37 LGBT mayors of places in the United States

Samuel Francis Adams is an American politician and non-profit leader who is the former mayor of Portland, Oregon. He grew up in Newport, Oregon, attended the University of Oregon and worked on a number of campaigns before taking office as a Portland commissioner. Among them was Vera Katz's run for mayor of Portland. After she won, he served as her chief of staff for eleven years and then went back to school, earning a degree in Political Science.

Toni Gayle Atkins is an American politician serving as the 51st and current President pro tempore of the California State Senate since 2018. A member of the Democratic Party, she previously served as the 69th Speaker of the California State Assembly from 2014 to 2016. She has represented the 39th State Senate district since 2016, encompassing most of San Diego.

Jackie Biskupski is an American Democratic politician, who served as the 35th Mayor of Salt Lake City, Utah. Upon taking office, Biskupski became Salt Lake City's 35th mayor, the city's first openly gay mayor, and the second female mayor. She is also a former member of the Utah House of Representatives, representing the 30th District in Salt Lake County from 1999 to 2011.

Peter Paul Montgomery Buttigieg is an American politician and former military officer who has served as the United States secretary of transportation since February 3, 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the 32nd mayor of South Bend, Indiana from 2012 to 2020.

Christopher L. Cabaldon is a Filipino-American politician from California who served as mayor of West Sacramento. He is the longest-serving mayor in the city's history. He also represents the State of California on the Western Interstate Commission on Higher Education. He is a member of the Democratic Party, Vice President of the National Conference of Democratic Mayors, and Chair of U.S. Conference of Mayors' Jobs, Education, and Workforce Committee. He is openly gay.

Jane Castor is an American politician and former police chief serving as the 59th mayor of Tampa, Florida. She was the first woman and first openly gay person to serve as Chief of Police of the Tampa Police Department from 2009 to 2015. Castor was a member of the Republican Party until 2015, when she became a member of the Democratic Party.

David Nicola Cicilline is an American lawyer and politician serving as the U.S. Representative for Rhode Island's 1st congressional district since 2011. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the 36th mayor of Providence from 2003 to 2011, the first openly gay mayor of a U.S. state capital.

Gary Cloutier is a citizen activist and formerly elected mayor of Vallejo, California. Elected on November 21, 2007, and sworn in on December 4, 2007, he was replaced on December 7 when his opponent, Osby Davis, requested a recount that showed Davis had won the election.

Bill Crews is an American politician who served as the mayor of Melbourne, Iowa, from 1984 through 1998. Crews came out at the LGBT Equality March on Washington, D. C. in 1993, where he attracted national attention as a result of hate graffiti on his Melbourne house.

Charles Gregory Davis, known as Greg Davis is the former mayor of Southaven in northern Mississippi, the state's fourth largest city, from 1997 to 2013. Prior to serving as mayor, he represented the 7th district in the Mississippi House of Representatives. He was the Republican Party's nominee for Mississippi's 1st congressional district in the 2008 special and general elections.

Jenny Anne Durkan is an American attorney and politician serving as the 56th mayor of Seattle. She is the daughter of Martin Durkan, who was once considered one of the most powerful politicians in Washington state; like him, she is a member of the Democratic Party. After earning her Juris Doctor from University of Washington School of Law in 1985, Durkan began practicing law as a criminal defense lawyer and civil litigator, and had many prominent cases both on behalf of the government and for private parties. During this time she also worked for many nonprofits and advocacy groups, and was briefly Governor Mike Lowry's chief lawyer. In October 2009, President Barack Obama appointed her United States Attorney for the Western District of Washington. She held that position until September 2014.

Daryl Justin Finizio is an American politician, and was the first strong mayor of New London, Connecticut. As a Democrat, he won the mayoral election in November 2011 with 46% of the vote in a 6-way race.

Robert Garcia is a Peruvian-American politician who is the 28th and current mayor of Long Beach, California. A member of the Democratic Party, he was first elected in the 2014 election and won reelection in 2018. He is both the city's youngest and first elected openly LGBT mayor, and also the first Latino American to hold the office. He is the second person of color to be elected mayor of Long Beach, after Republican Eunice Sato, a Japanese-American who served as mayor from 1980 to 1982.

Andrew Demese Gillum is an American former politician who served as the 126th mayor of Tallahassee. He served as a Tallahassee city commissioner from 2003 until 2014, first elected at the age of 23. He is a member of the Democratic Party.

Neil G. Giuliano is an American politician who served as mayor of Tempe, Arizona for four terms, from 1994 to 2004. After serving in elected office he served as president of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) from 2005 to 2009, and served as President/CEO of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation from December 2010 to December 2015,. Giuliano was the first directly-elected openly gay mayor in the United States, and Tempe was the largest city in America with an openly gay mayor for nearly six years, 1996- 2001.

Todd Rex Gloria is an American politician serving as the 37th and current mayor of San Diego since 2020. A member of the Democratic Party, he is the first person of color and the first openly gay person to serve as San Diego's mayor.

Javier Gonzales is an American politician who served as the 42nd mayor of Santa Fe from 2014 to 2018. Gonzales was the city's first and only openly gay mayor. He held the office of Santa Fe County Commissioner, serving two terms. Soon after, he was elected as the first Hispanic president to the National Association of Counties. Upon assuming the mayorship of Santa Fe, he was chair of the Democratic Party of New Mexico.

James P. Gray II is the current Kentucky Secretary of Transportation in the administration of Governor Andy Beshear. He is the former mayor of Lexington, Kentucky from 2011 to 2019. Gray served as the city's vice-mayor from 2006 to 2010 before being elected mayor in November 2010. Gray won re-election to another four-year term on November 4, 2014. In 2016, he ran for the United States Senate seat held by U.S. Senator Rand Paul. Gray won the May 17 Democratic primary with nearly 60% of the vote but lost the November 8 general election to Paul. Gray was Chairman and CEO of Gray Construction, an engineering, design, and construction company headquartered in Lexington. Once elected, he took an advisory role as Chair of the Board of Directors to focus on his role as mayor.

Patrick Guerriero, a former Massachusetts state legislator, mayor and advocate for marriage equality, is a founding partner of Civitas Public Affairs Group, a Washington, D.C.-based government affairs firm. Working on the local, state and federal level for two decades, Guerriero has advised and counseled many of the nation's leading Democratic and Republican elected officials and political donors on a wide range of issues. Civitas Public Affairs Group, with offices in Washington, D.C. and Boston, provides bipartisan government relations, issue-based donor-giving strategies, and public-policy campaign management to individuals, non-profits and corporations.

Walter Reed Gusciora is an American Democratic Party politician who has served as the mayor of Trenton, New Jersey since 2018. He previously served from 1996 to 2018 in the New Jersey General Assembly, where he represented the 15th Legislative District. He also served as the prosecutor for Lawrence Township. He defeated businessman Paul Perez to become Mayor of Trenton in 2018, earning 52 percent of the vote in a runoff election on June 12 since no candidate won the 50 percent threshold or more in the May 8 election.

John William Heilman is an American municipal politician and former city councilmember of West Hollywood, California. He has served in the capacity of mayor multiple times since 1985.

Jess Helene Herbst is an American politician and transgender rights activist, who served as the mayor of New Hope, Texas, from May 2016 until May 2018. Herbst became the first openly transgender mayor in Texas in 2016 when the then-mayor suffered a heart attack and died days before the election, but still won, leaving the town without a mayor. Herbst, who was Mayor pro-tem, was then appointed to the position.

Teri Johnston is an American politician. In November 2018 she was elected the mayor of Key West, becoming the first openly lesbian woman to be elected as a city mayor in Florida history. Johnston is the second woman to serve as mayor of Key West.

John Laird is an American politician who was Secretary of the California Natural Resources Agency from 2011-2019 and a former legislator who represented the 27th district in the California State Assembly until 2008. The 27th district included parts of Santa Clara County, Santa Cruz County and Monterey County. Laird was one of the first two openly gay men to serve in the California legislature. Laird became one of the United States' first openly gay mayors in 1983 when he took over the mayoralty of the city of Santa Cruz, California.

Lori Elaine Lightfoot is an American attorney and politician serving since 2019 as the 56th mayor of Chicago. She is a member of the Democratic Party. Before becoming mayor, Lightfoot worked in private legal practice as a partner at Mayer Brown and held various government positions in Chicago. Most notably, she served as president of the Chicago Police Board and chair of the Chicago Police Accountability Task Force. Lightfoot ran for Mayor of Chicago in 2019, advancing to a runoff election against Toni Preckwinkle in the February 2019 election. She defeated Preckwinkle in the runoff on April 2, 2019.

Evan Low is an American politician currently serving in the California State Assembly. He is a Democrat representing the 28th Assembly District, which encompasses parts of the Northern CA South Bay and Silicon Valley. He is a member of the California Legislative LGBT Caucus, and the California Asian & Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus.

Stuart Craig Lowe is an American politician and former Mayor of Gainesville, Florida. After winning a runoff election on April 13, 2010, by a margin of 42 votes Lowe became mayor-elect of Gainesville. He was sworn in on May 20, 2010, becoming the first openly gay mayor of the city. He lost his bid for re-election on April 16, 2013 to former City Commissioner Ed Braddy after being arrested for a DUI during the campaign.

James Edward McGreevey is an American politician and member of the Democratic Party who served as the 52nd Governor of New Jersey from 2002 until his resignation in 2004 following the revelation of his extramarital affair with a gubernatorial appointee.

Alex Benjamin Morse is an American politician who served as the 44th mayor of Holyoke, Massachusetts from 2012 to 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, he was elected the youngest mayor of Holyoke at age 22. He was reelected three times, with his final term expiring in January 2022. Morse resigned on March 26, 2021, to accept a position as the town manager of Provincetown, beginning on April 5, 2021.

Edward Bernard Patrick Murray is an American politician from the state of Washington who most recently served as the 53rd mayor of Seattle from 2014 to 2017. A Democrat, he was previously a state legislator, first with the Washington State House of Representatives from 1996 to 2007, then the Washington State Senate from 2007 to 2013.

Bao Nguyen is an American Democratic politician from Orange County, California, and a former mayor of Garden Grove, California. He also previously served as a trustee on the Garden Grove Unified School District Board of Education.

Annise Danette Parker is an American politician who served as the 61st Mayor of Houston, Texas, from 2010 until 2016. She also served as an at-large member of the Houston City Council from 1998 to 2003 and city controller from 2004 to 2010.

Stephen P. "Steve" Pougnet is an American businessman and Democratic politician who served as the mayor of Palm Springs, California from 2007 to 2015.

Pedro E. Segarra is a Puerto Rican-American politician and lawyer who served as the 66th mayor of Hartford, Connecticut. Prior to becoming mayor, Segarra was president of Hartford's City Council. He succeeded former Mayor Eddie Perez who resigned after he was convicted by a state Superior Court jury of bribery and extortion in a political corruption case, though Perez' convictions eventually were reversed by the Connecticut Appellate Court. Segarra, who was sworn in as mayor on June 25, 2010, and won re-election on November 8, 2011. In 2015, Luke Bronin defeated Segarra for the Democratic mayoral nomination. He is Hartford's second mayor of Puerto Rican ancestry and the first openly gay mayor of the city. He is also the second openly gay mayor of an American state capital city.

E. Denise Simmons is the former mayor of Cambridge, Massachusetts, having served her first mayoral term 2008–2009 term and her second mayoral term 2016-2017. She was the first openly lesbian African-American mayor in the United States. Simmons has been on the Cambridge City Council continuously from 2001 to present, serving ten consecutive terms.

Dean J. Trantalis is an American politician and mayor of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Before his election as mayor, Trantalis served as a city commissioner for Fort Lauderdale from 2009 to 2017.

James Elton "Jim" West was an American politician from Spokane, Washington. While Mayor of Spokane in 2005, he was the target of allegations of the sexual abuse of boys twenty years earlier. These allegations became public after West became a target of a sting operation conducted by his hometown newspaper, the Spokesman-Review. Some journalists and academics criticized the paper for what they saw as a form of entrapment. West admitted engaging in homosexual behavior with adults, despite an earlier record of supporting "anti-gay" legislation. Though never charged, he was removed from office by recall in 2005. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) eventually closed its investigation and took no action for lack of evidence.