California’s judiciary, already among the most diverse in the nation, has become even more so under Gov. Gavin Newsom, who appointed a majority of women and nonwhites to the bench in his first year in office, the state Judicial Council reported Monday.

It was the 14th straight year of increased diversity for the state’s courts, the council said. Since taking office in January 2019, Newsom has appointed 16 judges, 11 of them women and nine nonwhite.

Newsom has not yet appointed anyone to the state Supreme Court but will have a vacancy to fill when Justice Ming Chin retires on Aug. 31. The court’s seven current justices include one African American, one Latino and three Asian Americans; three are women.

As of December, the council said, 37.6% of the judges in California were women, compared with 27.1% in 2006.

During the same period, white judges declined from 70.1% to 65.6% of the total, while Latinos increased from 6.3% to 10.9%, African Americans from 4.4% to 7%, and Asian Americans from 4.4% to 7.9%.

Judges were also asked about their sexual orientation and gender identity, and more than 75% responded, the council said: 1.5% said they were lesbian, 1.9% gay, 0.1% bisexual, 0.1% transgender, 71.8% heterosexual and the rest did not reply.

Former Gov. Jerry Brown set new diversity records for the state with his 644 judicial appointments from 2011 to 2019: 44% were women and nearly 40% identified themselves as nonwhite, according to the governor’s office. Nearly 6% were lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.

In 2018, the Judicial Council said, women made up more than half of Brown’s nearly 200 judicial appointees, and nonwhites accounted for 41%.

During Brown’s first eight years as governor, from 1975 to 1983, he appointed the nation’s first openly gay and lesbian judges, and also named the state Supreme Court’s first woman, Chief Justice Rose Bird; its first Latino, Cruz Reynoso; and its first two black justices, Wiley Manuel and Allen Broussard.

His appointments in his last eight years included the state appeals court’s first openly gay and lesbian justices, James Humes and Therese Stewart, both serving in San Francisco.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @BobEgelko