The Society for Human Rights is founded by Henry Gerber in Chicago. The society is the first gay rights organization as well as the oldest documented in America. Soon after its founding, the society disbands due to political pressure.

In Los Angeles, gay rights activist Harry Hay founds America’s first sustained national gay rights organization. In an attempt to change public perception of homosexuality, the Mattachine Society aims to “eliminate discrimination, derision, prejudice and bigotry,” to assimilate homosexuals into mainstream society, and to cultivate the notion of an “ethical homosexual culture.”

The American Psychiatric Association lists homosexuality as a sociopathic personality disturbance in its first publication of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

President Dwight Eisenhower signs Executive Order 10450, banning homosexuals from working for the federal government or any of its private contractors. The Order lists homosexuals as security risks, along with alcoholics and neurotics.

In San Francisco, the Daughters of Bilitis becomes the first lesbian rights organization in the United States. The organization hosts social functions, providing alternatives to lesbian bars and clubs, which are frequently raided by police

In the landmark case One, Inc. v. Olesen, the United States Supreme Court rules in favor of the First Amendment rights of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) magazine “One: The Homosexual Magazine.” The suit was filed after the U.S. Postal Service and FBI declared the magazine obscene material, and it marks the first time the United States Supreme Court rules in favor of homosexuals.

Illinois repeals its sodomy laws, becoming the first U.S. state to decriminalize homosexuality.

After transgender customers become raucous in a 24-hour San Francisco cafeteria, management calls police. When a police officer manhandles one of the patrons, she throws coffee in his face and a riot ensues, eventually spilling out onto the street, destroying police and public property.

Following the riot, activists established the National Transsexual Counseling Unit, the first peer-run support and advocacy organization in the world.

Police raid the Stonewall Inn, roughing up patrons and arresting them, some for violating the state’s gender appropriate clothing statute. (The “three-piece” rule meant that men and women had to wear three items of attire conventionally associated with their gender. Female officers would take suspected cross-dressing patrons into the bathroom to verify their sex.)

One of the patrons who was arrested was a suit-wearing, gender nonconforming lesbian named Storme De Larverie. “Arent you going to do something?” she is said to have asked the crowd, sparking the collective rebellion against police. Led by trans women of colour including Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, everything from rocks and pennies, to bricks and Molotov cocktails were thrown. The Community who had previously felt helpless had had enough and they finally fought back.

The Stonewall Riots/Uprising are seen as one of the most important events in the fight for LGBTQ+ rights in the U.S.

Christopher St. Liberation Day commemorates the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall riots. Following the event, thousands of members of the LGBT community march through New York into Central Park, in what will be considered America’s first gay pride parade.

Harvey Milk wins a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and is responsible for introducing a gay rights ordinance protecting gays and lesbians from being fired from their jobs. Milk also leads a successful campaign against Proposition 6, an initiative forbidding homosexual teachers.

Harvey Milk and Mayor Moscone are assassinated by Dan White, a former police officer and former city supervisor who had clashed with Milk over LGBTQ issues.

That night, Cleve Jones, a 24y/o intern of Milk’s, organized a candle-lit march from the Castro up Market Street.

An estimated 75,000 people participate in the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. LGBT people and straight allies demand equal civil rights and urge for the passage of protective civil rights legislature.

The New York Times prints the first story of a rare pneumonia and skin cancer found in 41 gay men in New York and California. The CDC initially refers to the disease as GRID, Gay Related Immune Deficiency Disorder.

When the symptoms are found outside the gay community, Bruce Voeller, biologist and founder of the National Gay Task Force, successfully lobbies to change the name of the disease to AIDS.

Wisconsin becomes the first U.S. state to outlaw discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

When the symptoms are found outside the gay community, Bruce Voeller, biologist and founder of the National Gay Task Force, successfully lobbies to change the name of the disease to AIDS.

Barney Frank becomes the first member of Congress to come out voluntarily. (Served 1980-2013)

The Department of Defense issues a directive prohibiting the U.S. Military from barring applicants from service based on their sexual orientation. “Applicants… shall not be asked or required to reveal whether they are homosexual, ” states the new policy, which still forbids applicants from engaging in homosexual acts or making a statement that he or she is homosexual. This policy is known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

In Lawrence v. Texas the U.S. Supreme Court rules that sodomy laws in the U.S. are unconstitutional.

Massachusetts becomes the first state to legalize gay marriage. The court finds the prohibition of gay marriage unconstitutional because it denies dignity and equality of all individuals.

The Matthew Shepard Act is passed by Congress and signed into law by President Obama on October 28th. The measure expands the 1969 U.S. Federal Hate Crime Law to include crimes motivated by a victim’s actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability.

Matthew Shepard was tortured and murdered near Laramie, Wyoming on October 7, 1998 because of his sexual orientation.

The U.S. Senate votes 65-31 to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the U.S. Military.

With a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court declares same-sex marriage legal in all 50 states.

The Supreme Court rules (6-3) that the langauge of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects gay and transgender workers from workplace discrimination.

“An employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender defies the law,” Justice Neil M. Gorsuch wrote for the majority.