author
Karl Heinrich Ulrichs
1825–1895
A bold 19th-century thinker who argued for the dignity of same-sex love long before such views were safe to express, he is often remembered as an early pioneer of gay rights. Trained in law and driven by a reformer’s spirit, he wrote with unusual courage about identity, justice, and freedom.
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Manor
by Karl Heinrich Ulrichs
About the author
Born in 1825 in the Kingdom of Hanover, Karl Heinrich Ulrichs was a German lawyer, journalist, and writer whose work placed him far ahead of his time. He studied law and theology at the University of Göttingen and later became known for a series of essays that tried to explain same-sex desire in humane, non-criminal terms.
In the 1860s, Ulrichs began publishing arguments against laws that punished sexual relationships between men. He spoke publicly for legal reform at a time when doing so carried real personal risk, and he is widely regarded as one of the first people to defend gay rights in print and in public under his own name.
Later in life he lived in exile in Italy, where he continued to write. Today he is remembered as an important early voice in the history of sexual identity, civil rights, and modern sexology.