10 LGBTQ+ Figures Who've Made History

LGBTQ+ people have been present throughout history, shaping it through their experiences and work. This influence extends beyond their lifetimes and has shaped the world as we know it, and yet we often spend so little time studying them. Here are 10 LGBTQ+ people that have been present throughout history, shaping it through their experiences and work.

Harvey Milk (1930-1978)

Harvey Milk was a man who lived many lives. By the time he came to live in San Francisco in 1972, he had been in the Armed Forces, a Teacher, and much more. Seeing Community as the centrepiece of society, he worked to unite San Francisco’s “gay” quarter, Castro, by working with locals who affectionately dubbed him “The Mayor of Castro Street”. Elected to the San Francisco City Council Board in 1977, he became the first openly gay person elected to public office in the US after two failed bids. Setting about immediately to fight for LGBTQ+ rights, Milk was assassinated by fellow board member Dan White only a year later. His death sparked a movement that fought tirelessly for LGBTQ+ rights for years to come.

Christin Jorgensen (1926-1989)

Assigned Male at Birth, Jorgensen made headlines in 1952 when she underwent over a year of hormone treatment, followed by successful gender reassignment surgery in Denmark in 1952. This move, practically unheard of at the time, caused national discussion about the meaning of sex and gender, as well as gender identity, before Jorgensen was crowned Woman of the Year by the Scandinavian Society. A proud advocate, Jorgensen said of her cause that “[I] didn’t start the sexual revolution, but I think we gave it a good kick in the pants!” Jorgensen had previously been a soldier in the US Army during the Second World War. 

Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935)

Hirschfeld first came to advocate for the cause of LGBTQ+ people whilst working as a neuropathic in Berlin-Charlottenburg, when one of his patients, a young officer suffering from depression, took his own life in 1896 after being unable to overcome his desires for other men. Hirschfeld moved to Berlin where he founded the world’s first Gender Identity Clinic, the Institute for Sexual Research, which researched and advocated for LGBTQ+ rights and health. A proud gay man himself, Hirschfeld was described by Hitler as “the most dangerous Jew in Germany” for the extent of his work promoting LGBTQ+ rights (which had reached national scandal in 1906 with the Eulenburg Affair). Once the Nazis rose to power in 1933, Hirschfeld was forced to flee and his Institute and its papers were destroyed by Nazi supporters. 

Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (1825 - 1895)

Ulrichs is held to be the first openly gay man in Modern Europe, after coming out to friends and family in 1862 as “Urning” - Uranian, or heavenly, the first modern term used to describe same-sex attraction. His essays, “Studies on the Riddle of Male-Male Love”, explore the social and biological extent of homosexuality. In 1867 he became the first homosexual to speak publically in the defence of homosexuality when he advocated for the end of anti-homosexuality laws in Germany. Thanks to his work, the term homosexual was coined in 1869 and from the late 19th century onwards, the topic of sexual orientation entered into social and political discussion, even if taboo for years to come. However, Ulrich’s problems with the law were seldom as a result of homosexual acts; rather, homosexual words. He continued to write during his exile to Naples, where he died in 1895. 

Barbara Gittings (1932-2007)

Born in Austria but later moving to the USA after the war, Gittings, according to legend, used to hitch rides to New York dressed in male drag. Founding the USA’s first lesbian civil rights organisation, the Daughters of Bilitis which still operates to this day, Barbara Gittings was a trailblazing icon that fought tirelessly for LGBTQ+ rights. During the 1970s, she worked tirelessly to promote positive literature about homosexuality, as well as pressure the American Psychiatric Association to drop homosexuality from the list of mental illnesses, which it did in 1972. Her vision was clear: to rip back the “shroud of invisibility” around homosexuality and show the world that you could be gay and lead a positive life.

Audre Lorde (1934-1992) 

Self-described “Black lesbian mother warrior poet”, Audre Lorde was a librarian who dedicated her life to tackling injustices such as racism, sexism, homophobia, and classism. Publishing her first volume of poems, First Cities, in 1968, Lorde discussed civil rights, sexuality, and her battle with breast cancer, with many of her poems earning her a number of awards for discussing topics considered difficult for the time. In the last year of her life, she was the Poet Laureate for the State of New York. Her guiding belief was the importance of connecting with outcasts, especially through her poetry, as a result of the impact it had on her life growing up. 

Bayard Rustin (1912-1987)

Bayard Rustin was an advocate of gay rights and civil rights during his lifetime, who helped organise the 1941 March on Washington against racism. His work after the war involved supporting Martin Luther King Jr.’s work in the civil rights movement, where he taught King about non-violence. After King’s death, Rustin offered to lead the movement, but disagreed with leadership on the direction they were headed in and withdrew. Other concerns were raised about his sexuality: having been arrested and jailed for homosexual acts, Rustin’s record enabled his enemies to marginalise him. Regardless, he overcame and achieved his goals to seek equality for African Americans. 

James Baldwin (1924-1987)

Author, playwright and poet James Baldwin was an American activist whose works challenged preconceived notions of race, class, and sexuality. His novel, Giovanni’s Room, is famous for the use of metaphysical obstacles in the pursuit of societal and self-acceptance between gay men, and was influential on the thoughts and beliefs of those who fought the early battles for LGBTQ+ liberation. Further to this, his tour of the US South during 1963, articulating analysis of racism for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and his response to the outbreak of violence in Birmingham Alabama, played a highly important role in the Civil Rights Movement in the US. 

George Cecil Ives (1867-1950)

Ives was the founder of one of the first secret societies for homosexuals, the Order of Chaeronea, in 1897. He had previously met Oscar Wilde at the Author’s Club in 1892, at which point he was already working to fight for gay rights, which he called “the Cause”; the central theme of the Order’s creed. A brief affair with Lord “Bowsie” Douglas in 1983 introduced Ives to a number of Oxford graduates whom Ives went on to recruit to form the Order of Chaeronea. The name came from the battle in antiquity at which the Sacred Band of Thebes, a troop of elite homosexual warriors, were annihilated by the Persians. In 1914, Ives worked with Magnus Hirschfeld to found the British Society for the Study of Sex Psychology. 

Maureen Colquhoun (1928-)

Former Labour Party MP Maureen Colquhoun was the first openly-lesbian MP in Britain. Coming out in 1975, Colquhoun left her husband, journalist Keith Colquhoun, for Barbara Todd, publisher of Sappho magazine. Due to her sexuality, and feminist views, Colquhoun was deselected in late September 1977 by members of her constituency Labour Party, citing “her obsession with trivialities”, which was held by many to be an attack on her stance in favour of women’s rights. Shortly afterwards, in an article for Gay News, Colquhoun addressed accusations by local activists that the “Business” of her sexuality was the reason she had to go, explaining that being a lesbian had nothing to do with her ability to do her job. Her deselection was eventually overturned by the national Labour Party on grounds of homophobia, but it was of little help as she lost her seat at the 1979 election regardless. 

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