Progress as history's driving force has been among the first guidelines to be severely questioned following numerous transformations that affected historiography in the Nineteenth-Century, beginning with its opposition to speculative philosophies of history and all the way up to the more recent visibilization of teleological features present, albeit not overtly, in contemporary narratives. Histories of LGBT or queer communities pose particular challenges in this respect, since in them the idea of progress, albeit its difficulties, has played a crucial role when imagining better life conditions for historically neglected collectives. This paper seeks to detect and analyze the ways in which the idea of progress persists in 21st-Century narratives, even in the domain of projects, such as many LGBT or queer histories, which renounce explicitly to Modern-style teleologies. It studies the mechanisms and resources through which those stories are produced, and the consequences they entail, with particular attention to stories about sex and/or gender non-conforming subjects. With this aim in mind, it starts by addressing some key issues on the idea of progress in history; secondly, it considers how they are built, looking into their preferred plots, themes, and strategies; further on, the paper focuses on the political consequences of narratives of progress, what is enabled and hindered for the subjects that produce them and the ones they address. The project aims at pinpointing the implicit teleology of contemporary LGBT histories, considering their political consequences, and contributing to the elaboration of responsible alternatives.