Uranian is a 19th-century term that referred to homosexual men and was first published by activist Karl Ulrich 1825-1895 in a series of twelve booklets written between 1864 and 1880, collected under the title "Research into the Riddle of Man-Man Love", which became the seminal work on the causes of homosexuality. Ulrich's monumental study deeply influenced an entire generation of sex researchers, including Richard von Kraft-Ebing, Havelock Ellis and Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld who maybe the most known today in the 21st Century.
Having accepted--- and acted on--- his attraction to other men, Ulrich's believed this attraction natural and sought justification for it. His first attempt, in 1861, was based on the popular theory of animal magnetism, but he abandoned it the following year for a more scientific theory, according to which a man such as he, although with a man's body, actually had a woman's psyche. Conversely--- and he soon became aware of their existence--- a woman loving a woman had a woman's body and a man's psyche.
Ulrich's believed that the nature of the Urning was indeed inborn, so that every individual must follow their own true nature and should be judged accordingly. "Love between men is a riddle of nature, by the insists that it be solved by science and not by striking with the so-called sword of justice, which all too often has shown itself to be a sword of injustice. You've to answer for the present social establishment and the present direction of public respect and disrespect: before us and also before women. In my opinion you have also acted irresponsibly toward women in both. The moral world order isn't identical with the world order that you/we have made. You/we must first change your/our social establishment in a thousand places, if a moral order of things is to come out of it! The heart demands to be heard; the female and the Urning heart as well!"
Having justified homosexual love Ulrich's sought the reasons for the continues attitude of the majority. He noted comments of the Apostle Paul and the catastrophes historically and incorrectly blamed on homosexuality (earthquakes, famine, and pestilence). Ulrich didn't think that the belief in any of those as the real reason why Urning-love had been prosecuted. They won't admit it, he says, but:
"It is rather to be sought in that acute and passionate repugnance of a more or less aggressive character (horror, disgust, aversion and indignation), which men born with a woman-loving nature feel toward man-love and with which a strong dose of cruelty is not seldom mingled."
Ulrich's derived Uranian or Urning from the Greek Goddess Aphrodite Urania, who was created out of the God Uranus testicles. Therefore, in his opinion represented the homosexual gender. If you've read the previous post on third-gender, you'll know this is not the first time homosexuality was seen as a gender but in the case of Ulrich's this was the foundation to which everything after was built on. Ulrichs developed his terminology BEFORE the first use of the term homosexual, which appeared in 1869 in a pamphlet published by Karl-Maria Kertbeny.
Ulrich surveyed literary, historical, physiological, and other data in his argument that homosexuality was not a disease nor a sin, but perfectly natural, and that the strict line of differentiation between men and women had been overemphasized. Turning to the science of embryology, Ulrich contended that male , as well as female, homosexuality resulted from a crossing of the male and female generative principles during the first crucial stages of fetal development. Thus, homosexual men are essentially "male" in body, "female" in desire. Upon further digging into this topic Ulrich felt even more strongly on this idea for the "sexually passive/receptive partner in gay sex... like himself who preferred to be the "active feminine".
Ulrich's came to understand that not all male-bodied people with attraction to me were feminine in nature. He developed a more complex threefold axis for understanding sexual and gender variance:
1. Sexual Orientation.
2. Preferred sexual behavior.
3. Gender characteristics. Such as feminine, intermediate and masculine.
Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld in his work sought, furthering what Ulrich's had said, to furnish proof that homosexuality is NEVER produced through external forces, nor training, but rather is constantly inborn. He sought to prove in the case of the Urning/"feminine type"is indeed holding to a female characteristic. that this type leans to gladly help with cooking and baking, adorn themselves in ribbons, or to prefer to occupy themselves with the playthings of their sisters. The association of homosexuality with effeminate men (I read into this being men who get fucked) was a consequence of social processes which reflected a self-fulfilling prophecy,
Hirschfeld would go on to establish the first "gay rights" organization in Berlin in 1897 (the Scientific Humanitarian Committee) and published a new, collected edition of Ulrich's writings in 1898 and stated in the forward:
"When posterity will one day have included the persecution of Urnings in that sad chapter of other persecutions for religious belief and race-- and that this day WILL come is beyond all doubt-- then will the name of Karl Heinrich Ulrich be constantly remembered as one of the first and noblest of those who have striven with courage and strength in this field to help truth and charity gain their rightful place."
The ideas and term of Uranian was quickly adopted by English-language advocates of homosexual emancipation in the Victorian Era. People such as Edward Carpenter and John Symonds, who used it to describe a comradely love that would bring to true democracy, uniting the "estranged ranks of society" and breaking down class and gender barriers. Oscar Wilde wrote to Robert Ross in an undated letter (around February 18th, 1898): To have altered my life would have been to have admitted that Uranian love is ignoble. I hold it to be noble-- more noble than other forms."
Hirschfeld felt that in many cases that the Urning is satisfied with gazing on and kissing the object of his love. We have also seen that these persons are completely without blame for their "misfortune", since a congential constitution made the homosexual drive much stronger. It was Hirschfeld who sought to prove that this psyche that these characteristics clearly distinguished these men as a third sex.
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