The Origin of the "Gay" Identity
A little over one-hundred years ago, the first concept of an inborn “homosexual” condition began to circulate in Germany. Prior to this time there is no known record of any human being ever claiming to have been born with same-sex attractions (SSA). The originator of the novel concept was Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (
1825-95). Ulrichs, the “grandfather of the world ‘gay’ rights movement” was a lawyer, political activist, and known pedophile. At the age of fourteen Ulrichs was seduced by his riding instructor, a man about thirty years old.[1] Observers familiar with the high correlation between childhood sexual molestation and adult same-sex attractions might conclude that this youthful experience was the cause of Ulrichs’s fixation.
In an effort to garner support to repeal Paragraph 175 of the German Penal Code which criminalized sodomy, Ulrichs began to spread a theory that defined individuals experiencing same-sex attractions as members of a “third-gender.” Ulrichs proposed that individuals who develop same-sex attractions do so because of a psycho-spiritual mix-up, in which a man’s body becomes inhabited by a woman’s soul (and vice versa for women). Ulrichs coined the terms “Urning” (male) and “Dailing” (female) to refer to members of this “third-gender,” which was neither male nor female, but a combination of both. The term “Uranian” was introduced in 1862 as a new designation for same-gender sexuality in general (both Urnings and Dailings).
He took the term from Plato’s Symposium, in which same-sex Eros is said to fall under the protection of the ninth muse, Urania. Ulrichs reasoned that since same-sex attractions were natural, sodomy should not be criminalized.
Although Ulrichs was unable to abolish the sodomy law, his efforts were influential nonetheless, as evidenced by the swell of political activism and public sympathy for “Uranians” during his time. It was amidst this changing political climate that a German-Hungarian writer named Karoly Maria Benkert (
1824-82) writing under the pseudonym Karoly Maria Kertbeny, coined the term “homosexual” in an open letter to the Prussian Minister of Justice in
1869.[2] Prior to this, men and women who engage in same-gender sex acts were known as “sodomites,” “pederasts,” or “Knabenschaender” (literally, boy ravishers).[3]
Ulrichs and Kertbeny understood that public opposition to same-gender sex acts sprang from the people’s understanding of sodomy as an unnatural and irrational act. In order to counter the behavioral connotations inextricably linked with terms like “sodomite” and “boy ravisher,” Ulrichs and Kertbeny set out to coin new terms that would refer to a sexual identity, rather than a specific behavior. They were successful. In fact, their most influential accomplishments proved to be the coining of the terms “Uranian” and “homosexual.” (
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