The first gay-rights organization that was founded and recorded in history was in Berlin, called the Scientific-Humanitarian Commitee or Wissenschaftlich-humanitäres Komitee; WhK in German. It was founded in 1897, on the 14th or 15th of May, which was four days before Oscar Wilde's release from prison, and shut down in 1933. The founder of the Scientific-Humanitarian Commitee was Magnus Hirschfeld, who opened an Institute for Sexual Science in 1919, which was anticipated by decades of other scientific centres that specialized in sex research. Another notable thing that he did was sponsor the World League of Sexual Reform in 1928. Original members of the WhK included Hirschfeld, publisher Max Spohr, lawyer Eduard Oberg and writer Franz Joseph von Bülow, Adolf Brand, Benedict Friedländer, Hermann von Teschenberg and Kurt Hiller also joined the organization. There was a brief split in 1907, and In 1929, Hiller took over as chairman of the group from Hirschfeld.
At its peak, the Scientific-Humanitarian Commitee had branches in approximately 25 cities in Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands. The Scientific-Humanitarian Commitee inspired many gay-rights organizations that came after it. Henry Gerber, who was a German Immigrant that served in the U.S. Army during World War I, was inspired to create his own gay-rights organization in 1924 called the Society for Human Rights, and it is considered the first documented gay rights organization in the United States. It was a very small group, but they did publish a few issues of a newsletter called “Friendship and Freedom,” and that is known as the country’s first gay-interest newsletter.
The Society for Human Rights was very short lived and disbanded in 1925 after police raids. After that there were many organizations that came to be such as the Mattachine Society, founded in L.A. in 1950 and is regarded as the first viable U.S. gay rights organization. Also the Daughters of Bilitis, founded in San Francisco in 1955 as the first U.S. lesbian organization.
Encarnación, Omar G. “Gay Rights: Why Democracy Matters.” Journal of Democracy, Johns Hopkins University Press, 14 July 2014, https://muse.jhu.edu/article/549501/summary?casa_token=pFORmtmjcrgAAAAA%3AX9OojUdlp9XRFptTfbGHlk6Zkx4-3OqX7EkwTXcttL2s1Emd-OO0nmFSZ0yiFajqUTeQdE33.
History.com Editors. “Gay Rights.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 28 June 2017, https://www.history.com/topics/gay-rights/history-of-gay-rights.
“Gay Rights Movement.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., https://www.britannica.com/topic/gay-rights-movement.
“Scientific-Humanitarian Committee Information.” WISSENSCHAFTLICH-HUMANITäRES KOMITEE - Encyclopedia Information, https://webot.org/info/en/?search=Wissenschaftlich-humanit%C3%A4res_Komitee.