We'wha was a Zuni “princess” in 1886, who came to Washington D.C. during the era of westward expansion. During their time in Washington, We'wha called on many congressmen, Supreme Court justices, and even President Cleveland himself, and befriended anthropologist Matilda Coxe Stevenson, one of America's first female scientists.

We'wha, who stood at 6 feet tall, was perceived by the people of Washington to be a woman, and frequently wore women's clothes. But We'wha was born a man. In We'wha's Zuni tribe, gender conformity to only male and female was not practiced — a third gender, combining aspects of both traditional sexes, was socially recognized and often referred to as “two-spirit.”

We'wha, also known as the Zuni Man-Woman, was one of the first recorded modern gender non-binary people in the American territories, and was the subject of the book The Zuni Man-Woman by Will Roscoe.

President Millard Fillmore signs into law the Organic Act, admitting New Mexico into the Union as a territory and allowing for the formation of a territorial government.

1879 — Railroad reaches New Mexico. The first passenger train arrives in Otero; one year later, the line is extended through Santa Fe counties.

1888–1889 — State universities established. Las Cruces College was founded (in 1960, this became NM State University).

New Mexico becomes the 47th state, and Santa Fe becomes the state capital. That same year, women campaign for suffrage publicly with a suffrage parade.

1921 — Congress passes the Snyder Act, granting all Native Americans born in the US full citizenship.

1924 — The Society for Human Rights is founded in Chicago. Henry Gerber founds the first documented gay rights organization in the United States.

1926 — Route 66 goes through Santa Fe, and the Old Santa Fe Trail Association is established.

1929 — Georgia O'Keeffe began spending part of the year in the southwest.

Mary Colter was the chief architect for the Fred Harvey Company from 1902–1948, designing Harvey Hotels along the Grand Canyon. Four of her buildings were established as National Historic Landmarks in 1987: Hopi House, Lookout Studio, Hermit's Rest, and Desert View Watchtower.

Her architectural style, inspired by nature and utilizing natural materials, became one of the earliest renditions of the now-popular “rustic” design. Colter retired at 79, after spending her life defending her aesthetic visions in a predominantly male field.

The first atomic bomb is detonated in Trinity, New Mexico.

Witter Bynner was a poet, translator, and scholar of Chinese literature. While teaching at UC Berkeley in 1918, he met his secretary and lover Walter Willard “Spud” Johnson, who moved with him to Santa Fe in 1922. The pair were later immortalized as characters in D.H. Lawrence's novel The Plumed Serpent.

After eight years in Santa Fe, Bynner met his lifelong partner Robert Hunt, and the two were known for entertaining artists like Martha Graham, Robert Frost, Igor Stravinsky, and Aldous Huxley. A staunch advocate of Native American rights, Bynner lived in his adobe home on the Old Santa Fe Trail (now the Inn of the Turquoise Bear) until his death in 1968.

1950 — The Mattachine Society is established by activist Harry Hay, one of the first gay rights groups in the country and one of the longest sustained, focused on social acceptance and support.

1952 — Christine Jorgensen becomes the first American woman to publicly come out as transgender, speaking openly about gender confirmation surgery and hormone replacement therapy.

1953 — The New Mexico Supreme Court held that fellatio was not outlawed by the state's sodomy statute.

1961 — First attempt to repeal the state's sodomy law; passed the House, not successful in the Senate.

1966 — The Compton's Cafeteria Riot broke out in San Francisco, when trans women were arrested for breaking gendered clothing laws and denied service.

1967 — New Mexico Court of Appeals held that cunnilingus was criminal under state law, whether heterosexual or homosexual.

June 28, 1969 — Police raid the Stonewall Inn in NYC, prompting protests and demonstrations.

June 28, 1970 — Community members marched through NYC on the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall riots. The event, called the Christopher Street Liberation Day, is now considered the first gay pride parade.

Both were original signers of the Santa Fe Playhouse's lease in 1964, when the performance group “The Santa Fe Players” renovated an old livery stable in Barrio de Analco. Robert (Bob) appeared in over 40 Playhouse productions. Joseph (Joe) received a doctorate in social work, heading a study that prompted an ACLU class action lawsuit resulting in foster care law reform in New Mexico.

The couple celebrated 43 years together in 2002, when their story made front-page news in The New Mexican. Joseph Paull passed away in 2005 at 83; Robert Jerkins passed away two years later. The couple left a legacy gift to the Playhouse that supports its operating budget to this day, and helped it buy its permanent home on East De Vargas Street.

Roz Pulitzer was a Bronx native, women's rights activist, and member of the National Women's Caucus, working alongside Gloria Steinem, former U.S. Representative Bella Abzug, and Betty Friedan. Roz fought for changes to New York State rape laws that had previously required women to prove they'd fought off their attacker.

She and her partner, Kay Lockridge, moved to Santa Fe in 1997, where Pulitzer pursued a career in photography. Roz passed away at 90 in 2020.

Ford Ruthling was a renowned artist whose work celebrated the culture and visual history of New Mexico. Born in Tesuque in 1933 and educated at the University of New Mexico, he served in the U.S. Air Force as a navigator.

Best known for his “embossed paintings,” a style unique to him, Ruthling was equally prolific in ceramics, tinwork, and oil paintings, all steeped in a distinctive southwestern style. His broadest reach came in 1977, when four of his paintings of Pueblo Indian pottery were made into US postal stamps. He lived in Santa Fe until his death in 2015.

Forrest Moses is a nationally acclaimed abstract landscape artist. Born in Danville, Virginia in 1934, Moses received his BA and MFA from Washington and Lee University, and was deeply influenced by Japanese aesthetics while stationed in the Philippines with the U.S. Navy.

In 1969 he moved to Santa Fe, where he lived for four decades and painted most of his major works, which now hang in galleries including the Whitney Museum of American Art. In 2019, more than 30 of his works spanning a 50-year career were exhibited by LewAllen Galleries in Santa Fe.

1973 — Roe v. Wade.

1975 — New Mexico repeals its anti-sodomy law, making it one of the first U.S. states to do so; same-sex activity is now legal.

January 9, 1978 — Harvey Milk is inaugurated as San Francisco city supervisor, the first openly gay man elected to public office in California.

In November, Harvey and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone were murdered by Dan White, a recently resigned public official. After what was widely called “the Twinkie Defense,” White served only five years of a seven-year sentence.

Nearly 800 people are infected with Gay-Related Immunodeficiency Disorder (GRID) in major US coastal cities. By December, GRID had been renamed AIDS.

An attempt to reinstate New Mexico's sodomy law failed.

Madge was the mother of Kenneth Buckley, who passed away in 1989 at 39 from AIDS. After her son's death, Madge, a retired architect, threw herself into AIDS activism, organizing and leading Santa Fe's contribution to the national NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt — 30,000 panels, nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 and displayed on the National Mall in 1996.

Madge used the quilt to spread awareness about AIDS in schools, churches, and civic groups. In 1995 she was named a Santa Fe Living Treasure. Madge worked as an AIDS activist for over 60 years before her death in 2010.

Elaine Sullivan founded Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) in Santa Fe in 1992, and later served as Board President of the Alliance for Local Economic Prosperity.

2003 — New Mexico provided benefits to same-sex partners of state employees, addressed hate crimes based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and protected against discrimination in employment, housing, credit, and public accommodations.

Alicia and Eduardo Moreno became involved in LGBTQ+ activism after their son came out as gay; Alicia testified before the state legislature to urge equal rights, and Governor Bill Richardson signed the bill into law in 2003.

2012 — The state's highest court granted parental rights to a lesbian mother who had helped raise her partner's adopted child.

2013 — The New Mexico Supreme Court ruled the state must provide same-sex couples the same marriage rights as different-sex couples, making it the 17th state to recognize same-sex marriage.

June 26, 2015 — The US Supreme Court rules that states cannot ban same-sex marriage, legalizing it in all 50 states.

2017 — New Mexico bans sexual orientation change efforts on minors.

2019 — New Mexico codifies same-sex marriage, protects students from bullying based on sexual orientation and gender identity, repeals the 1984 sex reassignment surgery requirement (adding a neutral “X” gender designation), allows gender-neutral bathrooms, and issues corrected birth certificates to transgender people without requiring surgery.

Malcolm Lazin is an entrepreneur, social activist, film producer, former federal prosecutor, and founder of the LGBTQ rights organization Equality Forum. In 1963, as a college senior, he witnessed Dr. Martin Luther King's “I Have a Dream” speech at the March on Washington.

In 1993, he founded Equality Forum, which raises awareness of LGBTQ issues nationally. He splits his time between Sarasota, Florida, and Santa Fe.

Directed by Albuquerque native Storm Miguel Florez, this documentary follows Florez's experience as a teenage dyke in Albuquerque, learning the “secret lesbian code” and “the dyke whistle” — codes that helped queer teens find their peers when their sexuality was still largely a secret.

The film explores the culture of youth homosexuality in Albuquerque in the 70s and 80s: how teens came out, found each other, built a community, and supported one another through discrimination.

Herb Lotz is a photographer and activist best known for documenting the everyday life of soldiers during the Vietnam War. Rather than claim 4-F status for being gay, Lotz served in Vietnam until 1969, then set his sights on the Southwest — “A friend told me Santa Fe had at least one gay bar, and I would find arts and sophistication,” he recounted.

In Santa Fe, he found a community of acceptance and a place to heal and grow as an artist. In 2017, the New Mexico History Museum presented an exhibit of his work in honor of Santa Fe Gay Pride Weekend.