Christine Jorgensen, a Euro-American, became the first widely known person to have sex reassignment surgery.The Mattachine Society founded in Los Angeles by Harry Hay becomes the first gay (men's) rights organization in the Americas.Rina Natan becomes the first transgender woman in Israel – undergoing sex reassignment surgery out of her own will.Vice Versa – First lesbian-interest publication in the United States.Hein Vos – First known Dutch gay Government minister.This occurred when in 1944, using his own name in the anarchist magazine Politics, he wrote that homosexuals were an oppressed minority. The first prominent American to reveal his homosexuality was the poet Robert Duncan.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". 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. Hein Vos – First known Dutch gay Member of the House of Representatives.Actor William Haines refuses to have an arranged wedding, and retires from acting to live with his partner Jimmie Shields until his death in 1973.Mona's waitresses and female performers wore tuxedos and patrons dressed their roles. Mona's 440 Club, the first lesbian gay bar in America, opened in San Francisco.Mädchen in Uniform is released and is the first film with a pro-lesbian story.In Berlin, Dora Richter is the first known transgender woman to undergo vaginoplasty.Wings is released and includes the first on screen male-male kiss in cinema.The first issue of Die Freundin ( The Girlfriend) appeared it was the first lesbian magazine worldwide.Published Friendship and Freedom, the first American gay publication. Society for Human Rights – First gay rights organization in the United States (West Third).Lesbian Elsa Gidlow, born in England, published the first volume of openly lesbian love poetry in the United States, titled "On A Grey Thread.".It was the first pro-gay film in the world. The film Different from the Others was released.The first explicit reference to lesbianism in a Mormon magazine occurred when the "Young Woman's Journal" paid tribute to " Sappho of Lesbos".The publication Les Mouches fantastiques, the first known LGBT periodical in Canadian and North American history, was launched in Montreal, Quebec by poet Elsa Gidlow and journalist Roswell George Mills.Baer, in December 1906, became the first transgender person to undergo sex reassignment surgery. German journalist Anna Rüling, in a speech to the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee in Berlin, made the first known public statement of the socio-legal problems faced by lesbians.The Scientific-Humanitarian Committee was formed in Berlin – it was the first LGBT rights organization in history.The first issue of Der Eigene appeared in Berlin it was the first gay periodical worldwide.On 29 August 1867 Karl Heinrich Ulrichs became the first academic to speak out publicly in defense of homosexuality when he pleaded at the Congress of German Jurists in Munich for a resolution urging the repeal of anti-homosexual laws.In 2002, Milk was called "the most famous and most significantly open LGBT official ever elected in the United States".
Milk encouraged LGBT 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. Another 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.
One commonly cited example is Michael McConnell and Jack Baker, the first openly gay couple to apply for a marriage license in 1971. Openly LGBT people being visible in society affects societal attitudes toward homosexuality, bisexuality, and the transgender community on a wider level. 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 remain a demographic minority in most places. This list of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender ( LGBT) firsts by year denotes pioneering LGBT endeavors organized chronologically. ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) Please discuss this issue on the article's talk page. Please consider splitting content into sub-articles, condensing it, or adding subheadings. This article may be too long to read and navigate comfortably.