Ulrichs, Karl Heinrich

Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (1825-1895) was a jurist, author, and intellectual, often considered one of the world’s “first” homosexual activists for his speeches and works published in the mid-19th century arguing for the decriminalization of sodomy and for equal rights of homosexuals. Much of his philosophical writing is in Latin or highly technical German, but his correspondence has also been published, providing amusing and illustrative anecdotes from the underground gay world of 1860s Berlin. In addition to providing a historical perspective on the LGBTQ movement, Ulrich’s work lends itself to comparisons with contemporaneous civil rights movements in English-speaking countries.