List of LGBT firsts by year
- See also: List of the first LGBT holders of political offices for a listing of office-holders by country.
 | The examples and perspective in this article deal primarily with the United States and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject. (January 2009) |
This list of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) firsts by year denotes pioneers in various endeavors organized chronologically. Openly LGBT people remain a demographic minority in most cultures. In areas that historically are not known for having (or being friendly to) LGBT people who do not remain closeted, a "first" can make it easier for other openly LGBT persons to enter the field or for those who are closeted to come out. Openly LGBT people being visible in society affects societal attitudes toward homosexuality, bisexuality, and transgenderism on a wider level.
One commonly cited example is Harvey Milk, the first openly gay person to be elected to political office in California, becoming the most visible LGBT politician in the world in the 1970s after decades of resistance to LGBT people by mainstream culture. Milk encouraged LGBT people to come out during his speeches. As a result of his work and assassination along with San Francisco mayor George Moscone, thousands of ordinary people did. In 2002, Milk was called "the most famous and most significantly open LGBT official ever elected in the United States".[1]
330s BC
330 BC
- Alexander III of Macedon — first openly bisexual person to simultaneously be Basileus of Macedon, Hegemon of the Hellenic League, Pharaoh of Egypt and Shahanshah of Persia
1890s
1897
- Scientific-Humanitarian Committee - first gay rights organization
1950s
1955
- Daughters of Bilitis - first lesbian rights organization.
1960s
1967
- Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookstore - first bookstore devoted to gay and lesbian authors.
1970s
1974
- Kathy Kozachenko — first openly gay or lesbian candidate to win public office in the United States (she won a seat on the Ann Arbor, Michigan, city council)
1975
- Elaine Noble — first openly gay or lesbian candidate elected to a state legislature in the United States (Massachusetts state legislature)
1978
- Harvey Milk — first openly gay person to be elected to political office in California
- San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Marching Band and Twirling Corp - world's first openly-gay musical group
1980s
1980
- David McReynolds - first openly gay man to run for president of the United States
1983
- Gerry Studds — first openly gay member of the United States House of Representatives. Admitted a past relationship with a page when confronted in Congress.
1987
- Barney Frank — first U.S. congressman to come out as gay of his own volition.
Gary Miller--first gay man to be elected to an elementary school board
1988
- Svend Robinson - first Canadian Member of Parliament to come out
1990s
1990
- Justin Fashanu - first and only professional Football (Soccer) player to identify himself publicly as a homosexual.
1995
- Georgina Beyer - world's first transgender mayor
- Rachel Maddow — first openly gay or lesbian American to win an international Rhodes scholarship.
1996
- Michael Kirby - first openly gay judge of the High Court of Australia (appointed February 1996; named his male partner in his 1999 entry in "Who's Who in Australia")
- Bob Brown - first openly gay member of the Parliament of Australia (elected March, his term started July)
- South Africa - first country to explicitly prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation in its constitution
1997
- Ellen DeGeneres — first openly gay star of a prime-time television series in the United States. DeGeneres was star of the situation comedy Ellen. In 1997, she came out as a lesbian on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Shortly afterwards, her TV series character Ellen Morgan also came out as gay in the fourth-season episode "The Puppy Episode".
1998
- Dana International — first transsexual to win the Eurovision Song Contest.
1999
- Tammy Baldwin — first U.S. congressperson of either gender to be openly gay or lesbian when first elected to office
2000s
2001
- Libby Davies - first female Canadian Member of Parliament to come out as a member of the LGBT community
- Klaus Wowereit - first elected mayor of Berlin as an openly gay German
- Bertrand Delanoë - first openly gay person to be elected mayor of Paris[2]
- Netherlands - first country to legally recognize same-sex marriage.
2002
- Jim McGreevey — first openly gay governor in the United States (state of New Jersey); came out as part of resignation announcement, due to political scandal.
2003
- David Cicilline — first openly gay mayor of a U.S. state capital (Providence, Rhode Island)
- Gene Robinson - first openly gay person to be ordained bishop in a major Christian denomination
2004
- Bill Siksay - first openly gay Canadian elected to a first term as Member of Parliament
- Felipe "Alejandra" González Pino - First transgender councilman in Chile (Lampa commune)
2007
- Theresa Sparks - first transgender police commissioner. [3]
2008
- Rachel Maddow — first openly gay or lesbian anchor of a major prime-time news program in the United States,[clarification needed][4] hosting The Rachel Maddow Show on U.S. cable network MSNBC.
2009
- Lesbian and Gay Band Association — first LGBT-represented contingent marching in a U.S. presidential inaugural parade. The parade on January 20 was in celebration of Barack Obama's incoming administration.[5]
- Jared Polis — first male U.S. congressperson to be openly gay when first elected to office
- Stu Rasmussen — first openly transgender elected mayor in the United States (Silverton, Oregon)
- Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir — Prime Minister of Iceland, and the first openly gay head of government in modern times
- Carol Ann Duffy — first openly gay Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom
See also
- Timeline of LGBT history
- List of the first LGBT holders of political offices
- List of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender sportspeople
- List of gay, lesbian or bisexual people
- List of transgender people
- List of LGBT rights activists
References
- ^ Smith, Raymond, Haider-Markel, Donald, eds., (2002). Gay and Lesbian Americans and Political Participation, ABC-CLIO. ISBN 1576072568, p. 204.
- ^ BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Psychiatric tests for anti-gay attacker
- ^ SF Police Commission Makes History, KCBS (May 10, 2007). Retrieved on April 13, 2009.
- ^ http://www.lesbiatopia.com/2008/09/congrats-to-rachel-maddow-knock-em-dead.html Maddow the first out News Anchor of a prime-time news program
- ^ http://www.intheparade.com/home.html We did it!
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