I just stumbled across this guy during a Wikipedia rabbit hole and was shocked and amazed at his life! My European friends may know him, but as an American, I’ve never heard of the guy. It’s definitely a good argument against the idea that all of the lgbt+ is just some “new perversion”.
He was described later as the “first gay man in world history.”
He was possibly the first person to come out as gay and try to normalize it. IN1862!
He wrote 12 books on lgbt+ people between 1864 - 1880.
I pulled the following lists from an English translation of his books. The only one I can find is here, this is from the sample.
https://www.amazon.com/Riddle-LGBT-Sexual-Love-1864-1880-ebook/dp/B083KPGSLR/
Karl Heinrich Ulrichs was the first person to develop positive terminology to describe LGBTI+ folk:
- Uranians/Uranism = LGBT folk (named after Venus Urania described in Plato’s Symposium)
- Urnind, Uranierin and Urnin = Lesbian
- Urning = Gay man
- Uranodioning = Bisexual (male)
- Uranodioningin = Bisexual (female)
- Zwitter = Trans
For non-LGBT folk, Ulrichs used the terms:
- Dionism = Non-LGBT folk
- Dioningin/ Dionin - Non-Lesbian
- Dioning = Non-Gay man
- Uraniaster Pseudo Gay man
I love this quote from him later in his life.
Until my dying day I will look back with pride that I found the courage to come face to face in battle against the spectre which for time immemorial has been injecting poison into me and into men of my nature. Many have been driven to suicide because all their happiness in life was tainted. Indeed, I am proud that I found the courage to deal the initial blow to the hydra of public contempt.
I grew up in Stuttgart, Germany and never heard of him… only in 2015 (for the 120th anniversary of his death day) was a plaza named after him and a marker erected.
Ulrichs also came up with the concepts of disjunctive bisexuality and conjunctive bisexuality, which are the oldest recorded instances of someone talking about what we nowadays would call Split attraction model and variorientation (disjunctive orientation) Vs periorientation (conjunctive orientation).
Funny enough, the split attraction model was part of the Wikipedia rabbit hole that led me to him. I think I started with aromanticism since that is a new concept to me. One thing led to another and I found the split attraction model and there was a comment that it was first suggested in 18xx something and I was just like, “what?!”
