewed by Variety, and one of the earliest porn films, after 1969's Blue Movie by Andy Warhol, to gain mainstream credibility, preceding 1972's Deep Throat by nearly a year. It was promoted with an advertising campaign unprecedented for a pornographic feature, premiered in New York City in 1971 and was an immediate critical and commercial success.
• 1972 – Sweden becomes first country in the world to allow transsexuals to legally change their sex, and provides free hormone therapy; Hawaii legalizes homosexuality; In South Australia, a consenting adults in private-type legal defence was introduced; Norway decriminalizes homosexuality; East Lansing, Michigan and Ann Arbor, Michigan and San Francisco, California become the first cities in United States to pass a homosexual rights ordinance. Jim Foster, San Francisco and Madeline Davis, Buffalo, New York, first gay and lesbian delegates to the Democratic Convention, Miami, McGovern; give the first speeches advocating a gay rights plank in the Democratic Party Platform. "Stonewall Nation" first gay anthem is written and recorded by Madeline Davis and is produced on 45 rpm record by the Mattachine Society of the Niagara Frontier. Lesbianism 101, first lesbianism course in the U.S. taught at the University of Buffalo by Margaret Small and Madeline Davis.Queens, NY schoolteacher Jeanne Manford marched with her gay son, gay rights activist Morty Manford, in New York's Christopher Street Liberation Day march. This was the origin of the straight ally movement and of PFLAG - (originally Parents of Gays, then Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, now simply PFLAG. Nancy Wechsler became the first openly gay or lesbian person in political office in America; she was elected to the Ann Arbor City Council in 1972 as a member of the Human Rights Party and came out as a lesbian during her first and only term there. Also in 1972, Camille Mitchell became the first open lesbian to be awarded custody of her children in a divorce case, although the judge restricted the arrangement by precluding Ms. Mitchell's lover from moving in with her and the children. Freda Smith became the first openly lesbian minister in the Metropolitan Community Church (she was also their first female minister). Beth Chayim Chadashim was founded in 1972 as the world's first lesbian and gay synagogue recognized by the Reform Jewish community. A Quaker group, the Committee of Friends on Bisexuality, issued the "Ithaca Statement on Bisexuality" supporting bisexuals. The Statement, which may have been "the first public declaration of the bisexual movement" and "was certainly the first statement on bisexuality issued by an American religious assembly," appeared in the Quaker Friends Journal and The Advocate in 1972. Today Quakers have varying opinions on LGBT people and rights, with some Quaker groups more accepting than others. Also in 1972 John Hospers became the first openly gay man to run for president of the United States, and later the first to receive an electoral vote (albeit from a faithless elector).
• 1973 – On 15 October the Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatry Federal Council declares homosexuality not an illness – the first such body in the world to do so; in December the American Psychiatric Association removes homosexuality from its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-II), based largely on the research and advocacy of Evelyn Hooker. The first formal meeting of PFLAG took place on 26 March 1973 at the Metropolitan-Duane Methodist Church in Greenwich Village (now the Church of the Village). Approximately 20 people attended, including founder Jeanne Manford, her husband Jules, son Morty, Dick and Amy Ashworth, Metropolitan Community Church founder Reverend Troy Perry, and more. Malta legalizes homosexuality; In West Germany, the age of consent is reduced for homosexuals to 18 (though it is 14 for heterosexuals).; Sally Miller Gearhart became the first open lesbian to obtain a tenure-track faculty position when she was hired by San Francisco State University, where she helped establish one of the first women and gender study programs in the country. Lavender Country, an American country music band, released a self-titled album which is the first known gay-themed album in country music history.
• 1974 – Kathy Kozachenko becomes the first openly gay American elected to public office when she wins a seat on the Ann Arbor, Michigan city council; In New York City Dr. Fritz Klein founds the Bisexual Forum, the first support group for the Bisexual Community; Elaine Noble becomes the second openly gay American elected to public office when she wins a seat in the Massachusetts State House; Inspired by Noble, Minnesota state legislator Allan Spear comes out in a newspaper interview; Ohio repeals sodomy laws. Robert Grant founds American Christian Cause to oppose the "gay agenda", the beginning of modern Christian politics in America. In London, the first openly LGBT telephone help line opens, followed one year later by the Brighton Lesbian and Gay Switchboard; the Brunswick Four are arrested on 5 January 1974, in Toronto, Ontario. This incident of Lesbophobia galvanizes the Toronto Lesbian and Gay community; the National Socialist League (The Gay Nazi Party) is founded in Los Angeles, California. The first openly gay or lesbian person to be elected to any political office in America was Kathy Kozachenko, who was elected to the Ann Arbor City Council in April 1974. Also in 1974, the Lesbian Herstory Archives opened to the public in the New York apartment of lesbian couple Joan Nestle and Deborah Edel; it has the world's largest collection of materials by and about lesbians and their communities. Also in 1974, Angela Morley became the first openly transgender person to be nominated for an Academy Award, when she was nominated for one in the category of Best Music, Original Song Score/Adaptation for The Little Prince (1974), a nomination shared with Alan Jay Lerner, Frederick Loewe, and Douglas Gamley.
• 1975 – Homosexuality is legalized in California due to the Consenting Adult Sex Bill, authored by and successfully lobbied for in the state legislature by State Assemblyman from San Francisco Willie Brown; Leonard Matlovich, a Technical Sergeant in the United States Air Force, becomes the first U.S. gay service member to purposely out himself to fight their ban; South Australia becomes the first state in Australia to make homosexuality legal between consenting adults in private. Panama is the second country in the world to allow transsexuals who have gone through gender reassignment surgery to get their personal documents reflecting their new sex; UK journal Gay Left begins publication; Minneapolis becomes the first city in the United States to pass trans-inclusive civil rights protection legislation; Clela Rorex, a clerk in Boulder County, Colorado, issues the first same-sex marriage licenses in the United States, issuing the very first of them to Dave McCord and Dave Zamora, on 26 March 1975. Six same-sex marriages were performed as a result of her giving out licenses, but all of the marriages were overturned later that year.

Gay rights protesters in New York City, protesting at the United States' 1976 Democratic National Convention

• 1976 – Robert Grant founds the Christian Voice to take his anti-homosexual-rights crusade national in United States; the Homosexual Law Reform Coalition and the Gay Teachers Group are started in Australia; the Australian Capital Territory decriminalizes homosexuality between consenting adults in private and equalizes the age of consent; Out Minnesota state legislator Allan Spear is reelected; and Denmark equalizes the age of consent. Association of homosexual liberation was founded in Japan.
• 1977 – Harvey Milk is elected city-county supervisor in San Francisco, becoming the fifth out American elected to public office. Dade County, Florida enacts a Human Rights Ordinance; it is repealed the same year after a militant anti-homosexual-rights campaign led by Anita Bryant. Quebec becomes the first jurisdiction larger than a city or county in the world to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation in the public and private sectors; Croatia, Montenegro, Slovenia and Vojvodina; legalise homosexuality. Welsh author Jeffrey Weeks publishes Coming Out;
  

  Original eight-color version of the LGBT pride flag
  Publication of the first issue of Gaysweek, NYC's first mainstream gay weekly. Police raided a house outside of Boston outraging the gay community. In response the Boston-Boise Committee was formed, which would lead to the founding of NAMBLA. Anne Holmes became the first openly lesbian minister ordained by the United Church of Christ; Ellen Barrett became the first openly lesbian priest ordained by the Episcopal Church of the United States (serving the Diocese of New York). The first lesbian mystery novel in America was published; it was Angel Dance, by Mary F. Beal. The National Center for Lesbian Rights was founded. Shakuntala Devi published the first study of homosexuality in India. Platonica Club and Front Runners were founded in Japan.
• 1978 – San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone are assassinated by former Supervisor Dan White; the first Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras is held, with 2000 people attending and 53 subsequently arrested and some seriously beaten by police. ; The rainbow flag is first used as a symbol of homosexual pride; Sweden establishes a uniform age of consent. Samois the earliest known lesbian-feminist BDSM organization is founded in San Francisco; well-known members of the group include Patrick Califia and Gayle Rubin; the group is among the very earliest advocates of what came to be known as sex-positive feminism; The International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) is established. Robin Tyler became the first out lesbian on U.S. national television, appearing on a Showtime comedy special hosted by Phyllis Diller. The same year she released her comedy album, Always a Bridesmaid, Never a Groom, the first comedy album by an out lesbian.
• 1979 – The first national homosexual rights march on Washington, DC is held; The White Night riots occur, Harry Hay issues the first call for a Radical Faerie gathering in Arizona, and The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence first appear in public on Easter Sunday in San Francisco. Cuba and Spain decriminalize homosexuality.
• 1979 – A number of people in Sweden called in sick with a case of being homosexual, in protest of homosexuality being classified as an illness. This was followed by an activist occupation of the main office of the National Board of Health and Welfare. Within a few months, Sweden became the first country in the world to remove homosexuality as an illness. Japan Gay Center was established in Japan.

1980s

• 1980 – The United States Democratic Party becomes the first major political party in the U.S. to endorse a homosexual rights platform plank; Scotland decriminalizes homosexuality; The Human Rights Campaign Fund is founded by Steve Endean; The Human Rights Campaign is America’s largest civil rights organization working to achieve lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality.
• 1981 – The European Court of Human Rights in Dudgeon v. United Kingdom strikes down Northern Ireland's criminalisation of homosexual acts between consenting adults, leading to Northern Ireland decriminalising homosexual sex the following year; Victoria (Australia) and Colombia decriminalize homosexuality with a uniform age of consent; The Moral Majority starts its anti-homosexual crusade; Norway becomes the first country in the world to enact a law to prevent discrimination against homosexuals; Hong Kong's first sex-change operation is performed. The first official documentation of the condition to be known as AIDS was published by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on 5 June 1981. Tennis player Billie Jean King became the first prominent professional athlete to come out as a lesbian, when her relationship with her secretary Marilyn Barnett became public in a May 1981 "palimony" lawsuit filed by Barnett. Due to this she lost all of her endorsements. Mary C. Morgan became the first openly gay or lesbian judge in America when she was appointed by California Governor Jerry Brown to the San Francisco Municipal Court. Randy Shilts was hired as a national correspondent by the San Francisco Chronicle, becoming "the first openly gay reporter with a gay 'beat' in the American mainstream press."
• 1982 – Laguna Beach, CA elects the first openly gay mayor in United States history; France equalizes the age of consent; The first Gay Games is held in San Francisco, attracting 1,600 participants; Northern Ireland decriminalizes homosexuality; Wisconsin becomes the first US state to ban discrimination against homosexuals; New South Wales becomes the first Australian state to outlaw discrimination on the basis of actual or perceived homosexuality. The condition to be known as AIDS had acquired a number of names – GRID5 (gay-related immune deficiency), ‘gay cancer’, ‘community-acquired immune dysfunction’ and ‘gay compromise syndrome’ The CDC used the term AIDS for the first time in September 1982, when it reported that an average of one to two cases of AIDS were being diagnosed in America every day. Ken Togo is founding the Deracine Party in Japan.
• 1983 – Massachusetts Representative Gerry Studds reveals he is gay on the floor of the House, becoming the first openly gay member of Congress; Guernsey (Including Alderney, Herm and Sark) decriminalizes homosexuality; Portugal decriminalizes homosexuality for the third time in its history; AIDS is described as a "gay plague" by Reverend Jerry Falwell.
• 1984 – The lesbian and gay association "Ten Percent Club" is formed in Hong Kong; Massachusetts voters reelect representative Gerry Studds, despite his revealing himself as homosexual the year before; New South Wales and the Northern Territory in Australia make homosexual acts legal; Chris Smith, newly elected to the UK parliament declares: "My name is Chris Smith. I'm the Labour MP for Islington South and Finsbury, and I'm gay", making him the first openly out homosexual politician in the UK parliament. The Argentine Homosexual Community (Comunidad Homosexual Argentina, CHA) is formed uniting several different and preexisting groups. Berkeley, California becomes the first city in the U.S. to adopt a program of domestic partnership health benefits for city employees; West Hollywood, CA is founded and becomes the first known city to elect a city council where a majority of the members are openly gay or lesbian. Reconstructionist Judaism became the first Jewish denomination to allow openly lesbian rabbis and cantors. ILGA Japan is founded in Japan. On Our Backs, the first women-run erotica magazine and the first magazine to feature lesbian erotica for a lesbian audience in the United States, was first published in 1984 by Debi Sundahl and Myrna Elana, with the contributions of Susie Bright, Nan Kinney, Honey Lee Cottrell, Dawn Lewis, Happy Hyder, Tee Corinne, Jewelle Gomez, Judith Stein, Joan Nestle, and Patrick Califia.
• 1985 – France prohibits discrimination based on lifestyle (moeurs) in employment and services; the first memorial to gay Holocaust victims is dedicated; Belgium equalizes the age of consent; the Restoration Church of Jesus Christ (informally called the Gay Mormon Church) is founded by Antonio A. Feliz. Actor Rock Hudson dies of AIDS. He is the first major public figure known to have died from an AIDS-related illness. The Reconstructionist Rabbinical College ordained Deborah Brin as the first openly gay or lesbian rabbi in Judaism. Terry Sweeney becomes Saturday Night Live's first openly gay male cast member; Sweeney was "out" prior to being hired as a cast member. The Bisexual Resource Center (BRC) in Massachusetts has served the bisexual community since 1985. Paul Cowan reported that an Iranian student who wore Western-style clothes and who laughed at a Khomeini demonstration was raped by a group of teenagers loyal to the Ayatollah Khomeini.
• 1986 – Homosexual Law Reform Act passed in New Zealand, legalizing sex between males over 16; Haiti decriminalizes homosexuality, June in Bowers v. Hardwick case, U.S. Supreme Court upholds Georgia law forbidding oral or anal sex, ruling that the constitutional right to privacy does not extend to homosexual relations, but it does not state whether the law can be enforced against heterosexuals. Becky Smith and Annie Afleck became the first openly lesbian couple in America granted legal, joint adoption of a child. From 1 till 3 May, the 1986, ILGA Asia Conference took place in Japan's capital Tokyo.
• 1987 – AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power(ACT-UP) founded in the US in response to the US government’s slow response in dealing with the AIDS crisis. ACT UP stages its first major demonstration, seventeen protesters are arrested; U.S. Congressman Barney Frank comes out. Boulder, CO citizens pass the first referendum to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation. In New York City a group of Bisexual LGBT rights activist including Brenda Howard found the New York Area Bisexual Network (NYABN); Homomonument, a memorial to persecuted homosexuals, opens in Amsterdam. David Norris is the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in the Republic of Ireland. A group of 75 bisexuals marched in the 1987 March On Washington For Gay and Lesbian Rights, which was the first nationwide bisexual gathering. The article "The Bisexual Movement: Are We Visible Yet?", by Lani Ka'ahumanu, appeared in the official Civil Disobedience Handbook for the March. It was the first article about bisexuals and the emerging bisexual movement to be published in a national lesbian or gay publication.
• 1988 – Sweden is the first country to pass laws protecting homosexual regarding social services, taxes, and inheritances. The anti-gay Section 28 passes in England and Wales; Scotland enacts almost identical legislation; Canadian MP Svend Robinson comes out; Canada lowers the age of consent for sodomy to 18; Belize and Israel decriminalize (de jure) sodomy and sexual acts between men (the relevant section in the old British-mandate law from 1936 was never enforced in Israel). After losing an Irish High Court case (1980) and an Irish Supreme Court case (1983), David Norris takes his case (Norris v. Ireland) to the European Court of Human Rights. The European Court strikes down the Irish law criminalising male-to-male sex on the grounds of privacy. Stacy Offner became the first openly lesbian rabbi hired by a mainstream Jewish congregation, Shir Tikvah Congregation of Minneapolis (a Reform Jewish congregation).
• 1989 – Western Australia decriminalizes male homosexuality (but the age of consent is set at 21); Liechtenstein legalizes homosexuality; Denmark is the first country in the world to enact registered partnership laws (like a civil union) for same-sex couples, with most of the same rights as marriage (excluding the right to adoption (until June 2010) and the right to marriage in a church).

1990s

(See individual year page for more info)

• 1990
  • Equalization of age of consent: Czechoslovakia (see Czech Republic, Slovakia)
  • Decriminalisation of homosexuality: UK Crown Dependency of Jersey and the Australian state of Queensland
  • LGBT Organizations founded: BiNet USA (USA), OutRage! (UK) and Queer Nation (USA)
  • Homosexuality no longer an illness: The World Health Organization
  • Other: Justin Fashanu is the first professional footballer to come out in the press.
  • Reform Judaism decided to allow openly lesbian and gay rabbis and cantors.
  • Dale McCormick became the first open lesbian elected to a state Senate (she was elected to the Maine Senate).
  • In 1990, the Union for Reform Judaism announced a national policy declaring lesbian and gay Jews to be full and equal members of the religious community. Its principal body, the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR), officially endorsed a report of their committee on homosexuality and rabbis. They concluded that "all rabbis, regardless of sexual orientation, be accorded the opportunity to fulfill the sacred vocation that they have chosen" and that "all Jews are religiously equal regardless of their sexual orientation."
• 1991
  • Decriminalisation of homosexuality: Bahamas, Hong Kong and Ukraine
  • AIDS Related: The red ribbon is first used as a symbol of the campaign against HIV/AIDS.
  • Sherry Harris was elected to the City Council in Seattle, Washington, making her the first openly lesbian African-American elected official.
  • The first lesbian kiss on television occurred; it was on "L.A. Law" between the fictional characters of C.J. Lamb (played by Amanda Donohoe) and Abby (Michele Greene).
  • The first officially recognized gay and lesbian hall of fame in the United States, the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame, was founded.
• 1992
  • Equalization of age of consent: Iceland, Luxembourg and Switzerland
  • Decriminalisation of homosexuality: Estonia and Latvia
  • Repeal of Sodomy laws: UK Crown Dependency of Isle of Man (homosexuality still illegal until 1994)
  • End to ban on gay people in the military: Australia, Canada
  • Recriminalisation of homosexuality: Nicaragua (until Mar 2008).
  • Althea Garrison was elected as the first transgender state legislator in America, and served one term in the Massachusetts House of Representatives; however, it was not publicly known she was transgender when she was elected.
  • The Lesbian Avengers was founded in New York City by Ana Maria Simo, Sarah Schulman, Maxine Wolfe, Anne-christine D'Adesky, Marie Honan, and Anne Maguire
  • Tokyo International Lesbian & Gay Film Festival was held in Japan.
• 1993
  • Civil Union/Registered Partnership laws:
    • Passed and Came into effect: Norway (without adoption until 2009, replaced with same-sex marriage in 2008/09)
  • Repeal of Sodomy laws: Australian Territory of Norfolk Island
  • Decriminalisation of homosexuality: Belarus, UK Crown Dependency of Gibraltar, Ireland, Lithuania, Russia (with the exception of the Chechen Republic);
  • Anti-discrimination legislation: US state of Minnesota (gender identity), New Zealand parliament passes the Human Rights Amendment Act which outlaws discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation or HIV.
  • End to ban on gay people in the military: New Zealand
  • Significant LGBT Murders: Brandon Teena
  • Melissa Etheridge came out as a lesbian.
  • The Triangle Ball was held; it was the first inaugural ball in America to ever be held in honor of gays and lesbians.
  • The first Dyke March (a march for lesbians and their straight female allies, planned by the Lesbian Avengers) was held, with 20,000 women marching.
  • Roberta Achtenberg became the first openly gay or lesbian person to be nominated by the president and confirmed by the U.S. Senate when she was appointed to the position of Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity by President Bill Clinton.
  • Lea DeLaria was "the first openly gay comic to break the late-night talk-show barrier" with her 1993 appearance on The Arsenio Hall Show.
  • In December 1993 Lea DeLaria hosted Comedy Central's Out There, the first all-gay stand-up comedy special.
  • Before the "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy was enacted in 1993, lesbians and bisexual women and gay men and bisexual men were banned from serving in the military. In 1993 the "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy was enacted, which mandated that the military could not ask servicemembers about their sexual orientation. However, until the policy was ended in 2011 service members were still expelled from the military if they engaged in sexual conduct with a member of the same sex, stated that they were lesbian, gay, or bisexual, and/or married or attempted to marry someone of the same sex.
• 1994
  • Unregistered Cohabitation recognition:
    • Passed and Came into effect: Israel (without adoption, without step-adoption until 2005)
  • Anti-discrimination legislation: South Africa (sexual orientation, interim constitution)
  • Decriminalisation of homosexuality: Bermuda, UK Crown Dependency of Isle of Man and Serbia, Commonwealth of Australia
  • Equalization of age of consent:
    • Partial: UK reduces the age of consent for homosexual men to 18;
  • Homosexuality no longer an illness: American Medical Association
  • LGBT Organizations founded: National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality (South Africa)
  • Other : Canada grants refugee status to homosexuals fearing for their well-being in their native country; Toonen v. Australia decided by UN Human Rights Committee; fear of persecution due to sexual orientation becomes grounds for asylum in the United States.
  • Deborah Batts became the first openly gay or lesbian federal judge; she was appointed to the U.S. District Court in New York.
  • Gay Parade was held in Japan. (8.1994)
  • Susan Stryker's essay "My Words to Victor Frankenstein Above the Village of Chamounix" became the first article to be published in a peer-reviewed academic journal by an openly transgender author.
  • Wilson Cruz became the first actor to play an openly gay character in a leading role in a television series (My So-Called Life).
• 1995
  • Civil Union/Registered Partnership laws:
    • Passed and Came into effect: Sweden (with adoption, replaced with same-sex marriage in April 2009)
  • Anti-discrimination legislation: Canada (sexual orientation)
  • Decriminalisation of homosexuality: Albania and Moldova
  • AIDS Related: Triple combination therapy of drugs such as 3TC, AZT and ddC shown to be effective in treating HIV, the virus responsible for AIDS
  • Other : The Human Rights Campaign drops the word "Fund" from their title and broadens their mission to promote "an America where gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people are ensured equality and embraced as full members of the American family at home, at work and in every community;"
  • LGBT Organizations founded: Gay Advice Darlington/Durham was founded by local gay and bisexual men, and has developed into a Charity that works with and for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Community of County Durham and Darlington.
  • Rachel Maddow became the first openly gay or lesbian American to win an international Rhodes scholarship.
  • Kings Cross Steelers, the world's first gay rugby club, was founded.
• 1996
  • Civil Union/Registered Partnership laws:
    • Passed and Came into effect: Iceland (with step-adoption, without joint adoption until 2006, replaced with same-sex marriage in 2010)
  • Unregistered Cohabitation recognition:
    • Passed and Came into effect: Hungary (replaced with registered partnerships in 2009)
  • Restriction of LGBT partnership rights: USA, (federal, see DOMA)
  • Equalization of age of consent: Burkina Faso
  • Decriminalisation of homosexuality: Romania, Macedonia, Macau
  • The first lesbian wedding on television occurred, held for fictional characters Carol (played by Jane Sibbett) and Susan (played by Jessica Hecht) on the TV show "Friends".
  • The first openly gay speaker at a Republican National Convention was Log Cabin Republicans member Steve Fong of California in 1996.
• 1997
  • Anti-discrimination legislation: Fiji (sexual orientation, constitution) and South Africa (sexual orientation, constitution)
  • Equalization of age of consent: Russia
  • Decriminalisation of homosexuality: Ecuador, Venezuela and the Australian state of Tasmania
  • Other : Israeli President Ezer Weizman compares homosexuality to alcoholism in front of high school students. The UK extends immigration rights to same-sex couples akin to marriage; Ellen DeGeneres came out as a lesbian, one of the first celebrities to do so. Furthermore, later that year her character Ellen Morgan came out as a lesbian on the TV show "Ellen", making Ellen DeGeneres the first openly lesbian actress to play an openly lesbian character on television. Patria Jiménez became the first openly gay person to win a position in the Mexican Congress, doing so for the Party of the Democratic Revolution. The Gay and Lesbian Medical Association launched the Journal of the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association, the world's first peer-reviewed, multi-disciplinary journal dedicated to LGBT health.
• 1998
  • Anti-discrimination legislation: Ecuador (sexual orientation, constitution), Ireland (sexual orientation) and the Canadian province of Alberta
  • Significant LGBT Murders: Rita Hester, Matthew Shepard
  • Decriminalisation of homosexuality: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, South Africa (retroactive to 1994), Southern Cyprus and Tajikistan
  • Equalization of age of consent: Croatia and Latvia
  • End to ban on gay people in the military: Romania, South Africa
  • Gender identity was added to the mission of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays after a vote at their annual meeting in San Francisco. Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays is the first national LGBT organization to officially adopt a transgender-inclusion policy for its work.
  • Tammy Baldwin became the first openly gay or lesbian non-incumbent ever elected to Congress, and the first open lesbian ever elected to Congress, winning Wisconsin's 2nd congressional district seat over Josephine Musser.
  • Dana International became the first transsexual to win the Eurovision Song Contest, representing Israel with the song "Diva".
  • Robert Halford comes out as being the first openly gay heavy metal musician.
  • The first bisexual pride flag was unveiled on 5 December 1998.
  • Julie Hesmondhalgh first began to play Hayley Anne Patterson, British TV’s first transgender character.
  • BiNet USA hosted the First National Institute on Bisexuality and HIV/AIDS.
• 1999
  • Civil Union/Registered Partnership laws:
    • Passed and Came into effect: US State of California (without adoption, without step adoption until 2001, same-sex marriage in June 2008-November 2008)
    • Passed and Came into effect: France
  • Decriminalisation of homosexuality: Chile
  • Equalization of age of consent: Finland (without adoption)
  • LGBT Organizations founded: "Queer Youth Alliance" (UK)
  • Other: Israel’s supreme court recognizes a lesbian partner as another legal mother of her partner’s biological son; South Africa grants spousal immigration benefits to same-sex partners.
  • Steven Greenberg publicly came out as gay in an article in the Israeli newspaper Maariv. As he has a rabbinic ordination from the Orthodox rabbinical seminary of Yeshiva University (RIETS), he is generally described as the first openly gay Orthodox Jewish rabbi. However, some Orthodox Jews, including many rabbis, dispute his being an Orthodox rabbi.
  • The Transgender Day of Remembrance was founded in 1999 by Gwendolyn Ann Smith, a trans woman who is a graphic designer, columnist, and activist, to memorialize the murder of Rita Hester in Allston, Massachusetts. Since its inception, TDoR has been held annually on 20 November, and it has slowly evolved from the web-based project started by Smith into an international day of action.
  • In 1999, the first Celebrate Bisexuality Day was organized by Michael Page, Gigi Raven Wilbur, and Wendy Curry.

21st century

2000s

Worldwide laws regarding same-sex intercourse and freedom of expression and association

	Same-sex intercourse legal		Same-sex intercourse illegal
	Marriage1		Unenforced penalty
	Marriage recognized but not performed1		Imprisonment
	Civil unions1		Up to life in prison
	Unregistered cohabitation1		Death penalty
	Same-sex unions not recognized
	Laws restricting freedom of expression and association

Rings indicate areas where local judges have granted or denied marriages or imposed the death penalty in a jurisdiction where that is not otherwise the law or areas with a case-by-case application.
¹Some jurisdictions in this category may currently have other types of partnerships.

(See individual year page for more info)

• 2000
  • Civil Union/Registered Partnership laws:
    • Passed and Came into effect: US State of Vermont
  • Anti-discrimination legislation: South Africa (discrimination, hate speech, harassment; see PEPUDA)
  • Revoking of discrimination legislation: UK subdivision of Scotland (Section 28)
  • End to ban on gay people in the military: United Kingdom. See also: Sexual orientation and military service and Stonewall
  • Equalization of age of consent: Belarus, Israel and United Kingdom (passed eff. 2001)
  • Decriminalisation of homosexuality: Azerbaijan and Georgia
  • Other: In Germany the Bundestag officially apologizes to gays and lesbians persecuted under the Nazi regime, and for "harm done to homosexual citizens up to 1969"; Israel recognizes same-sex relations for immigration purposes for a foreign partner of an Israeli resident.
  • The Transgender Pride flag was first shown, at a pride parade in Phoenix, Arizona.
  • Hillary Clinton became the first First Lady to march in an LGBT pride parade.
• 2001
  • Same-sex marriages laws:
    • Came into effect: The Netherlands (with joint adoption)
  • Civil Union/Registered Partnership laws:
    • Came into effect: Germany (without joint adoption until Oct 2004, then with step-adoption)
    • Passed: Finland (without joint adoption until May 2009, then with step-adoption)
  • Limited Partnership laws:
    • Passed and Came into effect: Portugal (without joint adoption) (replaced with marriage in 2010)
    • Came into effect: Swiss canton of Geneva (without joint adoption)
  • Anti-discrimination legislation: US states of Rhode Island (private sector, gender identity) and Maryland (private sector, sexual orientation)
  • Equalization of age of consent: Albania, Estonia, Liechtenstein and United Kingdom.
  • Repeal of Sodomy laws: US state of Arizona
  • Decriminalisation of homosexuality: the rest of the United Kingdom's territories
  • Homosexuality no longer an illness: China
  • Marches and Prides: Protesters disrupt the first Pride march in the Serbian city of Belgrade
  • The first memorial in the United States honoring LGBT veterans was dedicated in Desert Memorial Park, Cathedral City, California.
  • Helene Faasen and Anne-Marie Thus, from the Netherlands, became the first two women to legally marry.
• 2002
  • Civil Union/Registered Partnership laws:
    • Passed and Came into effect: Canadian province of Quebec (with joint adoption)
    • Came into effect: Finland (without joint adoption until May 2009, then with step-adoption)
    • Passed: Argentinian city of Buenos Aires (without joint adoption)
  • Limited Partnerships laws:
    • Passed: Swiss canton of Zurich (without joint adoption)
  • Same-sex couple adoption legalisation: South Africa (joint and step adoption) and Sweden (joint and step adoption)
  • Anti-discrimination legislation: US states of Alaska (public sector, sexual orientation) and New York (private sector, sexual orientation)
  • Equalization of age of consent: Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Hungary, Moldova, Romania and the Australian state of Western Australia
  • Repeal of Sodomy laws: Romania, Costa Rica and the US States of Arkansas and Massachusetts
  • Other: openly gay Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn is assassinated by Volkert van der Graaf
  • Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays established its Transgender Network, also known as TNET, as its first official "Special Affiliate," recognized with the same privileges and responsibilities as its regular chapters.
  • At the Reform seminary Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York, the Reform rabbi Margaret Wenig organized the first school-wide seminar at any rabbinical school which addressed the psychological, legal, and religious issues affecting people who are intersex or transsexual.
• 2003
  • Same-sex marriage laws:
    • Passed and Came into effect: Belgium (without joint adoption until Apr 2006) and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and British Columbia
  • Civil Union/Registered Partnership laws:
    • Came into effect: Argentinian city of Buenos Aires (without joint adoption)
    • Passed:: Australian state of Tasmania (step adoption only)
  • Limited Partnerships laws:
    • Came into effect: Austria (without joint adoption)(replaced with registered partnerships 2010) and Croatia (without registration or adoption)
  • Anti-discrimination legislation:Bulgaria ( all sectors, sexual orientation), United Kingdom (excluding religious organisations, sexual orientation), US states of Arizona (public sector, sexual orientation), Kentucky (public sector, sexual orientation and gender identity), Michigan (executive branch of the state government, sexual orientation), New Mexico (private sector, sexual orientation and gender identity) and Pennsylvania (public sector, gender identity)
  • End to ban on gay people in the military: Russia
  • Equalization of age of consent: Australian state and territory (resp.) of New South Wales and Northern Territory
  • Repeal of Sodomy laws: Armenia, USA (Lawrence v. Texas)
  • Repeal of the concept of Buggery in law: United Kingdom
  • Decriminalisation of homosexuality: Iraq, Armenia and United States [nationwide]
  • Recriminalisation of homosexuality: Belize
  • Other: Section 28 is repealed in England and Wales and Northern Ireland. Gene Robinson becomes the first openly gay Bishop in the Episcopal church in the USA.
  • Reuben Zellman became the first openly transgender person accepted to the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, where he was ordained in 2010.
  • In 2003, the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards approved a rabbinic ruling that concluded that sex reassignment surgery (SRS) is permissible as a treatment of gender dysphoria, and that a transgender person's sex status under Jewish law is changed by SRS.
  • Legal recognition of indeterminate gender: Alex MacFarlane became the first person reported to obtain a birth certificate and passport, in Australia, showing indeterminate gender.
  • In 2003 the Reform rabbi Margaret Wenig organized the first school-wide seminar at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College which addressed the psychological, legal, and religious issues affecting people who are intersex or transsexual.
  • Jennifer Finney Boylan's autobiography, She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders, was the first book by an openly transgender American to become a bestseller.
  • Andrew Goldstein, the first American male team-sport professional athlete to be openly gay during his playing career, came out in 2003.
• 2004
  • Same-sex marriage laws:
    • Passed and Came into effect: Canadian provinces of Manitoba (with adoption), Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Quebec (with adoption), and Saskatchewan, and the Canadian territory of Yukon, US State of Massachusetts
  • Civil Union/Registered Partnership laws:
    • Passed and Came into effect: Brazilian State of Rio Grande do Sul, Luxembourg (without joint adoption) and US state of Maine
    • Came into effect:: Australian state of Tasmania (step adoption only)
    • Passed: New Zealand (without joint adoption)
  • Limited Partnership laws:
    • Passed and Came into effect: New Jersey
  • Same-sex couple adoption legalisation: Germany (Step Adoption)
  • Banning of Same-sex marriage: Australia, US states of Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Oregon and Utah
  • Banning of Same-sex marriage and civil unions: US states of Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Virginia and Wisconsin
  • Anti-discrimination legislation: Portugal, US States of Indiana (public sector, gender identity), Louisiana (public sector, sexual orientation) and Maine
  • Equalization of age of consent: Lithuania
  • Decriminalisation of homosexuality: Cape Verde, Marshall Islands and San Marino
  • Other: UK Gender Recognition Bill, James McGreevey becomes the first openly gay Governor in U.S. history.
  • The first all-transgender performance of the Vagina Monologues was held. The monologues were read by eighteen notable transgender women, and a new monologue revolving around the experiences and struggles of transgender women was included.
  • Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon became the first same-sex couple to be legally married in the United States, when San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom allowed city hall to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples. However, all same-sex marriages done in 2004 in California were annulled. After the California Supreme Court decision in 2008 that granted same-sex couples in California the right to marry, Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon remarried, and were again the first same-sex couple in the state to marry. Later in 2008 Prop 8 illegalized same-sex marriage in California, but the marriages that occurred between the California Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage and the approval of Prop 8 illegalizing it are still considered valid, including the marriage of Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon. However, Del Martin died in 2008.
  • James McGreevey, then governor of New Jersey, came out as gay, thus becoming the first openly gay state governor in United States history. He resigned soon after.
  • Bisi Alimi became the first Nigerian to declare his homosexuality on television.
  • Luna, by Julie Anne Peters, was published, and was the first young-adult novel with a transgender character to be released by a mainstream publisher.
• 2005
  • Same-sex marriage laws:
    • Passed and Came into effect: Canada [nationwide], Spain (with joint adoption)
  • Civil Union/Registered Partnership laws:
    • Passes and Came into effect: Andorra, United Kingdom (without joint adoption (England and Wales) until December 2005, without joint adoption (Scotland) until Sep 2009, without joint adoption (Northern Ireland)) and US state of Connecticut
    • Came into effect: New Zealand (without joint adoption) and US state of California
    • Passed: Switzerland (without adoption) and Slovenia
  • Same-sex couple adoption legalisation: UK Subdivisions of England and Wales
  • Banning of Same-sex marriage: Latvia, Uganda and Honduras
  • Banning of Same-sex marriage and civil unions: US states of Kansas and Texas
  • Anti-discrimination legislation: US States of Illinois (private sector, sexual orientation and gender identity) and Maine (private sector, sexual orientation and gender identity)
  • Repeal of Sodomy laws: Puerto Rico
  • Other: two gay male teenagers, Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni, are executed in Iran, André Boisclair is chosen leader of the Parti Québécois, becoming the first openly gay man elected as the leader of a major political party in North America. Bonnie Bleskachek became the first openly lesbian fire chief of a major metropolitan area in the United States (specifically, Minneapolis.) The Roman Catholic Church issues an instruction prohibiting any individuals who "present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called 'gay culture'" from joining the priesthood.
  • The Simpsons became the first cartoon series to dedicate an entire episode to the topic of same-sex marriage.
  • The first European Transgender Council Meeting was held in Vienna.
  • Alexandra Billings became the first openly trans woman to have played a transgender character on television, which she did in the 2005 made-for-TV movie Romy and Michelle: A New Beginning.
  • Publication of the first human rights report on the situation of intersex people, by the Human Rights Commission of the City and County of San Francisco.
• 2006

In 2006 Kim Coco Iwamoto became the first transgender official to win statewide office in Hawaii.

• • Same-sex marriage laws:
    • Passed and Came into effect: South Africa (with joint adoption)
  • Civil Union/Registered Partnership laws:
    • Passed and Came into effect: Czech Republic (without joint adoption)
    • Came into effect: Slovenia
    • Passed: Mexican City of Mexico City and US state of New Jersey
  • Limited Partnership laws:
    • Passed: Australian State of South Australia
  • Abroad Union recognition: Israel
  • Banning of Same-sex marriage: US State of Tennessee
  • Banning of Same-sex marriage and civil unions: US States of Alabama, Colorado, Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota and Virginia, Wisconsin
  • Same-sex couple adoption legalisation: Belgium
  • Anti-discrimination legislation: Faroe Islands, Germany (sexual orientation and gender identity), New Zealand (gender identity) and US States and Districts of Illinois (sexual orientation), New Jersey (private sector, gender identity), Washington (sexual orientation and gender identity) and Washington, D.C. (private sector, gender identity)
  • Voiding of Anti-discrimination legislation: Kentucky
  • Equalization of age of consent: Hong Kong, Isle of Man, Serbia
  • Marches and Prides: the first homosexual pride march in Moscow ends with violence, the first regional Eastern European Pride is held in Zagreb, Croatia
  • Other: Springfield, Missouri repeals gay soliciting laws, the United States Senate fails to pass the Federal Marriage Amendment, the International Conference on LGBT Human Rights is held in Montreal, another section 28 "successfully repealed" in Isle of Man Chaya Gusfield and Rabbi Lori Klein, both ordained in America, became the first openly lesbian rabbis ordained by the Jewish Renewal movement. Conservative Judaism decided to allow openly lesbian rabbis and cantors.
  • Elliot Kukla, who came out as transgender six months before his ordination in 2006, was the first openly transgender person to be ordained by the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.
  • State Rep. Patricia Todd, D-Birmingham, became Alabama's first openly gay public official when she was elected in 2006.
  • Kim Coco Iwamoto became the first transgender official to win statewide office in Hawaii.
• 2007
  • Civil Union/Registered Partnership laws:
    • Passed and Came into effect: Mexican state of Coahuila
    • Came into effect: Mexican City of Mexico City, Switzerland (without adoption) and US state of New Jersey
    • Passed: Hungary (with adoption), US state of New Hampshire and Uruguay (without adoption until Sep 2008)
  • Limited Partnership laws:
    • Passed and Came into effect: US state of Washington and Colombia
    • Came into effect: Australian state of South Australia and US state of Oregon
  • Anti-discrimination legislation: United Kingdom (sexual orientation) and US states of Colorado (private sector, sexual orientation and gender identity), Iowa (private sector, sexual orientation and gender identity), Kansas (public sector, sexual orientation and gender identity), Michigan (public sector, gender identity), Ohio (public sector, sexual orientation and gender identity), Oregon (private sector, sexual orientation and gender identity) and Vermont (private sector, gender identity)
  • Equalization of age of consent: Portugal, South Africa, UK territory of Jersey, Vanuatu
  • Decriminalisation of homosexuality: Nepal and New Zealand territories of Niue and Tokelau
  • Marches and Prides: the first ever gay pride parade in a Muslim country is held in Istanbul, Turkey;
  • Other: on 9 August 2007, the Logo cable channel hosts the first presidential forum in the United States focusing specifically on LGBT issues. Six Democratic Party candidates participate in the event. GOP candidates were asked to attend but turned it down.
  • From 2007 to 2008 actress Candis Cayne played Carmelita Rainer, a transgender woman having an affair with married New York Attorney General Patrick Darling (played by William Baldwin), on the ABC prime time drama Dirty Sexy Money. The role made Cayne the first openly transgender actress to play a recurring transgender character in prime time.
  • On 29 November, the first foreign gay wedding was held in Hanoi, Vietnam between a Japanese and an Irish national. The wedding raised much attention in the gay and lesbian community in Vietnam.
  • Jalda Rebling, a German woman born in the Netherlands and ordained in America, became the first openly lesbian cantor ordained by the Jewish Renewal movement.
  • Rabbi Toba Spitzer became the first openly lesbian or gay person to head a rabbinical assembly when she was elected president of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Assembly at the group's annual convention, held in Scottsdale, Arizona.
  • Joy Ladin became the first openly transgender professor at an Orthodox institution (Stern College for Women of Yeshiva University).
• Amaranta Gómez Regalado (for México Posible) became the first transsexual person to appear in the Mexican Congress.
• Ellen DeGeneres became the first open lesbian to host the Academy Awards.
• Ventura Place in Studio City was renamed Dr. Betty Berzon Place in her honor, making it the first street ever officially dedicated to a known lesbian in California.
• 2008
  • Same-sex marriage laws:
    • Passed and Came into effect: US states of California (May–Nov 2008), Connecticut and Mashantucket Pequot
    • Passed: Norway (with joint adoption)
  • Civil Union/Registered Partnership laws:
    • Passed and Came into effect: The Australian Capital Territory, Ecuador (without joint adoption), US state of Washington (expansion of previous legislation)
    • Came into effect: US state of New Hampshire and Uruguay (without joint adoption until Sep 2008)
  • Limited Partnership laws:
    • Came into effect: Australian state of Victoria and US state of Oregon
  • Banning of Same-sex marriage: US states of Arizona and California
  • Banning of Same-sex marriage and civil unions: US state of Florida
  • Same-sex couple adoption legalisation: Uruguay
  • Banning of Same-sex adoption: Arkansas (struck down by the Arkansas Supreme Court in 2011)
  • Anti-discrimination legislation: California
  • Equalization of age of consent: Nicaragua and Panama
  • Decriminalisation of homosexuality: Nicaragua and Panama
  • Marches and Prides: the first ever gay pride parade in Bulgaria
  • Other: Kosovo declares itself to be an independent country with a new constitution that includes mention of "sexual orientation", the first of its kind in Eastern Europe, Portland voters elect Sam Adams (Oregon politician) mayor, making it the largest city in the US with an openly gay mayor (the next largest is Providence, Rhode Island), 3 June the first two same-sex civil marriages (two men and two women)take place in Greece on the island of Tilos, the supreme court prosecutor and the minister of Justice claim the marriages are null and void.
  • Silverton, Oregon elected Stu Rasmussen as the first openly transgender mayor in America.
  • Angie Zapata, a transgender woman, was murdered in Greeley, Colorado. Allen Andrade was convicted of first-degree murder and committing a bias-motivated crime, because he killed her after he learned that she was transgender. This case was the first in the nation to get a conviction for a hate crime involving a transgender victim. Angie Zapata's story and murder were featured on Univision's "Aqui y Ahora" television show on 1 November 2009.
  • The first ever U.S. Congressional hearing on discrimination against transgender people in the workplace was held, by the House Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions.
  • Rachel Maddow became the first openly gay or lesbian anchor of a major prime-time news program in the United States when she began hosting The Rachel Maddow Show on U.S. cable network MSNBC.
  • Annise Parker was elected as the first openly gay or lesbian mayor of Houston, Texas.
  • Kate Brown was elected as the Oregon Secretary of State in the 2008 elections, becoming America's first openly bisexual statewide officeholder.
  • Jan Hamilton, formerly Parachute Regiment Captain Ian Hamilton, became the first UK officer to complete gender reassignment from male to female.
• 2009

Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir became the Prime Minister of Iceland in 2009, and thus became the first openly gay head of government in modern times.

• • Same-sex marriage laws:
    • Passed and Came into effect: Sweden (with joint adoption), US states of Iowa, and Vermont
    • Came into effect: Norway (with joint adoption) and the Coquille Indian Tribe In 2009 Kitzen and Jeni Branting married in the Coquille Indian tribe's Coos Bay plankhouse, a 3-year-old meeting hall built in traditional Coquille style with cedar plank walls. They were the first same-sex couple to have their marriage recognized by the tribe, of which Kitzen was a member.
    • Passed: Mexican City of Mexico City (with joint adoption), US states and districts of New Hampshire (step adoption only), Maine (never came into effect), Washington, D.C.
  • Civil Union/Registered Partnership laws:
    • Passed and Came into effect: Hungary (without joint adoption), Colombia (expansion of previous rights without joint adoption), US states of Nevada and Washington (expansion of previous rights)
    • Passed: Austria (without joint adoption)
  • Limited Partnership laws:
    • Passed and Came into effect: US states of Colorado and Wisconsin
  • Abroad Union recognition: Japan, US district of Washington, D.C.
  • Same-sex couple adoption legalisation: Finland (step adoption), UK Subdivision of Scotland
  • Banning of Same-sex marriage: Maine
  • Anti-discrimination legislation: Serbia and US state of Delaware (private sector, sexual orientation), USA Matthew Shepard Act.
  • End to ban on gay people in the military: Argentina, Philippines and Uruguay
  • Other: Iceland elects the first openly gay head of government in the world, Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir; On 10 March 2009, in Tel Aviv, Uzi Even and his life partner was the first same-sex male couple in Israel whose right of adoption has been legally acknowledged.; (26 May), the California Supreme Court upholds Proposition 8, the ballot initiative that banned same-sex marriage in November 2008, with a 6–1 vote; the Canadian province of Alberta becomes the last province to include the words "sexual orientation" in the Human Rights Act; Washington state voters approve keeping same-sex relationship rights as Domestic Partnerships by 51 percent; (12 Dec), Annise Parker is elected mayor of Houston, Texas, which becomes the largest city in the United States with an openly gay mayor Welsh rugby star Gareth Thomas becomes the first known top-level professional male athlete in a team sport to come out while still active.
  • Diego Sanchez became the first openly transgender person to work on Capitol Hill; he was hired as a legislative assistant for Barney Frank. Sanchez was also the first transgender person on the Democratic National Committee's (DNC) Platform Committee in 2008.
  • Barbra "Babs" Siperstein was nominated and confirmed as an at-large member of the Democratic National Committee, becoming its first openly transgender member.
  • Carol Ann Duffy was chosen as the first openly lesbian or gay Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom.
  • In October 2009, LGBT activist Amy Andre was appointed as executive director of the San Francisco Pride Celebration Committee, making her San Francisco Pride's first openly bisexual woman of color executive director.
  • The International Transgender Day of Visibility was founded by Michigan-based transgender activist Rachel Crandall in 2009 as a reaction to the lack of LGBT holidays celebrating transgender people, citing the frustration that the only well-known transgender-centered holiday was the Transgender Day of Remembrance which mourned the loss of transgender people to hate crimes, but did not acknowledge and celebrate living members of the transgender community.

2010

• Same-sex marriage laws:
  • Passed and came into effect: Portugal (without joint adoption), Iceland (with joint adoption) and Argentina (with adoption)
  • Came into effect: Mexican City of Mexico City (with joint adoption), US state of New Hampshire (step adoption only) and Washington, D.C.
  • Recognition: The Mexican Supreme Court rules that marriages contracted in Mexico City are valid throughout the country, although no other jurisdiction is required to perform them. Australian State of Tasmania recognises same-marriages performed in other jurisdictions.
  • Other: U.S. state of California, United States District Judge Vaughn Walker strikes down California's Proposition 8 as violative of the United States Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses.
• Civil Union/Registered Partnership laws:
  • Came into effect: Austria (without adoption and IVF access rights)
  • Passed: Ireland (without adoption rights)
• Limited Partnership laws:
  • Passed and came into effect: Australian state of New South Wales (without joint adoption until Sep 2010)
• Same-sex couple adoption legislation: Australian state of New South Wales and Denmark
• End to ban of same-sex couple adoption: US states of Arkansas and Florida
• End to ban of gay people in the military: Serbia
• End to ban of trans people in the military: Australia
• Decriminalisation of homosexuality: Fiji
• Marches and Prides: the first ever legal gay pride parade in Russia, held in St. Petersburg
• Guinness World Records recognized transgender man Thomas Beatie as the world's "First Married Man to Give Birth."
• Amanda Simpson became the first openly transgender presidential appointee in America when she was appointed as senior technical adviser in the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security.
• Kye Allums became the first openly transgender athlete to play in NCAA basketball. He was a transgender man who played on George Washington University's women's team.
• Victoria Kolakowski became the first openly transgender judge in America.
• Mary Albing became the first openly lesbian minister ordained by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, serving the Lutheran Church of Christ the Redeemer on the south side of Minneapolis.
• Chai Feldblum, who was openly lesbian, became the first openly LGBT person to serve on the EEOC.
• Donna Ryu became the first Asian-American woman, first Korean American, and first lesbian to be appointed as a judge of the United States District Court, Northern District of California.

2011

• Same-sex marriage laws:
  • Passed and came into effect: New York and the Suquamish Tribe
  • India's first married lesbian couple: LGBT rights in India (July 2011)
• Civil Union/Registered Partnership laws:
  • Came into effect: Ireland (without adoption rights)
  • Passed and came into effect: Isle of Man (with joint adoption), US State of Illinois (with joint adoption rights), Rhode Island and Liechtenstein
  • Passed: US State of Delaware (came into effect 2013) and Hawaii (came into effect Jan 2012)
• End to ban on openly gay, lesbian, and bisexual people in the military: USA (see Don't Ask, don't tell)
• Tony Briffa, believed to be the world’s first intersex mayor, elected in the City of Hobsons Bay in the suburbs of Melbourne, Australia, at the end of November.
• Elio Di Rupo, first openly-gay male head of government, becomes Prime Minister of Belgium, 6 December.
• Chaz Bono appeared on the 13th season of the US version of Dancing with the Stars in 2011. This was the first time an openly transgender man starred on a major network television show for something unrelated to being transgender.
• Harmony Santana became the first openly transgender actress to receive a major acting award nomination; she was nominated by the Independent Spirit Awards as Best Supporting Actress for the movie Gun Hill Road.
• The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) voted to allow the ordination of openly gay and lesbian ministers.
• Rachel Isaacs became the first openly lesbian rabbi ordained by the Conservative movement’s Jewish Theological Seminary.
• Petty Officer 2nd Class Marissa Gaeta of California and Petty Officer 3rd Class Citlalic Snell of Los Angeles became the first same-sex couple chosen to share the first kiss upon a U.S. Navy ship's return.
• Brenda Sue Fulton was named to the West Point Board of Visitors, making her the first openly gay member of the board that advises the Academy.
• Brooke (last name withheld) was hired as the New York Fire Department's first openly transgender employee.
• Miss New York, Claire Buffie, became the first Miss America contestant to campaign for the Miss America title on a gay rights platform.
• Jaiyah "Johnny" Saelua became the first openly transgender international footballer to play in the World Cup when she took the field for American Samoa in Oceania’s first round of World Cup qualifiers for Brazil 2014.
• A resolution submitted by South Africa requesting a study on discrimination and sexual orientation (A/HRC/17/L.9/Rev.1) passed, 23 to 19 with 3 abstentions, in the UN Human Rights Council on 17 June 2011. This is the first time that any United Nations body approved a resolution affirming the rights of LGBT people.
• Fred Karger began his unsuccessful run for the 2012 Republican nomination for President, which made him America’s first openly gay Republican presidential candidate.
• After the passage of equal marriage in the State of New York, the Research Library at the Buffalo History Museum in Buffalo, N.Y. became the first known library in the United States to collect wedding memorabilia from legally-wed same-sex couples.
• Before the "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy was enacted in 1993, lesbians and bisexual women and gay men and bisexual men were banned from serving in the military. In 1993 the "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy was enacted, which mandated that the military could not ask servicemembers about their sexual orientation. However, until the policy was ended in 2011 service members were still expelled from the military if they engaged in sexual conduct with a member of the same sex, stated that they were lesbian, gay, or bisexual, and/or married or attempted to marry someone of the same sex.

2012

Kyrsten Sinema became the first openly bisexual person elected to the U.S. Congress in 2012.

• Same-sex marriage laws:
  • Passed and came into effect: Denmark, Mexican state of Quintana Roo, the Port Gamble S'Klallam Tribe, U.S. states of Maine and Washington
  • Passed: U.S. state of Maryland
• Civil Union/Registered Partnership laws:
  • Came into effect: U.S. State of Hawaii
• Decriminalisation of homosexuality: Lesotho and São Tomé and Príncipe
• Anti-discrimination legislation:
  • For sexual orientation and gender identity: Chile
• The first gay Israeli couple was granted a divorce by an Israeli family court. The divorce of Tel Aviv University Professor Avi Even, the first openly gay Knesset member, and Dr. Amit Kama was granted on Sunday by the Ramat Gan Family Court, according to Haaretz, which ordered the Interior Minister to register their status as divorced.
• The U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development's Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity issued a regulation to prohibit LGBT discrimination in federally assisted housing programs. The new regulations ensure that the Department's core housing programs are open to all eligible persons, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.
• Katie Ricks became the first open lesbian ordained by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
• Barack Obama became the first U.S. president to publicly announce support for same-sex marriage on 9 May.
• Taiwan's first same-sex Buddhist wedding was held for Fish Huang and her partner You Ya-ting, with Buddhist master Shih Chao-hui presiding over the ritual.
• City Councilmember Marlene Pray joined the Doylestown, Pennsylvania council in 2012, though she resigned in 2013; she was the first openly bisexual office holder in Pennsylvania.
• Tammy Baldwin was elected as the first openly lesbian or gay U.S. Senator.
• Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) became the first openly bisexual person elected to the US Congress.
• Stacie Laughton became the first openly transgender person elected to any American state legislature when she won a seat in the New Hampshire House of Representatives. However, she resigned from the New Hampshire state legislature before she took office, after it was revealed that she had served four months in Belknap County House of Corrections following a 2008 credit card fraud conviction.
• San Francisco voted to become the first U.S. city to provide and cover the cost of sex reassignment surgeries for uninsured transgender residents.
• Mark Pocan was elected in Wisconsin’s 2nd Congressional District, becoming the first openly gay candidate who will follow an openly gay member of the U.S. Congress (in this case Tammy Baldwin).
• Sean Patrick Maloney became the first openly gay candidate elected to represent New York in Congress.
• Mark Takano became the first openly gay person of color to win election to the U.S. House. He was elected to represent California’s 41st Congressional District.
• Josh Boschee was elected as North Dakota's first openly gay legislator.
• Stephen Skinner was elected as West Virginia's first openly gay state legislator.
• Jacob Candelaria was elected as New Mexico's first openly gay male state legislator.
• Brian Sims became Pennsylvania's first openly gay state legislator who was out when he was elected.
• After Brian Sims was elected but before he took office, Rep. Mike Fleck came out as gay, making him Pennsylvania's first openly gay state legislator.
• David Richardson was elected as Florida's first openly gay state legislator.
• Colorado Democrats elected Mark Ferrandino as the first openly gay House speaker in state history.
• Tina Kotek was elected the first openly gay House speaker in the State of Oregon.
• Maine, Maryland, and Washington became the first states to pass same-sex marriage by popular vote. Maine was the very first state to do so, followed by Maryland.
• The first same-sex marriage at the U.S. Military Academy was held for a young lieutenant and her partner (Ellen Schick and Shannon Simpson) at the Old Cadet Chapel in West Point’s cemetery.
• The first same-sex marriage at the U.S. Military Academy's Cadet Chapel at West Point (not to be confused with the Old Cadet Chapel) was held for Brenda Sue Fulton and Penelope Dara Gnesin. Fulton was a veteran and the communications director of an organization called Outserve, which represents actively serving gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender military personnel.
• The first same-sex couple became engaged in the White House (Ben Schock and Matthew Phelps).
• Air Force Col. Ginger Wallace became the first known out member of the U.S. military to have their same-sex partner participate in the pinning ceremony tradition that had been reserved for spouses and family members. Her partner of 10 years, Kathy Knopf, pinned colonel wings on Wallace days after the two attended President Obama's State of The Union address as a guest of the First Lady.
• At a ceremony in Arlington, Army Reserve officer Tammy Smith became the first openly gay, active duty general in American history. Smith was promoted to brigadier general at a private ceremony at the Women's Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery.
• Navy Chief Elny McKinney and Anacelly McKinney became the first known same-sex couple to marry on a U.S. military base. They were wed at Naval Base Point Loma in San Diego.
• Kate McKinnon became Saturday Night Live's first openly lesbian cast member; Danitra Vance never disclosed her sexual orientation publicly, but was revealed to be a lesbian when she died.
• On 28 June 2012 Diana King declared "Yes I am a Lesbian" to her fans from her official Facebook page, thus becoming the first Jamaican artist to ever publicly come out.
• California became the first state to sign a ban on therapy that claims to convert gay people into heterosexual. The California law, enacted in 2012, is as of 2013 held up in federal courts on first amendment grounds.
• Orlando Cruz became the world's first professional boxer to come out as gay.
• On 18 September 2012, Berkeley, California became the first city in the U.S. to officially proclaim a day recognizing bisexuals. The Berkeley City Council unanimously and without discussion declared 23 September as Bisexual Pride and Bi Visibility Day.
• Emily Aviva Kapor, an American rabbi who had been ordained privately by a "Conservadox" rabbi in 2005, began living as a woman in 2012, thus becoming the first openly transgender female rabbi.
• Rainbow Jews, an oral history project showcasing the lives of Jewish bisexual, lesbian, gay, and transgender people in the United Kingdom from the 1950s until the present, was launched. It is the United Kingdom's first archive of Jewish bisexual, lesbian, gay, and transgender history.
• In November 2012, the Southern Poverty Law Center filed a lawsuit against JONAH (a Jewish ex-gay organization), Goldberg, and Downing on behalf of Unger, Levin, two other participants, and two of the participants' mothers for fraudulent practices which are illegal under New Jersey's consumer protection laws. The Southern Poverty Law Center noted that the lawsuit was "groundbreaking" insofar as it was the first time a conversion therapy provider has been sued for fraudulent business practices.
• ParaNorman, released in 2012, had the first openly gay character in a mainstream animated film.
• In 2012, the Bisexuality Report, the first report of its kind in the United Kingdom, was issued. This report, led by Meg Barker (Senior Lecturer in Psychology, OU), Rebecca Jones (Lecturer, Health & Social Care, OU), Christina Richards, and Helen Bowes-Catton and Tracey Plowman (of BiUK) summarizes national and international evidence and brings out recommendations for bisexual inclusion in the future.

2013

• Same-sex marriage laws:
  • Passed and came into effect: New Zealand, Uruguay, Brazil [nationwide], France, Brazilian states of Ceará, Paraná, Mato Grosso do Sul, Rio de Janeiro, Rondônia, Santa Catarina and Paraíba, the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians, the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes, the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, the Grand Portage Band of Chippewa and the Iipay Nation of Santa Ysabel, the U.S. states of Delaware, Rhode Island, Minnesota, New Jersey, Hawaii and New Mexico
  • Restored: California
  • Passed: England and Wales and US state of Illinois
  • Passed but then overturned: Australian Capital Territory
  • Came into effect: U.S. State of Maryland
  • Recognition: The Supreme Court of the United States ruled Section 3 of Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional, thus giving same-sex marriage federal recognition. US state of Oregon
• Civil Union/Registered Partnership laws:
  • Passed and came into effect: Mexican state of Campeche
  • Came into effect: U.S. State of Colorado
• Limited Partnership laws:
  • Passed and came into effect: Costa Rica
• Same-sex couple adoption legalisation: New Zealand and France
• Recriminalisation of homosexuality: India
• Anti-discrimination legislation:
  • For sexual orientation and gender identity: Cyprus and Puerto Rico
  • For gender identity: US state of Delaware
• Anti-discrimination executive action: US state of Virginia
• Barack Obama mentioned the word "gay" and the issue of gay rights for the first time in a speech at the U.S. presidential swearing in; specifically, he did so in his inaugural address.
• Kathleen Wynne became the first openly LGBT premier of a Canadian province, namely Ontario, after defeating Sandra Pupatello in the third round of voting of the Ontario Liberal party's leadership race on 26 January 2013. Sworn in on 11 February 2013, she is the party's first openly LGBT leader and Ontario's first female premier.
• Robbie Rogers announced he was gay on 15 February 2013, becoming the only male fully capped international association footballer to do so.
• Jason Collins on 29 April 2013, became the first active male professional athlete in a major North American team sport to publicly come out as gay.
• Rep. Mark Pocan's spouse Philip Frank became the first same-sex spouse of a federal lawmaker to officially receive a House Spouse ID. In 2009, Marlon Reis, the spouse of Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.), was issued a congressional spouse ID, but later card services told him that he had been given the designation accidentally.
• Philadelphia passes one of the most comprehensive transgender rights bills on the city level, which addresses transgender bathroom use and city employee healthcare, making it the first city on the east coast to provide transition related healthcare to its city employees.
• For the first time the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs decided to allow the same-sex spouse of a military veteran to be buried in a U.S. national cemetery. VA Secretary Eric Shinseki gave permission for retired Air Force officer Linda Campbell, 66, to bury the ashes of her same-sex spouse Nancy Lynchild at Willamette National Cemetery in Oregon.
• Autumn Sandeen, a U.S. veteran and transgender woman, received a letter from a Navy official stating, "Per your request the Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System (DEERS) has been updated to show your gender as female effective 12 April 2013." Allyson Robinson of Outserve declared, "To our knowledge, this is the first time that the Department of Defense has recognized and affirmed a change of gender for anyone affiliated, in a uniformed capacity — in this case a military retiree."
• The first same-sex kiss ever on a Eurovision stage occurred at the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest when Krista Siegfrids, who sang "Marry Me", ended her semi-final performance by kissing one of her female dancers.
• Dr. Saul Levin was named on 15 May 2013 as the new chief executive officer and medical director of the American Psychiatric Association, making him the first known openly gay person to head the APA.
• Ukraine had its first gay pride march, which was held in Kiev.
• Robbie Rogers joined the Los Angeles Galaxy, making him the first openly gay male athlete to compete in Major League Soccer.
• Rehana Kausar and Sobia Kamar, both from Pakistan, became the first Muslim lesbian couple to enter into civil partnership in the United Kingdom.
• Fallon Fox came out as transgender, thus becoming the first openly transgender athlete in mixed martial arts history.
• Jallen Messersmith of Benedictine College in Atchison, Kan., came out and is believed to be the first openly gay player in U.S. men's college basketball.
• Guy Erwin became the first openly gay bishop to be elected by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America; he was elected to the Southwest California Synod of the ELCA.
• Major General Patricia "Trish" Rose became the first openly lesbian two-star general in the U.S. Air Force, and the highest ranking openly gay officer in the entire U.S. military at the time.
• Kristin Beck, formerly Chris Beck, came out as the first openly transgender retired Navy SEAL.
• The Bi Writers Association, which promotes bisexual writers, books, and writing, announced the winners of its first Bisexual Book Awards. An awards ceremony was held at the Nuyorican Poets Café in New York City.
• The U.S. Senate confirmed Nitza Quiñones Alejandro to a federal judgeship, making her the first openly gay Latina to hold such a post.
• Cason Crane became the first openly gay man to summit the Seven Summits and the first the bring the rainbow flag to the summit of Mount Everest.
• U.S. Air Force Under Secretary Eric Fanning took over as acting secretary of the U.S. Air Force, becoming the highest ranking openly LGBT official at the Department of Defense; he is openly gay.
• The Directors Guild Of America elected Paris Barclay as its first black and first openly gay president.
• Julian Marsh and Traian Povov become the first married gay couple to have a green card application approved, in this case for Julian Marsh.
• Kristin Perry and Sandra Stier became the first same-sex couple to be married in California since Proposition 8 was overturned.
• Daniel Kawczynski became the first MP in Britain to come out as bisexual.
• A married lesbian couple in Colorado became the first to receive a marriage-based green card, making Cathy Davis the first same-sex spouse to become a lawful permanent resident of the United States.
• Maureen Le Marinel became the first openly lesbian union president elected in Britain. She was elected to the presidency of Unison, one of Britain's largest trade unions.
• Same Love, a hit single from Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, became the first Top 40 song in the U.S. to promote and celebrate same-sex marriage.
• For the first time, the California Department of Education's list of recommended books for grades Pre-K-through-12 included a book with a transgender theme, I Am J by Cris Beam.
• Benjamin Medrano was elected as the first openly gay mayor in Mexico's history, being elected mayor of the township of Fresnillo.
• The first UFC match between two openly-gay fighters, Liz Carmouche and Jessica Andrade, was held.
• Although same-sex marriage was illegal in Pennsylvania in July 2013, in that month Loreen Bloodgood married Alicia Terrizzi, making them the first same-sex couple to marry in Pennsylvania; the Montgomery County register of wills, D. Bruce Hanes, had said that his office would issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
• Although same-sex marriage was illegal in Pennsylvania in August 2013, in that month Mayor John Fetterman officiated the first same-sex marriage in Allegheny County, between John Kandray and Bill Gray.
• California enacted America's first law protecting transgender students; the law, called the School Success and Opportunity Act, declares that every public school student in California from kindergarten to 12th grade must be "permitted to participate in sex-segregated school programs and activities, including athletic teams and competitions, and use facilities consistent with his or her gender identity, irrespective of the gender listed on the pupil’s records."
• New Jersey became the second state, after California, to sign a ban on therapy that claims to convert gay people into heterosexual. The California law, enacted in 2012, is as of 2013 held up in federal courts on first amendment grounds.
• Darren Young (real name: Fred Rosser) became the first active professional wrestler to come out as gay.
• Russia's government adopted a federal bill banning the distribution of "propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations" to minors. The law imposes heavy fines for using the media or internet to promote "non-traditional relations".
• Master Sgt. Angela Shunk and her wife, Tech. Sgt. Stacey Shunk, became the first same-sex couple to receive an assignment together under the U.S. Air Force’s Join Spouse program.
• Jennifer Pritzker came out as transgender in 2013 and thus became the world's first openly transgender billionaire.
• On Celebrate Bisexuality Day, the White House held a closed-door meeting with almost 30 bisexual advocates so they could meet with government officials and discuss issues of specific importance to the bisexual community; this was the first bi-specific event ever hosted by any White House.
• Movie director Kim Jho Gwang-soo and his partner Kim Seung-hwan became the first South Korean gay couple to publicly wed, although it was not a legally recognized marriage.
• Harvey Milk was chosen as the first openly LGBT political official to be featured on an American postage stamp.
• Carol McCrory and Brenda Clark became the first same-sex couple to have their marriage application accepted by Buncombe County Register of Deeds Drew Resigner, which makes them the first same-sex couple to have their marriage application accepted in the South.
• Andy Herren became the first openly gay winner of the American version of the "Big Brother" reality show.
• The first gay pride parade in Montenegro was held.
• The first gay pride week in Curacao was held.
• The first Indo-American lesbian wedding was held. It was held in Los Angeles.
• The first televised Romanian same-sex wedding was held. It was between two men, and was done on the reality show Four Weddings and a Challenge.
• The Portland Trailblazers became the first NBA team to support same-sex marriage.
• Todd Hughes became the first openly gay U.S. circuit judge.
• The first United Nations ministerial meeting on the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals was held. Representatives from the US, France, Argentina, Brazil, Croatia, the Netherlands, Norway, Japan, New Zealand and the EU, along with executive directors of Human Rights Watch and the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission reaffirmed their commitments to working together to end discrimination and violence towards the LGBT community. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay delivered remarks [press release] commending the LGBT community and praising the fact that, "many countries have embarked on historic reforms—strengthening anti-discrimination laws, combating hate crime against LGBT people and sensitizing public opinion."
• New Jersey held its first legal same-sex marriages.
• Jamie Miranda Nichols (née Glistenburg), of Missouri, on 20 May 2013 had case 13AR-CV00240 reviewed by the Missouri courts on the matter of gender affirmation and recognition. In a swift and subtle manner Justice Russell E. Steele effectively silenced Mo. Ann. Stat. § 193.215(9), with said law remaining on the books until formally repealed by order of a federal court or by legislative action. The ruling in 13AR-CV00240 that silences Mo. Ann. Stat. § 193.215(9) reads, in brief, as follows, "...it is found that said request of relief is proper and that such change will not be detrimental to the interest of any persons, nor be against the interest of the state or of any given establishment ... Wherefore, the court understands that select circumstances, such as this case, require judicial intervention in order to prevent discrimination. Moreover, the explicit requirement of surgical procedures or medications that may be deemed unsuitable, dangerous, or unnecessary to the Petitioner by medical assertion shall be given relief notwithstanding Mo. Ann. Stat. § 193.215(9)..." By virtue of the judicial precedent established in the case of 13AR-CV00240 there are many individuals and lawyers seeking similar relief in other cases, including the invalidation of similar restrictive laws in other states.
• Rabbi Deborah Waxman was elected as the President of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. As the President, she is believed to be the first woman and first lesbian to lead a Jewish congregational union, and the first female rabbi and first lesbian to lead a Jewish seminary; RRC is both a congregational union and a seminary.
• A six-year-old girl named Luana, who was born a boy, became the first transgender child in Argentina to have her new name officially changed on her identity documents. She is believed to be the youngest to benefit from the country’s new Gender Identity Law, which was approved in May 2012.
• Q Radio, which went on the airwaves in September, claims to be India’s first radio station which caters to the country’s lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people.
• Jennifer Finney Boylan was chosen as the first openly transgender co-chair of GLAAD's National Board of Directors.
• On 31 October 2013 Paris Lees became the first openly transgender panellist to appear on the BBC's Question Time programme, drawing praise from commentators who included former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott and the Labour Party deputy leader Harriet Harman.
• Stephen Alexander, of Rhode Island, became the first high school coach to come out publicly as transgender.
• Nikki Sinclaire came out as transgender, thus becoming the United Kingdom’s first openly transgender Parliamentarian.
• San Francisco's first Project Homeless Connect for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people was held.
• Lucy Vallender converted to Islam, thus becoming the United Kingdom's first openly transgender Muslim woman.
• Mark C. Goldman became the first openly gay president of the American Conference of Cantors, a Reform Jewish organization.
• Ben Barres became the first openly transgender scientist in the US National Academy of Sciences in 2013.
• On 1 November Audrey Gauthier was elected president of CUPE 4041, representing Air Transat flight attendants based in Montreal. She thus became the first openly transgender person elected president of a union local in Canada.
• Publication of the first parliamentary report on the human rights and health of intersex people, published by the Australian Senate on 25 October.
• BiLaw, the first American national organization of bisexual lawyers, law professors, law students, and their allies, was founded.
• Homecoming Queens at Calabasas High School

2014

• Same-sex marriage laws:
  • Passed and came into effect: Scotland, US states of Oregon, Pennsylvania, Utah, Oklahoma, Virginia, Wisconsin, Indiana, Colorado, Nevada, Idaho, West Virginia, North Carolina, Alaska, Arizona, Wyoming, Kansas, South Carolina, Montana, the Mexican state of Coahuila, the Puyallup Tribe of Indians, the Lac du Flambeau of Lake Superior Chippewa, the Fort McDermitt Paiute and Shoshone Tribes of the Fort McDermitt Indian Reservation, the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation, the Pascua Yaqui Tribe, the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, the San Carlos Apache Tribe, the Wind River Indian Reservation, the Blackfoot Tribe and the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community
  • Passed: Luxembourg
  • Came into effect: England and Wales and US state of Illinois
• Civil Union/Registered Partnership laws:
  • Passed and came into effect: Gibraltar (with joint adoption), Malta (with joint adoption) and Croatia
  • Passed: Estonia
• Same-sex couple adoption legislation: Andorra, the Mexican state of Coahuila
• Decriminalisation of homosexuality: Lebanon, Northern Cyprus and Palau
• Criminalisation of homosexuality: Brunei
• The first same-sex marriage at the Rose parade was held, for Aubrey Loots and Danny LeClair.
• Meghan Stabler became the first openly transgender woman to be named Working Mother magazine's Working Mother of the Year.
• Conner Mertens, Willamette University's kicker, became the first active college football player to come out as LGBT; he came out as bisexual.
• Good Luck Charlie on The Disney Channel became the first TV show on a child-targeting network to feature a same-sex couple (the characters' names were Susan and Cheryl).
• Starkville became the first city in Mississippi to pass a resolution supporting the LGBT community; the resolution states that the city does not condone discrimination of any kind, including any against its citizens for their sexual orientation or gender identity.
• Scotland passed the Marriage and Civil Partnership (Scotland) Bill, which will legalize same-sex marriages in the country when it comes into effect towards the end of 2014.
• The Bisexual Resource Center, based in Boston, Massachusetts, declared March 2014 as the first Bisexual Health Awareness Month, with the theme "Bi the Way, Our Health Matters Too!"; it included the first social media campaign to address disparities in physical and mental health facing the bisexual community.
• Queen Elizabeth II praised the London Lesbian and Gay Switchboard for their 40-year history making it the first time the Crown has ever publicly supported the LGBT community. They received a comment from the Queen saying: "Best wishes and congratulations to all concerned on this most special anniversary."
• Denmark became the first European country to remove the Gender Identity Disorder diagnosis as a necessary requirement in the gender recognition process.
• Toni Atkins was elected as the first openly lesbian speaker of the California Assembly.
• Judith Ellen Levy was confirmed by the Senate as the first openly lesbian federal judge in Michigan.
• Gypsy Vered Meltzer was elected to the City Council in Appleton; as such he became the first openly transgender elected official in Wisconsin.
• Anna Guillot and Chrissy Kelly, who were married in New York in 2012, became the first same-sex couple in Mississippi to create a public record of their marriage, which they did by paying to record their marriage license from New York at the Rankin County Chancery Clerk’s Office in Brandon, Mississippi. However, this did not give their marriage legal standing in Mississippi.
• The marriage of Giuseppe Chigiotti and Stefano Bucci became the first overseas same-sex marriage to be legally recognized in Italy; the two were married in New York in 2012.
• Berlin, Germany unveiled the world's first cemetery for lesbians.
• Umma Azul was the first child of a lesbian couple to be baptized by the Catholic Church in Argentina.
• Emilia Maria Jesty, daughter of a lesbian couple, was the first child born in Tennessee to have a woman listed on the birth certificate as her "father."
• UMass basketball player Derrick Gordon came out, thus becoming the first openly gay player in Division I college men's basketball.
• Jeremy Pemberton married Laurence Cunnington, and thus Pemberton became the first priest in the Church of England to defy the Church's ban on gay clergy marrying.
• Michael Sam was drafted by the St. Louis Rams and thus became the first openly gay player to be drafted into the National Football League.
• The world's first homoerotic stamps were produced in Finland, celebrating one of the country's most famous artists - Tom of Finland. Art critic Estelle Lovatt says "the stamps are a 'great statement' given that the country bans gay marriage".
• In March 2014, same-sex marriage was legalized in Michigan, and Glenna DeJong and Marsha Caspar became the first same-sex couple married in Michigan; however, later that year the overturning of Michigan's ban on same-sex marriage was indefinitely stayed.
• In May 2014, same-sex marriage was legalized in Arkansas, and Kristin Seaton and Jennifer Rambo became the first same-sex couple married in Arkansas: later that year, same-sex marriage in Arkansas was suspended by the Arkansas Supreme Court.
• In May 2014, same-sex marriage was legalized in Oregon, and Deanna Geiger and Janine Nelson became the first same-sex couple to marry in Oregon.
• The U.S. Naval Academy Chapel's first-ever same-sex wedding was held for David Bucher, a 49-year-old Academy graduate who works at the Pentagon, and partner Bruce Moats.
• Costa Rica flew the gay pride flag at their presidential palace; the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission said the organization believed it was the first time the gay pride flag had been flown from the offices of a head of state in the Americas.
• The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs agreed to give survivor benefits to the first-known same-sex war widow, Tracy Dice Johnson, whose wife Donna Johnson died in a suicide bombing attack in 2012.
• Laverne Cox was on the cover of the 9 June 2014 issue of Time, and was interviewed for the article "The Transgender Tipping Point" by Katy Steinmetz, which ran in that issue and the title of which was also featured on the cover; this makes Cox the first openly transgender person on the cover of Time.
• Both lesbian parents were listed on their children's birth certificates in Australia, which is the first time an Australian birth certificate indicates that both members of a same-sex couple were the legal parents of a child at birth.
• Best Bi Short Stories, the first book of its type, was published; it was edited by Sheela Lambert, who contributed the story Memory Lane.
• Cyprus' first ever gay pride parade draws several thousands of participants.
• Same-sex marriage was legalized in Pennsylvania.
• Carlos Bruce came out and thus became the first openly gay member of Congress in Peru.
• Same-sex marriage was legalized in Wisconsin, but later that year same-sex marriages in Wisconsin were put on hold while the ruling striking down the state's ban on such unions was appealed.
• Idaho's same-sex marriage ban was declared unconstitutional, but another court stayed the ruling.
• The United Church of Christ filed a lawsuit challenging North Carolina’s ban on same-sex marriage, which is America’s first faith-based challenge to same-sex marriage bans; the Central Conference of American Rabbis and the Alliance of Baptists joined the lawsuit later that year.
• Lynne Brown was appointed as the first openly gay cabinet minister in South Africa, which also makes her the first openly gay person to be appointed to a cabinet post in any African government.
• Zakhele Mbhele became the first openly gay person to serve in South Africa's parliament, which also makes him the first openly gay black member of parliament in any African nation.
• Maite Oronoz Rodriguez became the first openly gay person to be nominated for a seat on Puerto Rico's Supreme Court, and was confirmed for the seat later that year.
• Darrin P. Gayles became the first openly gay African-American man to be confirmed as a U.S federal judge.
• The book Bisexuality: Making the Invisible Visible in Faith Communities, the first book of its kind, was published. It is by Marie Alford-Harkey and Debra W. Haffner.
• Transgender Studies Quarterly', the first non-medical academic journal devoted to transgender issues, began publication in 2014, with Susan Stryker and Paisley Currah as coeditors.
• Petra De Sutter became the first openly transgender person to serve in Belgium's Parliament, specifically its Senate.
• Britain's first Jewish lesbian marriage was held for Nicola Pettit, who is Jewish, and her girlfriend Tania Ward, in a ceremony which contained Jewish elements. They married in Brighton Town Hall, in southern England, and then had their union blessed by a rabbi. It was the first same-sex wedding involving a Jewish person since the same-sex marriage Act came into force.
• Toni Atkins served as acting governor of California for a day after Governor Jerry Brown left for a trade mission to Mexico, Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom flew to the east coast for a Special Olympics appearance, and Senate President Pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg was in Chicago for personal business. She thus became California's first openly gay governor on that day.
• Laverne Cox became the first openly transgender person to be nominated for an Emmy in an acting category: Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for her role as Sophia Burset in Orange Is the New Black.
• Yein Kai Yee and Sutpreedee Chinithigun, both British citizens, were married at the British Embassy in Vietnam, thus becoming the first same-sex British couple to marry in Vietnam.
• The Transgender Trends panel was the first panel on that subject ever held at San Diego Comic-Con.
• Gordon Stevenson and Peter Fraser, a dual Australian/British citizen, were the first to be married in Australia under British same-sex marriage laws; they were married at the British consulate in Sydney, Australia.
• The first Jewish boat participated in the Amsterdam Pride Canal Parade. Dana International was on the boat, as well as the Fokkens twins (Louise Fokkens and Martine Fokkens), who are famous in the Netherlands for having worked 50 years as sex workers in Amsterdam’s Red Light District before their retirement earlier in 2014. Marianne van Praag, a Reform rabbi from The Hague, was the only rabbi aboard.
• The first Moroccan boat participated in the Amsterdam Pride Canal Parade.
• Cosmopolitan magazine, a women's magazine, offered sex advice to lesbians for the first time in its history.
• Pascal Tessier, a 17-year-old from Chevy Chase, Md., became the first known openly gay Boy Scout to be an Eagle Scout.
• The 100 block of Turk Street was renamed Vicki Mar Lane after trans activist Vicki Marlane; this was the first time in San Francisco history for a street to be named after a transgender icon.
• The United Church of Christ was the first religious denomination to be a major sponsor of the Gay Games, as a fourth-tier silver sponsor of Gay Games 9.
• The Cleveland Foundation was the first presenting sponsor in the history of the Gay Games.
• Istanbul Pride, the largest pride parade in a Muslim country, attracted hundreds of thousands of people.
• Edward Sarafin, a backup offensive lineman at Arizona State, became the first active Division I football player to come out as gay.
• Florida based bank C1 Financial became the first publicly listed bank in the United States to have an openly gay CEO (Trevor Burgess) when its stock became available to trade in August 2014.
• The San Francisco Police academy graduated its first openly transgender police officer, Mikayla Connell.
• Chris Mosier became the first openly transgender man inducted into the National Gay and Lesbian Sports Hall of Fame.
• BBC2 commissioned Britain’s first transgender sitcom, called Boy Meets Girl, which follows the developing relationship between Leo, a 26-year-old man and Judy, a 40-year-old transgender woman.
• Maria Walsh came out as gay after being crowned the Rose of Tralee, thus becoming the first openly gay Rose of Tralee.
• Mills College became the first single-sex college in the U.S. to adopt a policy explicitly welcoming transgender students.
• Mauricio Ruiz became the first serving member of the Chilean armed forces to announce he was gay.
• Canadian-based writer and illustrator Eiynah wrote Pakistan's first anti-homophobia children's book, "My Chacha Is Gay"; she first wrote it online and had it released in print in 2014.
• Hong Kong held its first international symposium on LGBTI rights.
• For the first time in Italian history, a court granted permission for the adoption of a child living with a gay couple. The child was the biological daughter of one of the women in the couple, and her partner was allowed to legally become her co-parent through adoption. The couple had been living together in Rome since 2003, and the decision was taken by Rome's Juvenile Court.
• The memorial honoring LGBT people persecuted by the Nazis in Tel Aviv, the first specific recognition in Israel for non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust, was unveiled in 2014.
• The 5th European Transgender Council Meeting was held in Budapest, Hungary – the first such conference to take place in Central and Eastern Europe.
• Mount Holyoke became the first Seven Sisters college to accept transgender students.
• Mikie Goldstein became the first openly gay man to be ordained as a Conservative Jewish Rabbi. Later that year he became the Israeli Conservative movement’s first openly gay congregational rabbi with his installation as spiritual leader of its synagogue in Rehovot (Congregation Adat Shalom-Emanuel).
• Monica Wehby aired the first campaign ad for American national office featuring a same-sex couple (Ben West and Paul Rummell).
• Kinnon MacKinnon became the first openly transgender man to earn a gold in powerlifting at the Gay Games in the 2014 Games.
• ICEIS Rain became the first openly two-spirit person to perform at the Aboriginal Peoples Choice Music Awards.
• Jim Ferlo came out as gay, thus becoming the Pennsylvania Senate's first openly gay legislator.
• Padmini Prakash became India’s first openly transgender television news anchor.
• The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed two lawsuits against companies accused of discriminating against employees on the basis of gender identity; these lawsuits were the first Title VII action taken by the federal government on behalf of transgender workers. The lawsuits were filed for Amiee Stephens and Brandi Branson, both transgender women.
• The UN Human Rights Council adopted a second resolution related to sexual orientation and gender identity on 26 September 2014. It passed by a vote of 25-14 and is the first time in the Council’s history that it adopted a resolution on LGBT rights with the majority of its members.
• In 2014 California became the first state in the U.S. to officially ban the use of trans panic and gay panic defenses in murder trials.
• Luisa Revilla Urcia became the first openly transgender person elected to a public office in Peru when she won a seat on the local council in La Esperanza in the province of Trujillo in northwestern Peru.
• The Arizona Interscholastic Association Executive Board approved the first transgender student-athlete to play in a winter sport in Arizona.
• Family Circle featured a same-sex couple for the first time in its November 2014 issue.
• Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple Inc., came out as gay, thus becoming the first openly gay CEO on the Fortune 500 list.
• Professional strongman Rob Kearney came out as gay, thus becoming the first openly gay man actively competing in professional, international strongman competitions.
• Maura Healey became the first openly gay state attorney general elected in America (she was elected attorney general of Massachusetts.)
• The FTM Fitness Conference hosted the first bodybuilding competition for transgender men, the FTM Fitness World Bodybuilding Competition.
• Susan Collins won reelection, thus becoming the first Republican senator to be reelected while supporting same-sex marriage.
• Lea T became the face of American hair-care brand Redken, thus making her the first openly transgender model to front a global cosmetics brand.
• Edgars Rinkēvičs became the first lawmaker in Latvia to announce he is gay, which also makes him the most prominent openly gay politician in a former Soviet Bloc state.
• A national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention campaign featured an openly transgender person, Jennifer Barge, as its spokesperson for the first time.
• Aditi Hardikar became the first woman of color to serve the White House as their permanent liaison to the LGBT community. She replaced Monique Dorsainvil who had served as the temporary liaison after Gautam Raghavan resigned.
• A contingent of the group OutVets became the first LGBT organization in history to march in Boston’s Veterans Day parade.
• At least 1,000 openly transgender Bangladeshis held Bangladesh's first pride march, to mark one year since the government recognized them as a third gender.
• Derrick Gordon became the first openly gay athlete to play a game in Division I men’s basketball.
• Dale Scott came out as gay in 2014, thus becoming the first openly gay umpire in Major League Baseball.
• Poland elected its first openly gay city mayor (Robert Biedroń, elected mayor of Słupsk.)
• Matthew Muir was sworn in as the first openly gay judge to sit on New Zealand’s High Court bench.
• The Labor government in Victoria, Australia appointed Martin Foley as Minister of equality, marking the first time an Australian government has ever had a dedicated Minister overseeing gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex issues.
• In 2014, Robbie Rogers became the first openly gay male athlete to win a big-time team pro sports title in the United States when the LA Galaxy won the Major League Soccer Cup.
• Andrew Barr became the first openly gay state government leader in Australia after he was sworn in as chief minister of the Australian Capital Territory (ACT).
• Nehirim's first retreat for LGBT rabbis, rabbinic pastors, cantors, and students was held.
• Craig Friesen and Matt Wiens became the first same-sex couple who were members of the Canadian Mennonite Church to have a wedding in their church.
• Neil Patrick Harris became the first openly gay man to be named as The Hasty Pudding Theatricals Man of the Year.
• In 2014 Los Tigres del Norte released the album Realidades, which contains the song "Era Diferente" (meaning "She Was Different") about a lesbian teenager who falls in love with her best friend; according to lead singer and songwriter Jorge Hernandez, this is the first time a norteño group has ever written a gay love song.
• In April 2014, Malta became the first European state to add recognition of gender identity to its constitution as a protected category.
• Blake Brockington became the first openly transgender high school homecoming king in North Carolina.
• Nina Chaubal and Greta Gustava Martela cofounded Trans Lifeline, the first U.S. suicide hotline dedicated to transgender people.
• Tona Brown became the first African-American openly transgender woman to perform at Carnegie Hall.
• The first openly transgender woman got married in Malta.
• On 14 October 2014 The First Transgender Homecoming King Mel Gonzales Lives in Sugar Land, Texas at Austin High School School

2015

• Same-sex marriage laws:
  • Passed and came into effect: United States [nationwide], the US state of Florida, the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Tribes of Alaska, the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians, the US territory of Guam, the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Guerrero and Nayarit
  • Came into effect: Luxembourg (with joint adoption)
  • Passed: Finland
• Civil Union/Registered Partnership laws:
  • Passed and came into effect: Chile, Ecuador (expansion)
  • Passed:Cyprus, Greece (expansion)
• Same-sex couple adoption legislation: Austria, Ireland
• Decriminalisation of homosexuality: Mozambique
• Madhu Kinnar became India’s first openly transgender person to be elected mayor; she was elected mayor of Chhattisgarh’s Raigarh Municipal Corporation.
• Health Minister Leo Varadkar of Ireland came out as gay, thus becoming the first openly gay government member in the history of Ireland.
• President Barack Obama became the first president to use the words "lesbian," "bisexual", and "transgender" in a State of the Union speech.
• Pennsylvania State Representative Mark B. Cohen introduced the first ever transgender rights bills in Pennsylvania's history.
• Zoey Tur joined INSIDE EDITION as a Special Correspondent during February, thus becoming the first openly transgender television reporter on national TV in America.
• Lance Bass and Michael Turchin became the first same-sex couple to exchange vows on cable television.
• Thomas Sawicki and his boyfriend Shawn Brier became the first male same-sex couple chosen to share the first kiss upon a U.S. Navy ship's return.
• On 12 February 2015, USA Today reported that the commandant of Fort Leavenworth wrote in a 5 February memo, "After carefully considering the recommendation that (hormone treatment) is medically appropriate and necessary, and weighing all associated safety and security risks presented, I approve adding (hormone treatment) to Inmate [Chelsea] Manning's treatment plan." According to USA Today, Chelsea Manning remains a soldier, and the decision to administer hormone therapy is a first for the U.S. Army.
• Kate Brown became the first openly bisexual governor in the United States, as governor of Oregon.
• Neil Patrick Harris became the first openly gay man to host the Academy Awards.
• The United States appointed Randy Berry as its first Special Envoy for the Human Rights of LGBT Persons.
• Screenwriter Jason Rothenberg of The 100 confirmed that that TV show's lead character, Clarke Griffin (played by Eliza Taylor) was bisexual; this makes her the first openly bisexual lead character on the CW network.
• The first gay groups (Boston Pride and OutVets) marched in Boston's St. Patrick's Day parade.
• In March 2015 Rabbi Denise Eger became the first openly gay president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, which is the largest and oldest rabbinical organization in North America.
• OUT@NBCUniversal, an organization of gay employees of NBCUniversal, became the first gay group to march in the New York City St. Patrick's Day parade.
• The D.C. Center for the LGBT Community became the first gay group to march in the Washington, D.C. St. Patrick's Day parade.
• In April 2015, Malta became the first country in the world to outlaw sterilization and invasive surgery on intersex people.
• In a first for the state, California's Department of Corrections was ordered by a federal judge to grant a transgender prisoner (Michelle-Lael Norsworthy) access to gender-affirming surgery.
• The inaugural White House Trans Women Of Color Women's History Month Briefing was held.
• The U.S. Justice Department announced that it had filed its first civil lawsuit on behalf of a transgender person (Rachel Tudor); the lawsuit was United States of America v. Southeastern Oklahoma State University and the Regional University System of Oklahoma, filed in federal court in that state.
• Mikhail Ivan Gallatinov and Mark Goodwin became the first couple to have a same-sex wedding in a U.K. prison after marrying at Full Sutton Prison in East Yorkshire.
• Pascal Tessier became the first openly gay adult Boy Scout in the nation to be hired as a summer camp leader when he was hired by the Boy Scouts’ New York chapter, Greater New York Councils.
• In February 2015, Patricia Velásquez released her memoir Straight Walk, discussing her struggles growing up in poverty in Venezuela and how her relationship with Sandra Bernhard made her realize she was a lesbian. This makes her the world's first openly lesbian Latina supermodel.
• Aisha Moodie-Mills became the new president and CEO of the Victory Fund, which made her the first woman, first black woman, first lesbian, and first black lesbian to become the head of a national leading LGBT organization.
• Andreja Pejic became the first openly transgender model profiled by Vogue, in its May 2015 issue.
• Laverne Cox (among others) posed nude for the Allure annual "Nudes" issue, becoming the first openly transgender actress to do so.
• Scott Turner Schofield became the first openly transgender actor to play a major role on daytime television, as the character Nick on the show The Bold and the Beautiful.
• Maka Brown, an 18-year-old senior at the Salt Lake School for Performing Arts, was crowned Utah's first openly transgender prom queen.
• Argentina became Latin America's first nation to recognize same-sex partners and a biological parent on a child's birth certificate; specifically, it allowed a lesbian couple and their son's biological father, who donated sperm for their pregnancy, to be included on the child's birth certificate. The child's name is Antonio and his two mothers are Susana Guichal and Valeria Gaete, and his father is Hernan Melazzi.
• When President Obama declared May to be National Foster Care Month in 2015, he included words never before included in a White House proclamation about adoption, stating in part, "With so many children waiting for loving homes, it is important to ensure all qualified caregivers have the opportunity to serve as foster or adoptive parents, regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, or marital status. That is why we are working to break down the barriers that exist and investing in efforts to recruit more qualified parents for children in foster care." Thus it appears he is the first president to explicitly say gender identity should not prevent anyone from adopting or becoming a foster parent.
• Tokyo's Shibuya ward passed a local ordinance granting same-sex couples the right to partnership certificates; this makes it the first place in Japan — or anywhere in East Asia — to recognize same-sex partnerships.
• Canadian politician Wade MacLauchlan won the leadership of the governing Prince Edward Island Liberal Party on 21 February, and was formally sworn in as Canada's second out LGBT, and first out gay male, provincial premier on 23 February. His party subsequently won the provincial election on 4 May, thus also making him the province's first out LGBT member of the Legislative Assembly of Prince Edward Island.
• In the Alberta provincial election, candidates Michael Connolly, Ricardo Miranda and Estefania Cortes-Vargas won election to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta as the province's first three openly LGBT MLAs.
• Ireland became the first country to legalize same-sex marriage by popular vote.
• The Boticário showed the first commercial with gay couples in Brazil.
• The first American federally-approved monument honoring LGBT veterans was dedicated; it is located at the Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery in Elwood, Illinois.
• Fun Home, the first Broadway musical with a lesbian protagonist, premiered on Broadway.
• Hayden Byerly and Gavin MacIntosh featured in what was said to be the youngest same-sex kiss ever on American television, when their 13-year old characters Jude and Connor locked lips on the ABC Family drama The Fosters.
• Caitlyn Jenner became the first openly transgender woman on the cover of Vanity Fair.
• Chris Mosier became the first known out trans athlete to join a U.S. national team that matched his gender identity, rather than the gender assigned him at birth, when he won a spot on Team USA in the men's sprint duathalon.
• Philadelphia flew the transgender pride flag above City Hall for the first time.
• Manabi Bandopadhyay, India's first openly transgender college principal, began work; she worked as the principal of the Krishnagar Women's College in Nadia district.
• Cambodia got its first LGBT magazine, Q Cambodia.
• Guam became the United States' first overseas territory to recognize same-sex marriage.
• Shawn MacIver and James Moccia became the first openly gay couple to graduate from a police academy together when they graduated from the Boston Police Academy.
• On 29 May 2015, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission announced it would officially consider designating the Stonewall Inn as a landmark, the first city location to be considered based on its LGBT cultural significance alone. On 23 June 2015, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission unanimously approved the designation of the Stonewall Inn as a city landmark, making it the first landmark honored for its role in the fight for gay rights.
• Audrey Middleton became the U.S. television show Big Brother's first openly transgender houseguest.
• Sean Conroy became the first openly gay baseball player to appear in a professional game; Conroy pitched nine scoreless innings to lead the Sonoma Stompers to a 7-0 win over the Vallejo Admirals in the Pacific Association of Baseball Clubs, an independent league featuring teams from Northern California.
• Laverne Cox became the first openly transgender person to have a wax figure of herself at Madame Tussauds.
• Robby Mook became the first openly gay manager of a major presidential campaign (Hillary Clinton's campaign.)
• J. Christopher Neal became the first openly bisexual New York City LGBT Pride March Grand Marshal.
• Thomas Roberts became the first openly gay evening news anchor on network television when he anchored NBC's "Nightly News" for a day.
• Schools In Transition: A Guide for Supporting Transgender Students in K-12 Schools was introduced; it is a first-of-its-kind publication for school administrations, teachers, and parents about how to provide safe and supportive environments for all transgender students in kindergarten through twelfth grade.
• The UK-based bisexual women's website Biscuit created the Purple List; the first known list of its kind, the Purple List seeks to recognize bisexuals who have contributed to fighting biphobia and increasing bisexual visibility.
• Jacob Anderson-Minshall became the first openly transgender author to win a Goldie award from the Golden Crown Literary Society; he shared the award for best creative non-fiction book with Diane Anderson-Minshall for Queerly Beloved: A Love Story Across Genders.
• Jamaica held its first LGBT Pride celebrations.
• The last Michigan Womyn's Music Festival was held in 2015; the festival had excluded transgender women throughout its run.
• The National Executive Board of the Boy Scouts ratified a resolution that removed the national restriction on openly gay adult leaders and employees.
• The Bold and the Beautiful's character Maya Avant (played by Karla Mosley) became the first transgender bride to be married on daytime television when she married Rick Forrester (played by Jacob Young).
• Benjamin Thomas Watt from New Zealand became the first openly gay professional boxing judge
• David Denson came out as gay, making him the first active minor league player affiliated with a Major League Baseball organization to do so.
• Keegan Hirst became the first British rugby league professional to come out as gay.
• Hari Nef became the first openly transgender model signed to IMG.
• Meredith Talusan became BuzzFeed's first openly transgender staff writer.
• President Obama appointed Raffi Freedman-Gurspan to serve as an Outreach and Recruitment Director in the Presidential Personnel Office, making her the first openly transgender appointee to work inside the White House.
• Sam Stanley, nephew of Joe Stanley, became the first English rugby union player to come out as gay.
• Andrew Guy became Australia's first openly transgender TV host, as a guest presenter on The Project.
• The Royal Vauxhall Tavern became the first ever building in the U.K. to be given a special "listing" status based on its LGBT history; it was accorded Grade II listed status by the U.K.’s Department of Culture, Media and Sport.
• The first Scottish LGBTI Awards were held.
• Nancy VanReece won the Metro Council District 8 seat in Nashville, thus becoming the first out lesbian elected to a legislative body in Tennessee.
• Nepal adopted its first democratic constitution, which is the first in Asia to specifically protect the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities.
• Jeffrey Tambor became the first actor to win an Emmy for portraying a transgender character.
• The first Oscar campaigns for openly transgender actresses supported by a movie producer were launched for actresses Kitana Kiki Rodriguez and Mya Taylor of the movie Tangerine.
• Chris Burns, an assistant coach at Bryant University, came out as gay, thus becoming the first openly gay coach in Division I men's basketball.
• Hollyoaks became the first UK soap to cast an openly transgender actress when they cast Annie Wallace.
• EastEnders chose Riley Carter Millington as the first openly transgender actor in UK TV soap history; he was chosen to be on Albert Square as ‘Kyle’, a man who has transitioned from female to male, which Riley did in real life.
• Breanna Sinclairé became the first openly transgender person to sing the national anthem at a professional sporting event, which she did at a Major League Baseball game.
• A transgender man's phalloplasty became the first ever seen on camera, in the Channel 4 documentary Girls to Men.
• Inga Beale, CEO of Lloyd's of London, became the first woman and the first openly bisexual person to be named number one in the OUTstanding & FT Leading LGBT executive power list.
• Aydian Dowling became the first openly transgender man on the cover of Men's Health magazine, as part of a special collector’s edition.
• Loiza Lamers won "Holland's Next Top Model", making her the first openly transgender winner of the "Top Model" franchise.
• California became the first state in America to agree to pay for transgender prison inmates to receive sexual reassignment surgery.
• The first U.S. congressional forum on anti-transgender violence was held.
• The (American) Department of Veterans Affairs opened its first clinic for transgender service members.
• Tamara Adrian was elected to the Venezuelan National Assembly, thus becoming the first openly transgender Venezuelan to be elected to their national legislature, as well as the first openly transgender person in the entire Western Hemisphere to do so.
• Mya Taylor won the Gotham Award for Breakthrough Actor, making her the first openly transgender actress to win a Gotham award.
• Adrianna Vorderbruggen died in combat; she is believed to be the first American active duty, openly gay, female service member to die in combat, and is the first openly gay American Air Force officer to die in combat.
• Jackie Biskupski was elected as the first openly gay mayor of Salt Lake City.
• South Park characters Craig Tucker and Tweek Tweak become the first canon gay couple of the fourth grade cast in the Season 19, Episode 6 episode Tweek x Craig.

2016

• Same-sex marriage laws:
  • Passed and came into effect: Colombia, Isle of Man, The Mexican states of Jalisco, Campeche, Colima, Michoacán and Morelos, Greenland
  • Passed: Faroe Islands
• Civil Union/Registered Partnership laws:
  • Passed and came into effect: Italy
  • Came into effect: Estonia
• Same-sex couple adoption legislation: Portugal
• Decriminalisation of homosexuality: Seychelles, Nauru, Belize
• Through her Foundation, Jennifer Pritzker gave a $2 million donation to create the world’s first endowed academic chair of transgender studies, at the University of Victoria in British Columbia; Aaron Devor was chosen as the inaugural chair.
• The house at 219 11th St. SE which was home to the Furies Collective was named as the first lesbian-related historic landmark in Washington, D.C. when it was unanimously voted into the D.C. Inventory of Historic Sites.
• In January 2016, the Ministry of Health of Chile ordered the suspension of unnecessary normalization treatments for intersex children, including irreversible surgery, until they reach an age when they can make decisions on their own.
• In 11 February 2016 Adidas announces LGBT clause in athletes’ contracts.
• The ceremonial first kiss shared between a sailor and their partner after returning from active duty in the Canadian Navy was done by two men for the first time.
• Maite Oronoz Rodríguez became Puerto Rico's first openly gay chief justice and, as such, the first openly gay chief justice in U.S. history.
• Mya Taylor became the first openly transgender actor to win an Independent Spirit Award; she won for Best Supporting Female.
• Israel held its first transgender beauty pageant, which was called "Miss Trans Israel", and was held at a club in Tel Aviv.
• Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull became the first sitting Australian Prime Minister to attend the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.
• Australian Opposition Leader Bill Shorten became the first leader of a major Australian political party to march in the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.
• An anonymous couple held the first same-sex wedding in Cyprus.
• Marios Frixou and Fanos Eleftheriades held the first public same-sex wedding in Cyprus.
• Derrick Gordon became the first openly gay man to play in the March Madness tournament.
• Tom Swann and Guillermo Hernandez became the first same-sex couple to marry in a United States federal immigration detention center.
• It was announced that President Barack Obama had appointed Raffi Freedman-Gurspan as the White House’s primary LGBT liaison, making her the first openly transgender person in the role.
• Santa Clara County became the first county government in the U.S. to raise the transgender pride flag.
• Nisha Ayub received the International Women of Courage Award in 2016, becoming the first openly transgender woman to receive that award.
• Aiden Katri, 19, became the first Israeli transgender woman to be jailed for refusing to serve in the military.
• On 7 April Colombia legalised same-sex marriage, becoming the fourth Latin American country to do so.
• Trans United Fund was founded; it is the first group of its kind, a 501(c)(4) organization of transgender leaders focused on transgender issues.
• The first Jewish same-sex wedding ceremony in Latin America was celebrated in Buenos Aires; the wedding was for Victoria Escobar and Romina Charur and was officiated by Rabbi Karina Finkielstein.
• On 29 April, the Faroe Islands approved same-sex adoption and marriage with a vote of 19 to 14. It is the last of the Nordic countries to legalize same-sex marriage.
• In the first such ruling in Italy, a lesbian couple won the right to legally adopt each other's biological children.
• Nur Warsame came out and thus became Australia's first openly gay Imam.
• Katherine Zappone became Ireland’s first openly lesbian minister.
• Hannah Blythyn, Jeremy Miles, and Adam Price became the first openly gay members of the Welsh Assembly.
• The house of the Furies Collective became the first lesbian site on the National Register of Historic Places.
• Edificio Comunidad de Orgullo Gay became the first Latino LGBT site on the National Register of Historic Places.
• Geraldine Roman became the first openly transgender woman elected to Congress in the Philippines.
• The first female couple in Nicosia to enter into a civil partnership was registered.
• Eric Fanning became the first openly gay Secretary of the United States Army.
• Carl Austin-Behan was sworn in as Manchester’s first openly gay Lord Mayor.
• Prince William became the first member of Britain's royal family to appear on the cover of a gay magazine when he appeared on the cover of the July issue of Attitude; in the cover story, he also became the first British royal to openly condemn the bullying of the gay community.
• Amelia Gapin became the first openly transgender woman to be featured on the cover of Women's Running.
• On 10 June 2016, an Oregon circuit court ruled that a resident, Jamie Shupe, could legally change their gender to non-binary. The Transgender Law Center believes this to be "the first ruling of its kind in the U.S."
• Erin O’Flaherty became the first openly gay Miss Missouri, which also made her the first openly lesbian Miss America candidate.
• Chris Mosier was chosen as the first openly transgender athlete to be featured in the "Body Issue" of ESPN The Magazine.
• On 24 June 2016, President Barack Obama officially designated the Stonewall National Monument, making it the United States' first National Monument designated for an LGBT historic site. The National Monument status encompasses the Stonewall Inn, Christopher Street Park, and the block of Christopher Street bordering the park.
• Hillary Clinton became the first presumptive presidential nominee from any major party to march in the NYC Pride March.
• British Government minister Justine Greening revealed that she was in a same-sex relationship, thus becoming the first out LGB female cabinet minister.
• Caitlyn Jenner became the first openly transgender person on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
• Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau became the first Canadian Prime Minister to march in a pride parade.
• The United Nations voted to create their first LGBT human rights watchdog.
• The UN Security Council condemned the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting; this statement marked the first time the U.N. Security Council used language recognizing violence targeting the LGBT community.
• LGBT Community Center in the Works for Traverse City
• Misty Plowright became the first openly transgender candidate to win a major party primary for the US House of Representatives.
• Misty Snow became the first openly transgender candidate to win a major party primary for the US Senate.
• Amanda Nunes became the UFC's first openly gay champion.
• Rachel Hoff became the first openly gay person to sit on the Republican Party's Platform Committee.
• An important legal victory for transgender people occurred in April 2016, when the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of transgender male student Gavin Grimm, which marked the first ruling by an U.S. appeals court to find that transgender students are protected under federal laws that ban sex-based discrimination. The ruling came on a challenge to the Gloucester County School Board's policy of making transgender students use alternative restroom facilities.
• It was announced on 30 June 2016 that, beginning on that date, otherwise qualified United States service members could not any longer be discharged, denied reenlistment, involuntarily separated, or denied continuation of service because of being transgender.
• The United Methodist church elected its first openly gay bishop, Karen Oliveto.
• A Nickelodeon cartoon, called The Loud House, introduced the first animated married same-sex couple to its channel.
• Peter Thiel became the first person to publicly announce to the GOP convention that he is gay.
• Sarah McBride was a speaker at the Democratic National Convention, becoming the first openly transgender person to address a major party convention in American history.
• Elle printed special collectors’ covers for their September 2016 issue, and one of them featured Hari Nef, which was the first time an openly transgender woman had been on the cover of a major commercial British magazine.
• Luke Carine and Zak Tomlinson became the first same-sex couple to get married on the Isle of Man.
• Australia's only openly gay Olympian shined on the world stage
• Lesbian swimmer is first Italian Olympian to come out, with inspirational message of acceptance
• Marc and Alan Steffan-Cowell became the first same-sex pair to convert their civil partnership to a marriage on the Isle of Man.
• Lea T became the first openly transgender person ever to participate in the opening ceremonies of an Olympics when she led the Brazilian team into the stadium on her bike during the 2016 Rio Olympics.
• Guðni Th. Jóhannesson (president of Iceland) became the first president of a country to participate in a pride parade when he gave a speech at Reykjavík Pride 2016 in Iceland.
• The Olympics hosted their first same-sex marriage proposal.
• Mexico’s LGBT community rallies for action this fall at national gathering
• Chris Mosier appeared in Nike's first ad with an openly transgender athlete.
• The British women’s field hockey team won gold at the Olympics; as Kate and Helen Richardson-Walsh were both on that team, this made them the first same-sex married couple to win Olympic medals.
• Nicholas Chamberlain was the first bishop in the Church of England to come out as gay, which occurred following threats of an outing from an unnamed Sunday newspaper. He said he lived with his partner in a celibate same-sex relationship, as required by the Bishops' guidelines, under which gay clergy must practice abstinence and may not marry.
• The first openly lesbian contestant, Erin O'Flaherty, competed in the Miss America pageant.
• Mexico rallies for and against marriage equality
• Lord Ivar Mountbatten came out as gay and revealed that he was in a relationship with James Coyle, an airline cabin services director whom he met whilst at a ski resort in Verbier. While not being a member of the British royal family, he is the first member of the extended family to come out as gay.
• For the first time two openly gay men ran for parliament in Russia.
• Tracey Norman and Geena Rocero became the first two openly transgender models to appear on the cover of an edition of Harper’s Bazaar.
• Hillary Clinton wrote an op-ed for Philadelphia Gay News, which was the first time a major-party presidential candidate wrote an op-ed for an LGBT newspaper.
• Harrison Browne of the National Women's Hockey League came out as a transgender man, which made him the first openly transgender athlete in professional American team sports.
• Along with Martha Raddatz, Anderson Cooper moderated the second presidential election debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. This made him the first openly gay person to moderate a presidential debate.

2017

• Same-sex marriage laws:
  • Will come into effect: Finland

See also

• Gay and Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands
• Bisexuality in the United States
• Gay men in American history
• History of bisexuality
• History of human sexuality
• History of lesbianism
• History of lesbianism in the United States
• History of transgender people in the United States
• LGBT history
• List of lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender firsts by year
• List of LGBT actions in the United States prior to the Stonewall riots
• Table of years in LGBT rights
• Timeline of LGBT history in Britain
• Timeline of LGBT history in Canada
• Timeline of sexual orientation and medicine

References

• Archer, Bert (2004). The End of Gay: And the Death of Heterosexuality. Thunder's Mouth Press. ISBN 1-56025-611-7.
• Bullough, Vern L. (2002). Before Stonewall: Activists for Gay and Lesbian Rights in Historical Context. New York, Harrington Park Press, an imprint of The Haworth Press. ISBN 1-56023-193-9.
• Chauncey, George (1995). Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890–1940 (Reprint ed.). Basic Books. ISBN 0-465-02621-4. 
• Burleson, William E. (2005). Bi America: Myths, Truths, and Struggles of an Invisible Community. United Kingdom, Routledge. ISBN 978-1560234791
• Fone, Byrne R. S. (2000). Homophobia: a history. New York: Metropolitan Books. ISBN 0-8050-4559-7. 
• Gallo, Marcia M. (2007) Different Daughters: A History of the Daughters of Bilitis and the Rise of the Lesbian Rights Movement. California: Seal Press. ISBN 1580052525
• Hogan, Steve and Lee Hudson (1998). Completely Queer: The Gay and Lesbian Encyclopedia. New York, Henry Holt and Company. ISBN 0-8050-3629-6.
• Miller, Neil (1995). Out of the Past: Gay and Lesbian History from 1869 to the Present. New York, Vintage Books. ISBN 0-09-957691-0.
• Percy III, William Armstrong (1996). Pederasty and pedagogy in archaic Greece. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0-252-02209-2. 
• Stryker, Susan (2008). Transgender History. New York, Seal Press. ISBN 978-1-58005-224-5

Dapin, Mark, "If at first you don't secede...", The Sydney Morning Herald – Good Weekend, 12 February 2005, pp 47–50 Lattas, Judy, "Queer Sovereignty: the Gay & Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands", Cosmopolitan Civil Societies journal, UTS September 2009

External links

• A Brief History of the Bisexual Movement, by BiNet Usa
• Chronicle of gay history
• First use of "gay" Meaning Homosexual* * 8
• Gay Movie History
• History of Gay Rights
• ILGA's Legal Wrap-up 2006
• Latina/o LGBT History Brief Timeline: 1955-2013
• LGBT History Month, United Kingdom
• LGBT History Timeline
• Our Story (Another Timeline)
• The Development of Homosexuality in Australia
• The Trans Timeline
• Timeline of D.C. Bi History, by the Rainbow History Project
• UK LGBT History Project - Timeline of UK LGBT History
• Timeline: The Bisexual Health Movement in the U.S.
• Transgender Visibility Timeline
• Queerstory: Mapping Toronto's Queer History