37 members of the LGBTQ community are known to have held office in the United States Congress. In the House, 33 LGBTQ people held office; in the Senate, 4 held office. Two people, Tammy Baldwin and Kyrsten Sinema, served in the House and were later elected into the Senate. The earliest known LGBTQ congressperson was Ed Koch, who began his term in the House in 1969. The earliest known LGBTQ senator is Harris Wofford, who began his term in 1991. Both men were not out during their tenure: Koch's sexuality was confirmed after his death and Wofford announced his plans to marry a man over 20 years after serving in the Senate. In 2024, Sarah McBride was elected as the nation's first openly transgender member of Congress.
13 openly LGBTQ members of the current (119th) Congress, all of whom are Democrats. One is a senator and the rest are House representatives. This equals the record highest number of LGBTQ congresspeople serving at the same time in U.S. history, and the 12 openly LGBTQ representatives form the highest number of simultaneously-serving openly LGBTQ members in the history of the House of Representatives.