This is a list of the first openly LGBTQ people to have held political office in the United States. No openly LGBT person has served as president or vice president of the United States or as a justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. However, all 50 states have elected openly LGBT people to political office in some capacity, and 48 states have elected openly LGBT people to either or both chambers of the state legislature.
A total of eight states and one territory have elected a total of twelve openly LGBT people to statewide or territorywide elected offices: Jared Polis (Governor of Colorado), Maura Healey (Governor of Massachusetts and former attorney general of Massachusetts), Tina Kotek (Governor of Oregon), Kate Brown (former Governor of Oregon and former secretary of state of Oregon), Tammy Baldwin (United States senator from Wisconsin), Kyrsten Sinema (United States senator from Arizona), Dana Nessel (Attorney General of Michigan), Kris Mayes (Attorney General of Arizona), Ricardo Lara (Insurance Commissioner of California), Kevin Lembo (Comptroller of Connecticut), Josh Tenorio (Lieutenant Governor of Guam), and Benjamin Cruz (Public Auditor of Guam).
A total of three of the ten most populous cities in the United States have elected a total of three openly LGBT people as mayor: Lori Lightfoot (former mayor of Chicago), Todd Gloria (mayor of San Diego), and Annise Parker (former mayor of Houston).
Donald Trump was the first President to appoint an open member of the LGBT community to an acting position in the presidential Cabinet, by making Richard Grenell the acting director of national intelligence. Grenell's position was never put forward for Senate confirmation, and he served in that role for only three months. [5] Pete Buttigieg was nominated by Joe Biden for the position of secretary of Transportation and became the first openly LGBT Senate-confirmed Cabinet member following his confirmation on February 2, 2021. [6] [7]
As of the 2020 elections, the legislatures of 49 states have had at least one openly LGBT member; the first out person to serve in each of those states is listed here. The sole remaining state that has never had an openly LGBT state legislator is Louisiana.
The first openly gay judge in the United States was Stephen M. Lachs, appointed by Governor Jerry Brown to the Los Angeles County Superior Court in 1979. [140] Before leaving office in 1981, Brown appointed three more gay and lesbian judges to the California courts, including the nation's first openly lesbian judge, Mary Morgan, who served on the San Francisco municipal court. [140]
In 1994, Thomas R. Chiola became the first openly gay judge in Illinois (and the first openly gay elected official in Illinois) when voters elected him to the Circuit Court of Cook County. [141] [142]
Deborah Batts was the nation's first openly LGBT federal judge. She was appointed by President Bill Clinton to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and confirmed by the Senate in a voice vote in 1994. [143] (Judge Vaughn Walker of the Northern District of California served from 1989 to February 2011 but did not come out until April 2011, after his retirement.) [144]
Batts was the sole openly LGBT judge on the federal bench for seventeen years, until Barack Obama appointed a series of gay and lesbian judges to the district courts: J. Paul Oetken (Southern District of New York, 2011); Alison J. Nathan (Southern District of New York, 2011); Michael W. Fitzgerald (Central District of California, 2012); Nitza I. Quiñones Alejandro (Eastern District of Pennsylvania, 2013); Pamela K. Chen (Eastern District of New York, 2013); Michael J. McShane (District of Oregon, 2013); Darrin P. Gayles (Southern District of Florida, 2014); Staci Michelle Yandle (Southern District of Illinois, 2014), and Judith Ellen Levy (Eastern District of Michigan, 2014). [144] [145]
Obama also appointed the first openly LGBT judge of a federal court of appeals, Todd M. Hughes of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. [144] [146]
The first openly LGBT justice of a state supreme court was Rives Kistler, appointed to the Oregon Supreme Court in 2003, and retained by voters the following year. [147] The next gay or lesbian state supreme court justices were Virginia Linder (Oregon Supreme Court, 2006); Monica Márquez (Colorado Supreme Court, 2010); Barbara Lenk (Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, 2011); Sabrina McKenna (Supreme Court of Hawaii, 2011); Beth Robinson (Vermont Supreme Court, 2011). [147] In 2017, Paul Feinman became the first openly gay judge to sit on the New York Court of Appeals.
Benjamin Cruz of Guam was the first openly gay judge of a territorial supreme court; he came out in 1995 and was appointed to the Supreme Court of Guam in 1997. [148] Cruz served as associate justice from 1997 to 1999 and as chief justice from 1999 until his retirement in 2001. [149]
The first openly bisexual judge in the United States is Mike Jacobs, a state court judge in DeKalb County, Georgia, who came out publicly in 2018. [150]
William J. Lippert, Jr., commonly known as Bill Lippert, is a former legislator and gay rights activist from the U.S. state of Vermont. He served 28 years in the Vermont House of Representatives as state representative of the Town of Hinesburg, from 1994-2022. He served as chair of the House Judiciary Committee for ten years, and then served as chair of the House Health Care Committee.
Toni Gayle Atkins is an American politician who served as the 51st president pro tempore of the California State Senate from 2018 to 2024. A member of the Democratic Party, she previously served as the 69th speaker of the California State Assembly from 2014 to 2016 and the California State Assembly majority leader from 2012-2014. She has represented the 39th State Senate district since 2016, encompassing most of San Diego.
Haysel Diane Sands is an American politician from Montana. As a Democrat, she served in the Montana State Senate, representing the 49th senate district in Missoula, Montana. Previously, she served in the Montana House of Representatives representing first the 66th district and then the renumbered 95th district.
The California Legislative LGBTQ Caucus is an American political organization formed in June 2002 and composed of openly lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender members of the California State Legislature. The caucus currently has 12 members, a record.
The ordination of lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or transgender (LGBT) clergy who are open about their sexuality or gender identity; are sexually active if lesbian, gay, or bisexual; or are in committed same-sex relationships is a debated practice within some contemporary Christian denominations.
The history of LGBT residents in California, which includes centuries prior to the 20th, has become increasingly visible recently with the successes of the LGBT rights movement. In spite of the strong development of early LGBT villages in the state, pro-LGBT activists in California have campaigned against nearly 170 years of especially harsh prosecutions and punishments toward gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender people.
The first English-language use of the word "bisexual" to refer to sexual orientation occurred in 1892.
The state of North Dakota has improved in its treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender residents in the late 1990s and into the 21st Century, when the LGBT community began to openly establish events, organizations and outlets for fellow LGBT residents and allies, and increase in political and community awareness.
This is a timeline of notable events in the history of non-heterosexual conforming people of African ancestry, who may identify as LGBTIQGNC, men who have sex with men, or related culturally specific identities. This timeline includes events both in Africa, the Americas and Europe and in the global African diaspora, as the histories are very deeply linked.
This is a timeline of notable events in the history of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community in the United States.
The following is a timeline of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) history in the 20th century.
The following is a timeline of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) history in the 21st century.
The following is a timeline of transgender history. Transgender history dates back to the first recorded instances of transgender individuals in ancient civilizations. However, the word transgenderism did not exist until 1965 when coined by psychiatrist John F. Oliven of Columbia University in his 1965 reference work Sexual Hygiene and Pathology; the timeline includes events and personalities that may be viewed as transgender in the broadest sense, including third gender and other gender-variant behavior, including ancient or modern precursors from the historical record.
The "rainbow wave" was a phrase coined in 2018 to describe the unparalleled number of openly LGBTQ+ candidates running for political office in the United States that year. The rainbow wave began during the 2018 U.S. midterm elections when over 400 LGBTQ+ candidates ran for office and a record-breaking 244 were elected.
Eddie will be the first openly gay mayor of Jamestown, NY