The first fifty honorees were announced in June 2019. In June 2020, the first additional five were announced:
Lorena Borjas,
Larry Kramer,
Phyllis Lyon,
Sean Sasser, and
Aimee Stephens.
A •
Dolores Alexander was a
lesbian feminist writer and reporter. In 1969 she became the first executive director of the
National Organization for Women (NOW) but resigned. She later founded the
feminist restaurant Mother Courage. She was added to the wall in 2022. •
Gloria Allen was a transgender activist who ran a non-profit charm school for trans youth. In addition to inspiring the play
Charm, she received the Living Legend Award at the Trans 100 Awards and a Carmen Vázquez Award for Excellence in Leadership on Aging Issues from
SAGE. She was added to the wall in 2023. and a long-standing member of the
California Arts Council, serving as its chair at the time of his death from
COVID-19. He was added to the Wall in 2024.
C •
Jiggly Caliente was a trans drag artist and singer who achieved worldwide fame appearing on multiple seasons of ''
RuPaul's Drag Race, as well as hosting Drag Race Philippines. She also found success as an actress, portraying Veronica Ferocity on Pose''. She was added to the Wall in 2025. •
Michael Callen was a gay singer, songwriter, composer, author, and influential early AIDS activist. •
Tyler Clementi was an 18-year-old
Rutgers University student who was
cyberbullied into suicide by homophobic classmates. He was added to the wall in 2022. He was added to the Wall in 2024. She was added to the wall in 2023. •
Stormé DeLarverie was a biracial
butch lesbian whose scuffle with police was, according to some eyewitnesses, the spark that ignited the
1969 Stonewall uprising. She has been hailed as "The
Rosa Parks of the
gay community" and a
gay civil rights icon. She was also a singer, drag king,
MC, and volunteer street patrol worker, the "guardian of lesbians in the
Village".
E •
Ruth Ellis was an African American activist recognized as the oldest living out lesbian, dying at 101. The
Ruth Ellis Center is named in her honor. She was added to the wall in 2021. She served as director for
Lambda Legal,
National Centre for Lesbian Rights, the
National Gay and Lesbian Task force, and the
International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission and led the Stonewall Community Foundation. •
Sakia Gunn was a black lesbian victim of a hate crime in 2003. Outrage over the leniency towards her killer and lack of media coverage led to the formation of the Newark Pride Alliance. In 2023, Newark renamed Academy Street to Sakia Gunn Way. •
Diana Hemingway was a
genderqueer transfeminine artist and activist, who was
neuroatypical on the
autism spectrum, and worked on "trans/queer issues,
sex worker rights,
disability rights,
economic justice, racism, and issues impacting the
kink community". •
Essex Hemphill was an openly gay Black
spoken word poet, author and activist known for his insights into issues of the
African-American gay community. •
James Hormel was a diplomat and philanthropist. He helped found the
Human Rights Campaign, served on the board of
amfAR, and was the
United States Ambassador to Luxembourg under the Clinton administration, the first openly gay man to hold such a post. He was added to the Wall in 2022. In 1974 he was the first recipient of the Peter Dispirito Public Service Award, presented "to the person elected by the Alaska Gay and Lesbian Community who has contributed most to the advancement of the community."
J •
Marsha P. Johnson was a Black, gay, and
gender nonconforming artist,
drag queen, and activist who fought for
gay liberation and AIDS awareness. A
Stonewall riots combatant and founding member of the
Gay Liberation Front NYC, Johnson was the co-founder of
Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries, and a member of
ACT UP. •
ABilly S. Jones-Hennin was a Black bisexual man who advocated for healthcare, AIDS education, and disability rights following a
spinal stenosis diagnosis. In 1978, he cofounded the
National Coalition of Black Lesbians and Gays and co-organized the 1979 March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. Later in life, he served as the chair of the DC Mayor's LGBT Advisory Committee. He was added to the Wall in 2024. He was added to the wall in 2020. was one of the earliest notable appearances of a trans person on mainstream television. She was added to the Wall in 2025. Matlovich was the first named openly gay person to appear on the cover of a U.S. news magazine. •
Terrence McNally was a gay playwright, who won numerous
Tony Awards for his plays, including
Kiss of the Spider Woman and
Ragtime. He also won a
Primetime Emmy Award and multiple
Obie and
Drama Desk Awards. He was added to the wall in 2023. Despite his short career in politics, Milk became an icon in the city and a
martyr in the gay community. He was posthumously
awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009. •
David Mixner was prominent gay rights and anti-war activist. After gaining notoriety from helping to organize the
Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam, he became an early ally of
Harvey Milk, working on the campaign to defeat the
Briggs Initiative. He eventually became an advisor on
Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign, but broke with the administration over "
Don't Ask, Don't Tell." He was added to the Wall in 2024. In 1991, Montgomery helped found the Triangle Foundation (now
Equality Michigan) in order to advocate for
LGBTQ victims of violence and to improve handling of LGBTQ related cases. He became nationally known for his work and served at numerous organizations.
N •
Sam Nordquist was a biracial trans man who was the victim of a horrific hate crime in
Hopewell,
New York, being brutally tortured for almost three months before dying of his injuries. Seven people have been arrested in connection with his death. He was added to the Wall in 2025. Her poetry addressed her tough childhood growing up in poverty, dealing with sexual assault, and the murder of a sister, along with many issues facing lesbians and Black women in contemporary culture. After two divorces she
came out as a lesbian, "embracing her
sexuality" she was liberated and "knew no limits when it came to expressing the innermost parts of herself". She participated in many forms of activism especially regarding gay and lesbian communities,
domestic violence, and rights of
people of color. After she became too ill to perform, other poets and musicians continued to perform her work at music and arts festivals, "Movement in Black" being particularly popular. •
Chilli Pepper was a trans woman who found notoriety as a frequent talk show guest in the 1980s. In addition to combating harmful stereotypes about trans women, she was a dedicated AIDS awareness advocate. She was added to the Wall in 2025. He was added to the wall in 2021. •
Adrienne Rich was a lesbian
feminist poet and essayist, called "one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century", and credited with bringing "the oppression of women and lesbians to the forefront of poetic discourse." Rich criticized rigid forms of feminist identities, and valorized what she coined the "lesbian continuum"; a female continuum of solidarity and creativity which has impacted and filled women's lives. She famously declined the
National Medal of Arts, protesting then-
House Speaker Newt Gingrich's attempt to end the
National Endowment for the Arts. •
Sylvia Rivera variously self-identified as a gay
transvestite, drag queen, and in
gender fluid terms. Active in the fight for
gay liberation, Rivera was among the earliest
transgender rights activists, pushing for inclusion of protections for trans people in legislation at a time when other gay activists said these provisions would doom gay rights bills to failure. Rivera brought a background in
Latina civil rights and
anti-war activism to groups like the
Gay Liberation Front NYC, of which she was a member of the drag queen caucus. Rivera co-founded the
Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), a group dedicated to helping homeless young gay kids, street kids, drag queens, and
trans women. •
Monica Roberts was an African-American blogger, writer, and transgender rights advocate. She was the founding editor of TransGriot, a blog focusing on issues pertaining to trans women, particularly African-American and other women of color. Roberts' coverage of transgender homicide victims in the United States is credited for bringing national attention to the issue. She was added to the wall in 2021. It was later turned into a documentary film. In 1985 he co-founded the
Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), a watchdog organization that strives to end
anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, and advocates for LGBTQ inclusion in popular media. •
Bayard Rustin was a gay African-American leader who played a key role in the movements for
civil rights in the 1940s through the 1980s. He co-organized the 1941
March on Washington Movement to end
racial discrimination in housing and employment. He later organized
Freedom Rides in the American south and was instrumental in organizing the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference alongside
Martin Luther King Jr., teaching King about
nonviolent direct action. Rustin organized the 1963
March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which was a turning point in the movement for civil and economic rights for Black Americans, and an inspiration to those working for social justice, worldwide. Due to the
homophobia directed at him, he usually had to organize behind the scenes, uplifting civil-rights leaders who were not openly gay. In the 1980s, he was able to become a more public advocate on behalf of gay causes. In November 2013, President
Barack Obama posthumously awarded Rustin the
Presidential Medal of Freedom, which Rustin's partner,
Walter Naegle, accepted on his behalf.
S •
José Sarria better known as Absolute Empress I de San Francisco, and the Widow Norton, was a gay community organizer and political activist who became the first openly gay candidate for public office in the United States in 1961. He performed for years as a live-singing
drag queen doing
parodies of operas at the
Black Cat Bar and founded the
Imperial Court System, one of the oldest and largest LGBT organizations in the world, with chapters throughout North America. •
Sean Sasser was an American educator, activist, pastry chef and reality television personality best known for his appearances on MTV's
The Real World: San Francisco, which depicted his relationship with fellow AIDS activist
Pedro Zamora. This included a
commitment ceremony in which the two exchanged vows, the first such ceremony for a same sex couple on television, and considered a landmark event in the medium. He was added to the wall in 2020. She worked as a funeral director in Detroit and was fired for being transgender. Based on
her court case, in a historic 2020 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the
1964 Civil Rights Act protects gay, lesbian, and transgender employees from discrimination based on sex. She was added to the wall in 2020. In the 1980s, an illness disabled her to the point that she required a wheelchair. •
Edith "Edie" Windsor was a lesbian
LGBT rights activist and a technology manager at
IBM. She was the lead plaintiff in the United States Supreme Court case
United States v. Windsor (2013). The case overturned Section 3 of the
Defense of Marriage Act, which was a major victory in the struggle for same-sex marriage in the U.S. The decision led federal agencies in the Obama administration to extend rights, benefits, and privileges to same-sex married couples. •
Soni Wolf was a self-described
dyke, motorcycle enthusiast, former
U.S. Air Force Vietnam-era veteran, and "tenacious"
queer activist. She co-founded the
Dykes on Bikes (DOB) at the 1976
San Francisco Pride parade and rode with them each year until her death in 2018.
Z •
Pedro Zamora was an
openly gay Cuban-American AIDS educator and television personality who appeared on
MTV's reality television series
The Real World: San Francisco as one of the first openly gay men and person with AIDS to be portrayed in popular media. He brought international attention to HIV/AIDS and gave one of the first views into the daily lives of gay men. His interactions with his housemates exposed the
homophobia and prejudices faced by people with AIDS. Zamora's romantic relationship with
Sean Sasser was nominated by MTV viewers for the "Favorite Love Story" award. The broadcast of their
commitment ceremony, in which they exchanged vows, was the first such
same-sex ceremony in television history, and is considered a landmark in the history of the medium. ==See also==