This is a list of notable events in the history of LGBT rights that took place in the year 1973.

Events

January

• 1 – Maryland becomes the first state to ban same-sex civil marriages. It does so by passing a statue restricting marriage to heterosexual couples.^[1]
• 27 – The Metropolitan Community Church's headquarters in Los Angeles is burned to the ground by an unknown assailant.^[2][3] No persons are inside of the building at the time of the fire.

April

• 22 – The first gay protest in Santiago, Chile was organised at Plaza de Armas.^[4]

June

• 24 – The UpStairs Lounge arson attack in the French Quarter of New Orleans kills 32 members of a Metropolitan Community Church congregation meeting.^[5]

August

• Pride Week 1973, the first major LGBT pride event in Canada, is held simultaneously in several Canadian cities.^[6]

October

• 10 – Following a lobbying campaign by the Gay Alliance Toward Equality, Toronto City Council adopts a policy forbidding discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in municipal hiring, making the city the first jurisdiction in Canada to do so.^[7]

November

• 5 – The Supreme Court of the United States in Wainwright v. Stone finds that the sodomy law of Florida is not unconstitutionally vague, reversing a Fifth Circuit ruling.^[8]
• 9 – The Kentucky Court of Appeals rules in Jones v. Callahan that two women were properly denied a marriage license despite the gender neutrality of the state's marriage statute.^[9]

December

• 13 – Washington, D.C.'s Title 34 makes discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation illegal.^[10]
• 15 – The board of the American Psychiatric Association votes 13–0 to remove homosexuality from its official list of psychiatric disorders, the DSM-II. The resolution also urges an end to private and public discrimination and the repeal of laws discriminating against homosexuals.^[11]
• 20 – The city council of New York City rejects a gay rights ordinance.^[12]
• 21 – A United States federal judge issues a bulletin stating that the federal civil service may not terminate an employee based on sexual orientation alone.^[13]