Laverne Cox, born May 29, 1972 in Mobile, Alabama, is the first transgender person to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award in an acting category. She was nominated for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for her performance in Orange Is The New Black. She was the first transgender person to win a Daytime Emmy Award in Outstanding Special Class Special for her work as executive producer for Laverne Cox Presents: The T Word.
On June 9, 2014, Cox became the first transgender person to appear on the cover of Time magazine. She is the first transgender person to have a wax figure in Madame Tussauds.
Laurel Hubbard, born February 9, 1978 in Auckland, New Zealand, became the first openly transgender athlete selected to compete the Olympic Games.
Prior to her transition, Laurel set junior records in weightlifting in 1998, but stated she had ceased lifting in 2001 saying it became to much to bear, trying to fit into a world that wasn't set up for transgendered people.
She transitioned to female in 2012 and in 2017 competed in international weightlifting for the first time at the Australian International & Australian Open, winning the gold medal in the heaviest +90 kg category. She was the first trans woman to win an international weightlifting title for New Zealand.
In 2019, she won two gold medals at the Pacific Games in Samoa. In 2020, she won the gold medal in the women's +87 kg even at the Roma 2020 World Cup.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) allowed the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) set the requirements for transgender weightlifters to compete at the Olympics. On June 21, 2021, the New Zealand Olympic Committee determined Hubbard met all the requirements and selected her to be the first open transgender athlete to compete in the 2020 Olympic Games, set for Tokyo in 2021.
Unfortunately, she was also the oldest weightlifter at 43, to compete at the Olympics and she placed last in her group.
Lili Elbe, born Einar Wegener December 28, 1882 in Vejle, Denmark, was a transgender woman, who is the first person to receive a uterus transplant. She began painting under her birth name and married Gerda Gottlieb in 1904. Gottlieb was also a painter and she and Lili moved to Paris in 1912, where Elbe cold live more openly as a woman, passing herself off as Gottlieb's sister-in-law.
Elbe considered suicide before learning about sex reassignment surgery, which was highly experimental at the time. In 1930, she traveled to the Hirschfeld Institute for Sexual Science in Germany, and went through four surgeries. The first was a removal of the testicles, and the second implanted an ovary into her abdomen. The third operation removed the penis and the scrotum.
The fourth surgery which took place in 1931 was for Elbe to receive a transplant uterus and construct a vaginal canal, making her one of the first transgender woman to under go a vaginoplasty surgery. Her immune system rejected the transplanted uterus, causing an infection. She died in September 1931 three months after the surgery.
The LGBTQ+ film festival MIX Copenhagen gives out four Lili Awards each year, named for Elbe. She painted many successful images before stopping after the transition.
Stephanie Byers, born February 5, 1963 in Norman, Oklahoma, is a member of the Chickasaw Nation and the first transgender Native American to be elected to office in the US. She is also the first transgender person to serve in the Kansas Legislature.
She graduated from Oklahoma Christian University with a Bachelor of Music Education, and then Kansas State University with Master of Music in 2015. She was awarded National Educator of the Year by Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, an organization working to end discrimination, harassment, and bullying based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression in schools.
She retired from teaching at Wichita North High School in 2019 and the same year, announced she would seek the Democratic nomination for the Kansas House of Representatives for the 86th district. Byers won the election, but did not seek re-election.
Number 96, an Australian soap opera, was the first television series to feature an openly gay character as a regular. The show ran from 1972 to 1977 and covered many controversial topics. Actor Joe Hasham played Don Finlayson, a lawyer who had a partner Dudley Butterfield, played Chard Hayward. It also featured the first transgender character portrayed by a transfender actress, Carlotta. The show also featured an interracial romance.
Rosemary Ketchum, an openly transgender woman, won a seat on the Wheeling City Council earlier this week, making her the first to be elected in West Virginia.
She said her platform was not based on her gender, but focused on affordable housing and opioid addiction. She is one of 27 openly transgender officials in the United States.
