Karl Heinrich Ulrichs

Karl Heinrich Ulrichs was a German Lawyer who is considered the "Grandfather of Gay Rights" and whose organizing homosexuals into a political network in Germany in the 1860s to work for the repeal of Paragraph 175 of the German legal code, which criminalized sodomy, marks the beginning of the modern homosexual movement. Said movement gained enough traction by 1895 that Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels even considered having them noting they have already gained enough political strength to sway Germany, and that only a centralized government for them was missing, and even there evidence suggested that it existed, yet was merely hidden.^[1] Having been molested at the age of fourteen by his riding instructor, Ulrichs adopted a homosexual identity as an adult, and worked tiressly to legitimize his lifestyle. He inveted the "third sex" theory of homosexuality, rooted in occultism, which held that male homosexuals ("Urnings") were women trapped in men's bodies, and that lesbians ("Dailings") were men trapped in women's bodies.^{[note 1]} He labeled the community of all homosexuals (i.e. both "Urnings" and "Dailings") Uranians, a term he borrowed from Plato.^{[note 2]} In Plato's Symposium, homosexual activity was said to fall under the protection of Urania, the ninth muse in the Greek Pantheon.

Ulrichs, or more accurately, his successor, Magnus Hirschfield, also established the first homosexual political organization, the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee (SHC).^[3] By the time of his death, his group also splintered, largely because of inherent disagreements regarding Ulrich's aforementioned third sex theory. In particular, one faction led by Adolf Brand highly disagreed with the notion that they were "women trapped in men's bodies", due to viewing themselves as having superior masculinity to even heterosexuals. Ulrich's actions, as well as his succeeding factions, also indirectly led to several homosexuals being accepted into the Nazi party and being composed of homosexuals and sexual deviants, and also to the persecution of effeminate homosexuals later on in Nazi Germany.^[4] (See also Nazi Germany and homosexuality)

Notes[edit]

1. ↑ Note: The idea that so called aeons were imprisoned in their bodies was native to Gnostic heresy which held that human souls no longer know their "true" origin and should be reminded of who they really are through a special "knowledge". This special "knowledge" of who we really are is the gnosis that Gnosticism is all about.^[2]
2. ↑ One modern heresy uses a similar term applied also onto the name of so called "The Urantia book". Followers of this heretical doctrine held that their "Truth" is "a liberating revelation" {The Urantia Book, (1608.1) 143:1.4} and proclaim sexual immorality, "The Evolution of Marriage", which in their view "grows out of bisexuality".{The Urantia Book, 82:0.1 (913.1)}

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