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  2001 – San Francisco becomes the first city in America to cover gender reassignment surgery for city employees.

• September 11, 2001 – Mark Bingham, one of the gay founders of the San Francisco Fog gay-inclusive rugby team, was one of four passengers to form a plan to rush the cockpit of the hijacked United Flight 93. The hijackers, prevented from taking the plane to Washington, D.C. where they intended to crash it into the White House or the U.S. Capitol, crash the plane in a Pennsylvania field.
• June 2002 – The Mark Kendall Bingham Memorial Tournament, a biennial international, non-professional, gay rugby union tournament, is first held in San Francisco.
• February 12, 2004 – Under the orders of Mayor Gavin Newsom, San Francisco begins to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon are the first couple to be wed. The marriages continue until March 11, when the California Supreme Court orders them to stop. On August 12, the California Supreme Court voids the nearly 4,000 same sex marriages that had been performed in the City. The City sues the State of California to overturn Prop. 22, which prohibits same sex marriages.
• April 30, 2004 – Theresa Sparks is appointed to the San Francisco Police Commission, becoming the first openly transgender police commissioner in the U.S.
• May 9, 2007 – Theresa Sparks is elected President of the San Francisco Police Commission, making her the first transgender person ever to be elected president of any San Francisco commission and the City’s highest ranking transgender official.
• August 2007 – After 26 years, the Metro City Bar and Grill loses its lease at 3600 16th Street. New owners rename the bar the LookOut.
• May 15, 2008 – The California Supreme Court rules on San Francisco’s lawsuit and overturns Prop. 22. Same sex marriages begin in the state.
• November 4, 2008 – California voters pass Prop. 8, a constitutional amendment banning same sex marriages, which supersedes the California Supreme Court’s ruling. A lawsuit against Prop 8 overturns it, which the U.S. Supreme Court lets stand in 2013 on jurisdictional grounds.
• November 2008 – The GLBT Historical Society receives a one-year lease to open a temporary GLBT Museum on the corner of 18th and Castro. In 2011, they open a more permanent museum at 4127 18th Street.

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