This list of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) firsts by year denotes pioneering LGBTQ endeavors organized chronologically. Openly LGBTQ people remain a demographic minority in most places. In areas that historically are not known for having (or being friendly to) LGBTQ people who do not remain closeted, a "first" can make it easier for other openly LGBTQ persons to enter the field or for those who are closeted to come out. Openly LGBTQ people being visible in society affects societal attitudes toward homosexuality, bisexuality, and the transgender community on a wider level.

One commonly cited example is Michael McConnell and Jack Baker, the first openly gay couple to apply for a marriage license in 1971. Another is Harvey Milk, the first openly gay person to be elected to political office in California, becoming the most visible LGBTQ politician in the world in the 1970s, after decades of resistance to LGBTQ people by mainstream culture. Milk encouraged LGBTQ people to "come out of the closet" during his speeches; as a result of his work and his assassination—along with San Francisco mayor George Moscone—thousands of ordinary people did so. In 2002, Milk was called "the most famous and most significantly open LGBT official ever elected in the United States".Smith, Raymond, Haider-Markel, Donald, eds., (2002). Gay and Lesbian Americans and Political Participation, ABC-CLIO. , p. 204.

1600s 1672 The Life and Struggles of Our Mother Wälättä P̣eṭros (1672) contains the first reference to homosexuality between nuns in Ethiopian literature.

1800s to 1930s

1896 The first issue of Der Eigene appeared in Berlin. It was one of the first gay periodicals in the world.

1897 The Scientific-Humanitarian Committee was formed in Berlin. It was the first LGBT rights organizations in history.. Revised edition published 1995, .

1904 German journalist Anna Rüling, in a speech to the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee, made one of the first known public statements of the social and legal problems faced by lesbians. In December, Karl M. Baer became the first transgender person to undergo gender-affirming surgery.

1912 The first explicit reference to lesbianism in a Mormon magazine occurred when the Young Woman's Journal paid tribute to "Sappho of Lesbos".

1918 The publication Les Mouches fantastiques, the first known LGBT periodical in North American history, was launched in Montreal, Quebec by poet Elsa Gidlow and journalist Roswell George Mills.

1919 Baron Franz Nopcsa von Felső-Szilvás and Bajazid Elmaz Doda, a gay couple, committed the first hijacking of an aircraft. The film Different from the Others was released. It was one of the first sympathetic portrayals of gay men in cinema.

1923 Elsa Gidlow, born in England, published the first volume of openly lesbian love poetry in the United States, titled On A Grey Thread.Rexroth, Kenneth (1978) and subsequently, penning the first Lesbian autobiography not pseudononously ascribed. "Elsa Gidlow's Sapphic Songs". American Poetry Review. 7 (1), 20.

1924 The Society for Human Rights, the first gay rights organization in the United States (West Third), was established.Hogan and Hudson, p. 244 The Society for Human Rights began publication of Friendship and Freedom, the first American gay publication.—

The first issue of Die Freundin (The Girlfriend) was published; it was the first lesbian magazine worldwide.

1927 Wings was released and included possibly the first on screen male–male kiss in cinema.—

"Before Brokeback: The First Same-Sex Kiss in Cinema (1927)". Open Culture. January 26, 2012.

1930s

1931 In Berlin, Dora Richter was the first known transgender woman to undergo vaginoplasty. Mädchen in Uniform was released and was the first film with a pro-lesbian story.

1936 Mona's 440 Club, the first lesbian bar in America, opened in San Francisco. Mona's waitresses and female performers wore tuxedos and patrons dressed their roles.

1937

Hein Vos became the first known gay Dutch Member of the House of Representatives.

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

1944 The poet Robert Duncan became the first prominent American to reveal his homosexuality. This occurred when in 1944, using his own name in the anarchist magazine Politics, he wrote that homosexuals were an oppressed minority.

1945 Hein Vos became the first known Dutch gay Government minister.

1947 Vice Versa began publication as the first lesbian-interest publication in the United States.Steitmatter, Rodger (1998). "Vice Versa: America's First Lesbian Magazine," American Periodicals, vol. 8 (1998), pp. 78-95. In JSTOR

1950s Rina Natan became the first transgender woman in Israel to undergo gender-affirming surgery.

1950 The Mattachine Society, an early gay rights organization, was founded in Los Angeles by Harry Hay.

1952

Christine Jorgensen became the first widely known American to have gender-affirming surgery, which took place in Denmark.—

Patricia Highsmith published the first lesbian romantic novel which does not end badly; The Price of Salt. Its relatively happy ending was unprecedented in lesbian literature. 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, and ended unhappily. ONE magazine published as the first gay men's magazine in the United States. Founded in Los Angeles, it would later transform into an educational institution and then into ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives, one of the world's largest and oldest surviving LGBT archives.

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.

1956 The Ladder, widely considered the first lesbian magazine in the United States, began publication. It was the primary publication and method of communication for the Daughters of Bilitis, the first lesbian organization in the US.

1958 The first gay leather bar in the United States, the Gold Coast, opened in Chicago in 1958. It was founded by Dom Orejudos and Chuck Renslow.—

One, Inc. v. Olesen, 355 U.S. 371 (1958), was the first U.S. Supreme Court ruling to deal with homosexuality and the first to address free speech rights with respect to homosexuality. The Supreme Court reversed a lower court ruling that the gay magazine ONE magazine violated obscenity laws, thus upholding constitutional protection for pro-homosexual writing.

1959 South, the earliest known gay TV drama, was first broadcast in the UK on 24 November 1959. Two other dramas based on the court trials of Oscar Wilde and Sir Roger Casement, who were both charged with homosexuality, were produced a year later.

1960s

1960 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 was not enough evidence to show the women were lesbians—rather than that there was nothing wrong with it if they were. Nancy Ledins, an ordained Catholic priest, came out as a transgender woman, arguably becoming the first woman and first openly transgender Catholic priest.

1961 José Sarria became the first openly gay person to run for public office in the United States (San Francisco city-county supervisor).Miller, Neil (1995). Out of the Past: Gay and Lesbian History from 1869 to the Present, p. 347. New York, Vintage Books. . The Rejected, the first documentary on homosexuality broadcast on American television, was first broadcast on KQED TV in San Francisco on 11 September 1961.Alwood, Edward (1998). Straight News, p. 41. Columbia University Press. . Victim was the first British film to explicitly name homosexuality and deal with it sympathetically.

1962 The Tavern Guild, the first gay business association in the United States, was created by gay bar owners in 1962 as a response to continued police harassment and closing of gay bars (including the Tay-Bush Inn raid), and continued until 1995.

1964 The first photograph of lesbians on the cover of lesbian magazine The Ladder appeared in September 1964, showing two women from the back, on a beach looking out to sea. The June 1964 Paul Welch Life article entitled "Homosexuality In America" was the first time a national publication reported on gay issues. The Council on Religion and the Homosexual was founded, and was one of the first groups in the U.S. to use the word "homosexual" in its name.

1965 Vanguard, an organization of LGBT youth in the low-income Tenderloin district of San Francisco, was created in 1965. It is considered the first Gay Liberation organization in the U.S. The Council on Religion and the Homosexual held an event where local politicians could be questioned about issues concerning gay and lesbian people, including police intimidation. The event marks the second known instance of "the gay vote" being sought. The first was during the early homosexual emancipation movement in Germany.

1966 The first lesbian to appear on the cover of lesbian magazine The Ladder with her face showing was Lilli Vincenz in January 1966. In 1966 the first case to consider transidentity in the US was heard, Mtr. of Anonymous v. Weiner, 50 Misc. 2d 380, 270 N.Y.S.2d 319 (1966). The case concerned a transgender person from New York City who had undergone sex reassignment surgery and wanted a change of name and sex on their birth certificate. The New York City Health Department refused to grant the request, and the court ruled that the New York City and New Jersey Health Code only permitted a change of sex on the birth certificate if an error was made recording it at birth, so the Health Department acted correctly. The decision of the court in Weiner was affirmed in a case brought by Deborah Hartin, Mtr. of Hartin v. Dir. of Bur. of Recs., 75 Misc. 2d 229, 232, 347 N.Y.S.2d 515 (1973) and Anonymous v. Mellon, 91 Misc. 2d 375, 383, 398 N.Y.S.2d 99 (1977). The Society for Individual Rights opened the first gay and lesbian community center in the United States.

1967 Grupo Nuestro Mundo (English: "Our World Group") was formed in Greater Buenos Aires, as the first gay rights organization in Argentina and Latin America. Craig Rodwell opens the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookstore, the first bookstore devoted to gay and lesbian authors.Tobin, pg.65 The Homosexuals, a 1967 episode of the documentary television series CBS Reports, was the first network documentary dealing with the topic of homosexuality.

1968 In the aftermath of the Compton's Cafeteria riot, a network of transgender social, psychological, and medical support services was established, which culminated in 1968 with the creation of the National Transsexual Counseling Unit (NTCU), the first such peer-run support and advocacy organization in the world.

1969