, the goddess from whose name Ulrichs derived the term
Urning for homosexuals In 1862, Ulrichs took the momentous step of telling his family and friends that he was, in his own words, an
Urning, and began writing under the pseudonym of "Numa Numantius". His first five pamphlets, collected as
Forschungen über das Rätsel der mannmännlichen Liebe (
Studies on the Riddle of Male-Male Love), explained such love as natural and biological, summed up with the Latin phrase
anima muliebris virili corpore inclusa (a female psyche confined in a male body). In these essays, Ulrichs coined various terms to describe different sexual orientations, including
Urning for a man who desires men (English "
Uranian"), and
Dioning for one who desires women. These terms are in reference to a section of
Plato's
Symposium in which two kinds of love are discussed, symbolised by an
Aphrodite who is born from a male (
Uranos), and an Aphrodite who is born from a female (
Dione). Ulrichs also coined words for the female counterparts (
Urningin and
Dioningin), and for
bisexuals and
intersex persons. In the 1860s, Ulrichs moved around Germany, always writing and publishing, and always in trouble with the law — though always for his words rather than for sexual offences. In 1864, his books were confiscated and banned by police in
Saxony. On release, he was forced into exile and left Hanover for good and moved to
Würzburg in Bavaria. From there, he attended the Association of German Jurists in Munich where he wished to speak on the need to reform German laws against homosexuality. His motion was banned by the presiding committee, so he took the opportunity on the final day of the conference to protest his exclusion. On 29 August 1867, Ulrichs became the first homosexual to speak out publicly in defense of homosexuality and though he was shouted down it appears that some in the audience were stirred into support for his call. Ulrichs published his account of the events in Munich as
Gladius Furens, which he published under his own name and distributed to all the lawyers who had attended the event. In that pamphlet he wrote:Until my dying day I will look back with pride that I found the courage to come face to face in battle against the spectre which for time immemorial has been injecting poison into me and into men of my nature. Many have been driven to suicide because all their happiness in life was tainted. Indeed, I am proud that I found the courage to deal the initial blow to the hydra of public contempt.Thereafter, he began publishing his urning pamphlets under his own name as an 'urning' apologist for the cause. This makes Ulrichs quite distinct from any other writer on the subject at that time and for some time after. In 1868, the Austrian writer
Karl-Maria Kertbeny coined the word "homosexual" in a letter to Ulrichs, and from the 1870s the subject of
sexual orientation (in modern words) began to be widely discussed. Later he moved to
Stuttgart, where he cultivated silkworms for an income but convened a weekly discussion at a restaurant on Gymnasiumstrasse with other urning activists. In 1879, Ulrichs published the twelfth and final pamphlet in his series on man-manly love,
Critische Pfeile. Believing he had done all he could in Germany, he went into self-imposed exile in Italy shortly afterwards. For several years he travelled around the country before settling in
L'Aquila. He spent the last fifteen years of his life cultivating the revival of Latin as a universal language. However, Persichetti himself, writing just one year after the event in 1896, wrote that the document received by Ulrichs on his deathbed was a diploma from the
Accademia Pontaniana, a learned royal society for scholars and humanists, attesting that Ulrichs had been formally enrolled into that society, on the nomination of
Giovanni Antonelli (Italian article), a professor at the University of Naples. Ulrichs died in L'Aquila on July 14, 1895. The contributors to the fundraising effort for this marble gravestone came from around the world, just like the subscribers to the Latin journal
Alaudae, including New Zealand, the US, Finland, Romania and many other countries.
Niccolò Persichetti gave the eulogy at his funeral. At the end of his eulogy, he said: == Legacy ==