ALONE WE'RE A DROP OF WATER – TOGETHER A MIGHTY RIVER
A group of 75 bisexuals marched in the 1987 March On Washington For Gay and Lesbian Rights, which was the first nationwide bisexual gathering. The article “The Bisexual Movement: Are We Visible Yet?“, by Lani Ka’ahumanu, appeared in the official Civil Disobedience Handbook for the March. It was the first article about bisexuals and the emerging bisexual movement to be published in a national lesbian or gay publication.
Becky Smith and Annie Afleck became the first openly lesbian couple in America granted legal, joint adoption of a child.[
In 1985 Terry Sweeney became Saturday Night Live‘s first openly gay male cast member; Sweeney was “out” prior to being hired as a cast member.
Sally Ride first went into space in 1983. In 2012, she died, and her obituary revealed that Ride’s partner of 27 years was a woman, Tam O’Shaughnessy, a professor emerita of school psychology at San Diego State University and childhood friend, who met Ride when both were aspiring tennis players. Ride had also been married to a man previously. Ride is thus the first and only known LGBT astronaut.
Randy Shilts was hired in 1981 as a national correspondent by the San Francisco Chronicle, becoming “the first openly gay reporter with a gay ‘beat’ in the American mainstream press.”
Tennis player Billie Jean King became the first prominent professional athlete to come out as a lesbian, when her relationship with her secretary Marilyn Barnett became public in a May 1981 “palimony” lawsuit filed by Barnett. Due to this she lost all of her endorsements
The 1979 Radical Faeries begins with the first gathering on the grounds of a Hindu ashram in the Arizona desert.
The first National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights was held in Washington, D.C. on October 14, 1979.
The National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights was a large political rally that took place in Washington, D.C. on October 14, 1979. The first such march on Washington, it drew between 75,000 and 125,000 gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, transgender people, and straight allies to demand equal civil rights and urge the passage of protective civil rights legislation.
1979 Stephen Lachs – first openly gay judge appointed in the United States (Los Angeles County Superior Court)
Harvey Milk – 1978 was the first openly gay or lesbian candidate elected to political office in California; seventh openly gay/lesbian elected official nationally (third man to be openly gay at time of his election)