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Bust-length engraved portrait of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs from 1899.
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On 29 August 1867, Karl Heinrich Ulrichs stood before about 500 German jurists in Munich and called for the laws against sex between men to be abolished. His motion had been kept off the agenda; he spoke anyway and was shouted down. Since 1864 he had published pamphlets arguing that such love is inborn and should not be punished.

Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, emancipation writings and Munich jurists' congress

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Ulrichs was a trained lawyer. In 1854 an inquiry into rumours about his private life led him to resign from the civil service of the Kingdom of Hanover, and in 1859 a court barred him from practising law. He coined 'Urning' for a man who loves men, after Aphrodite Urania, the 'heavenly' Aphrodite of Plato's Symposium. Police in Saxony and Prussia had already seized and banned his pamphlets. In 1871 Paragraph 175 of the new German Empire's penal code made sex between men a crime nationwide. Ulrichs moved to Italy in 1880, settled in L'Aquila and published a journal in Latin until his death in 1895. He is often described as the first gay man to speak out publicly for gay rights, and streets in Munich, Berlin, Bremen and Hanover bear his name.

Türkçe oku
Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, 29 Ağustos 1867'de Münih'te 500 kadar Alman hukukçunun önünde erkekler arasındaki ilişkiyi suç sayan yasaların kaldırılmasını istedi. Önergesi gündeme alınmamıştı; o yine de söz aldı ve yuhalandı. 1864'ten beri bu sevginin doğuştan geldiğini, cezalandırılmaması gerektiğini savunan broşürler yayımlıyordu.

Ulrichs hukuk okumuştu. 1854'te özel hayatıyla ilgili söylentiler üzerine hakkında soruşturma açılınca Hannover Krallığı'ndaki devlet görevinden istifa etti; 1859'da da bir mahkeme avukatlık yapmasını yasakladı. Erkekleri seven erkekler için “Urning” sözcüğünü o türetti; adı, Platon'un Şölen'inde geçen “göksel Afrodit”ten, Afrodit Urania'dan aldı. Broşürlerine önce Saksonya'da, ardından Prusya'da polis el koymuş ve hepsini yasaklamıştı. 1871'de yeni kurulan Alman İmparatorluğu'nun ceza yasası, 175. maddesiyle erkekler arasındaki ilişkiyi bütün ülkede suç saydı. Ulrichs 1880'de İtalya'ya gitti, L'Aquila'ya yerleşti ve 1895'teki ölümüne kadar Latince bir dergi çıkardı. Bugün genellikle eşcinsel haklarını herkesin önünde savunan ilk kişi olarak anılıyor; Münih, Berlin, Bremen ve Hannover'de adını taşıyan sokaklar var.

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Image details

An 1899 engraved portrait of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs.

Unknown engraver, 1899 / Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen / Wikimedia Commons

Image source · Public domain

Background reading: Karl Heinrich Ulrichs
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