Although often characterized as apolitical, “Los Angeles has provided the setting for many important chapters in the struggle for gay and lesbian community, visibility and civil rights."Kenney, Moira. Mapping Gay L.A.: The Intersection of Place and Politics. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 2001. Print. Moreover, the LGBTQ community in Los Angeles has historically played a significant role in the development of the entertainment industry.

History Early history

One of the first recorded mentions of male same-sex social activity in Los Angeles was at the Vienna Buffet, a restaurant with live music in Court Street, roughly the site of the Los Angeles City Hall today. From 1891 to 1902, the venue was where gatherings of gay men (including "she boys") occurred.

Beginning in the 1920s, much of Los Angeles' LGBTQ+ culture took place in The Run, centered around Pershing Square and including much of Downtown's Historic Core. The area hosted numerous gay-friendly establishments and cruising locations, such as the Los Angeles Central Library, the Grand Avenue Bar at The Biltmore Hotel, and the Subway Terminal Building restrooms. In 1951, the park at Pershing Square was ripped out to make way for a three-level, subterranean parking garage. As a result, the dense foliage was removed, functioning as a form of deterrent for crime, including cruising. The square gradually fell into disuse and disrepair.

In 1950, Harry Hay, who sought to create "a service and welfare organization devoted to the protection and improvement of Society's Androgynous Minority", worked with Rudi Gernreich to form the Mattachine Society, an early gay rights organization, in Silver Lake. The primary goals of the society were to

"Unify homosexuals isolated from their own kind"; "Educate homosexuals and heterosexuals toward an ethical homosexual culture paralleling the cultures of the Negro, Mexican and Jewish peoples";Joseph Stalin stated in Marxism and the National Question that a nation is "a historically-evolved, stable community of language, territory, economic life and psychological make-up manifested in a community of culture" (Stalin, quoted in Hay/Roscoe, p. 41). Hay asserted that homosexuals manifested two of the four criteria, language and a shared psychological make-up, and thus qualified as a cultural minority (Hay/Roscoe, p. 43). "Lead the more socially conscious homosexual to provide leadership to the whole mass of social variants"; and "Assist gays who are victimized daily as a result of oppression".

In 1952, ONE, Inc. formed out of the Mattachine Society as the publisher of ONE Magazine. The Satyrs Motorcycle Club was founded in 1954 in Los Angeles and influenced the development of the leather subculture in the region.

Gay liberation era

By the 1960s, Los Angeles' primary "gayborhood" had shifted westward to Silver Lake. During this era, Los Angeles' queer culture was associated with the broader counterculture movement of the 1960s, and became visible and highly politicized in response to a string of violent bar raids that took place on the Sunset Strip. Increasingly harsh law enforcement tactics led the Los Angeles Police Department to seek out and aggressively monitor bars with predominately gay clienteles, including the Black Cat Tavern.

Protests reacting to these police raids, organized by P.R.I.D.E. (Personal Rights in Defense and Education) and SCCRH (Southern California Council on Religion and the Homophile),Los Angeles City Planning Department. Historic-Cultural Monument Application for The Black Cat. Los Angeles: Los Angeles Department of City Planning, 2008. Department of City Planning: City of Los Angeles, June 2008. Web. 28 Feb. 2016. are considered to be "the first gay protests in America to attract significant numbers," preceding the Stonewall Riots by two years.Armstrong, E. A., and S. M. Crage. "Movements and Memory: The Making of the Stonewall Myth." American Sociological Review 71.5 (2006): 724-51. Web. The Advocate was created in 1967 in response to the riots on Sunset Strip as a tool to further ignite LGBTQ activism in Los Angeles and nationwide.

The Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) was founded in 1968 in Huntington Park, California.

Inspired by the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City, Christopher Street West (CSW) formed in 1970 to host Los Angeles Pride. CSW co-founders Rev. Troy Perry, Rev. Bob Humphries, and Morris Kight originally discussed organizing a march or a demonstration, but Troy Perry allegedly stated, "No. We’re going to do a parade. This is Hollywood."

The Gay Community Services Center, led by activists including Morris Kight and Don Kilhefner, incorporated in 1971.Morris Kight Papers, 1975-1993 at UCLA Special Collections The organization provided legal help for anti-Vietnam War protesters and screenings for sexually transmitted diseases.

Beth Chayim Chadashim was founded in 1972 as a Reform synagogue in Mid-City, Los Angeles, primarily for gay and lesbian Jews.

Alongside the growth in popularity of disco music, LGBTQ nightlife grew in the 1970s, with nightclubs such as Jewel's Catch One and Studio One.

In 1974, continuing hostility and harassment from the Los Angeles Police Department led to Los Angeles Pride being moved to an unincorporated area to the west of Hollywood.

Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG)'s Los Angeles chapter formed in 1976.

HIV/AIDS pandemic

The recognition of HIV/AIDS by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 1981 led to the 1983 foundation of healthcare provider AIDS Project Los Angeles.

In 1984, a coalition of gay men, Russian Jews, and the elderly successfully held a vote to officially incorporate the City of West Hollywood. Voters elected a city council with an openly gay majority and it immediately passed a series of rent control measures to protect its longtime citizens.

The first Long Beach pride parade took place in 1984.

AIDS Project Los Angeles started the AIDS Walk walkathon in 1985 to raise funds for HIV/AIDS research and treatment.

In 1987, ACT UP Los Angeles (ACT UP/LA) was founded to advocate on behalf of HIV/AIDS patients.Benita, Roth. The Life and Death of ACT UP/LA: Anti-Aids Activism in Los Angeles from the 1989s to the 2000s. New York, Cambridge University Press, 2017.

Contemporary history In 1992, the Los Angeles Unified School District established EAGLES Academy, a public high school for LGBTQ+ students.

Controversy occurred when Mitchell Grobeson, the first openly gay police officer in the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), resigned, accusing the agency of mistreatment.Lasley, James. Los Angeles Police Department Meltdown: The Fall of the Professional-Reform Model of Policing (Advances in Police Theory and Practice). CRC Press, August 28, 2012. , 9781466575875. Google Books PT58. Grobeson had been reinstated into the police force and walked in the 1994 Los Angeles pride parade in full uniform, but stated that the management had attempted to terminate him by November 1995, so he resigned in January of that year. According to Grobeson, the department did not want him to actively recruit in the LGBT community.Burkhe, Robin. A Matter of Justice: Lesbians and Gay Men in Law Enforcement. Routledge, September 5, 2013. , 9781136805431. p. 268.

In 1994, Sheila Kuehl became the first openly LGBTQ+ individual elected to the California State Legislature, representing the 41st State Assembly district.

Los Angeles County's LGBTQ+ Armenian-American community organized in 1998, founding the Gay and Lesbian Armenian Society.

There was widespread opposition to 2008 California Proposition 8 in Los Angeles County, including from Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa; West Hollywood mayor Jeffrey Prang; local U.S Representatives Lucille Roybal-Allard, Adam Schiff, Brad Sherman, Hilda Solis and Henry Waxman; local State Senators Ron Calderon, Gil Cedillo, Sheila Kuehl, Alex Padilla, and Mark Ridley-Thomas; local State Assemblymembers Karen Bass, Kevin de León, Mike Feuer, Paul Krekorian, Ted Lieu and Anthony Portantino; the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education and United Teachers Los Angeles; newspapers the Daily Breeze, the Daily Bruin, The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, La Opinión, the Los Angeles Daily News, Los Angeles Downtown News, the Los Angeles Times, the Press-Telegram, the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, and the Whittier Daily News; and organizations such as ACLU of Southern California and the Los Angeles LGBT Center.

The 2010s saw a resurgence of LGBTQ+ print media in Los Angeles County, with the launch of the newspapers The Pride LA (2015) and Los Angeles Blade (2017).

In response to gentrification and the closure of several local gay bars in Silver Lake, the Off Sunset Festival was launched in 2013 to celebrate the neighborhood's rich LGBT+ history.

The San Fernando Valley's first modern pride parade was established in 2014, led by the organization Somos Familia Valle.

In 2015, Los Angeles LGBT Center partnered with Latino Equality Alliance to open Mi Centro, a culturally sensitive facility in the predominantly Latine Boyle Heights neighborhood.

Maebe A. Girl became the first drag queen elected to public office when she was elected to the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council in 2019.

glendaleOUT was established in 2019 to serve Glendale's LGBTQ+ residents.

In 2019, the Los Angeles LGBT Center opened its Anita May Rosenstein Campus, designed to provide intergenerational services such as emergency and transitional housing, affordable housing, a senior center, a youth center, and employment programs. Los Angeles Blade'''s Karen Ocamb called the facility "as monumental a moment in LGBT history as the Stonewall riots did for the gay liberation awakening 50 years ago." In 2020, the organization opened Center South in Leimert Park to serve the neighborhood's predominantly African-American population.

Following COVID-19-related issues in 2020 and 2021, the annual Glendale Pride in the Park, held in Adams Hill, came to fruition in June 2022. The event is a family-friendly picnic.

In 2023, a wave of anti-LGBTQ+ hate led to protests against the Glendale Unified School District and Los Angeles Unified School District.

Demographics According to the Williams Institute, there are about 665,000 LGBTQ people in Los Angeles County, representing about 9% of the county's population. Of this group, 39% are Latino, 37% are White, 13% are Asian, 8% are Black, and 4% identify as "Multiracial or 'Other', AIAN, or NHPI".

A 2007 study reported that 3.7% of adults in Los Angeles County identified as lesbian, gay, or bisexual. By race, the percentages were 5% of whites, 4% of African-Americans and 2.8% of Latinos.Moore, p. 190.

Geography

The City of West Hollywood is the thriving core of the LGBT community and nightlife and as of 2014 its population was about 40% LGBT. It had the nicknames "Gay Camelot"Branson-Potts, Hailey. "West Hollywood's increasing diversity inspires mixed emotions." Los Angeles Times. March 6, 2014. p. 1. Retrieved on September 14, 2014. and "Boys Town".Poole, Matthew. Frommer's Los Angeles 2008 (Volume 391 of Frommer's Complete Guides, ISSN 1528-6673). John Wiley & Sons, October 1, 2007. , 9780470145753. p. 276. LGBT businesses opened in West Hollywood because it was under the jurisdiction of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department; the Los Angeles Police Department had a reputation of raiding LGBT businesses. In addition the presence of the design community also attracted LGBT culture.Wai, Joan. Newcomer's Handbook For Moving To And Living In Los Angeles: Including Santa Monica, Pasadena, Orange County, And The San Fernando Valley. First Books. March 30, 2005. , 9780912301600. p. 35. West Hollywood was affected by AIDS in the 1980s. By 2014, as LGBT individuals had faced increasing acceptance in society, the city's identity has slowly shifted from being exclusively LGBT.