Famous LGBTQ Figures Throughout History

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The LGBTQ community has long been due fair treatment, and in the world today, many places have stepped up to the plate to ensure that the future will be a place for everyone. Here, we’ve gathered many faces and names you’ll probably know—those who have changed the world for the better and did it through adversity. Open your heart, love everyone, and love hard. This is Famous LGBTQ Figures Throughout History!

5. Bayard Rustin
This brave man not only fought for African American civil rights but for the rights of the LGBTQ community as well. In 1941, he helped to organize the legendary March on Washington Movement, and also organized the Freedom Rides. Then, to strengthen the leadership of Martin Luther King Jr., he helped organize the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and taught King more about the employment of nonviolence. Again, he served as an organizer for the March on Washington for Freedom and Jobs and eventually used his position to become an advocate of gay causes, as he, himself, was a gay man. He ended up having to adopt his partner, Walter Naegle, when he was 30-years-old to legalize their union, as gay marriage wasn’t legal in the 1970s. When Rustin passed, he and Naegle had been together for ten years, and a previous partner, Davis Platt, said, “I never had any sense at all that Bayard felt any shame or guilt about his homosexuality. That was rare in those days. Rare.”


4. Barbara Gittings
This poor woman was treated very unfairly at a young age over her sexuality—before she, herself, even realized what it was. She tried to join the National Honor Society in high school, but was rejected because a teacher had a feeling that Barbara had what she called “homosexual inclinations.” It was the first time Gittings had heard the word homosexual, and keep in mind that this was the 1940s, so she had no one to turn to, let alone talk to, about it. In college, she was examined by a psychologist who told her she was, in fact, homosexual, and Gittings decided to do her own research to learn more. In 1956, she met with the United States’ first lesbian-centric organization, the Daughters of Bilitis, and found her place. She was tasked with opening a DOB chapter in New York City in 1958, and the rest is history. She spent the rest of her life lobbying for gay rights and became a recognizable face on the front lines of history.

3. Laverne Cox
This young lady has been taking the world by storm since her debut as Sophia Burset on the hit Netflix tv show Orange is the New Black. In 2014, she became the first openly transgender person ever to grace the cover of Time Magazine, and had an interview in the issue in an article called “The Transgender Tipping Point.” In the same year, she became the first-ever transgender person to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for acting for her portrayal as Sophia in OITNB. She ended up winning a Daytime Emmy Award for being an Executive Producer for her documentary Laverne Cox Presents: The T Word, which also won a Daytime Emmy and was the first trans documentary to do so. She’s been featured on the cover of Entertainment Weekly, has spoken out for human rights, and has done whatever she can to advance the rights of not only the LGBTQ community but the rights of humans. She’s an idol to many, and is at the forefront of the charge for acceptance of everybody, despite their differences, and she’s solidified her place in history while doing so.

2. Harvey Milk
While this legendary politician wasn’t exactly the first LGBTQ person to occupy a public office, he was the first person to be elected to office in California who was openly gay. He served on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, and in gaining the position, he became the United States’ most pro-LGBTQ politician. It took him a long time to come out, and he didn’t even publicly identify as gay until after his experiences with the 1960s counterculture, and it was also after this that he became an activist. He served just eleven months in his position when he and George Moscone, the Mayor, were assassinated by another city supervisor named Dan White. Harvey has been called “the most famous and most significantly open LGBT official ever elected in the United States.” His assassin served just five years in prison.

[DrJeykl]

I didn't learn a lot of new information, but it's nice to see people talking about the positive impact that many LGBTQ people have had on the world. In response to the video, I DO support the LGBTQ community (especially because I am a member of the gay community, in the midwest.).

[NewfaneseTheOriginal]

Doesn't matter to me who they love as long as they are happy.

[rusher]

Not gonna lie, I got a lil choked up when and how Sally Ride came out... Michael Samm only came out when he did bcuz, like ma lot of college football stars, they're NCAA talent dont mean shit in the big leagues. Like Manziel, Tebow and Winston they try tostay relevant and in the limelight for as long as fame allows. But I digress, we'll never know what secrets Alan Turing would've unlocked. What a beautiful mind. For as much as Hollywood tries to portray itself in the progressive liberal fashion, why are the gay male characters usually written as a sassy, shallow, effeminate who snaps his fingers and talks like a black woman? Why can't there be the nuclear physicist who enjoys the company of men in his spare time? C'mon HOLLYWOOD.... Step it up and do some good for once!

[christoohunders]

Leonardo never had any affair with men his age, he was more of a pederast.

[fernandebolduc]

You don’t have to judge what God do. Keep your poors opinions for you. They are good human and better than you. I know this person et they are better that the most of religius person et a lot most christian than a you