Sexual Identity at the Limits of Liberalism

The Politicization of Nature in the Work of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (1825-1895)

Authors

  • Patrick Singy Union College

Abstract

This paper describes the historical emergence of the modern concept of sexual identity. I focus on the nineteenth-century German jurist Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, who defended the legal rights of “Urnings” (roughly similar to homosexual men). Wary of the strength of the German liberal tradition, he wanted to achieve the liberal goal of ending the prosecution of same-sex sex without actually having to repeal what were profoundly illiberal laws. He argued that Urnings have their own “nature,” and therefore that laws that condemn “unnatural” sex do not apply to them. An Urning who engages in same-sex sex is following his nature. With this argument Ulrichs created a legally-defined category for men who love men. This was the first step toward the modern concept of (homo)sexual “identity.”

Author Biography

  • Patrick Singy, Union College

    Patrick Singy is an adjunct professor at Union College in Schenectady, NY. He received his PhD in history and philosophy of science from the University of Chicago and has been a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University and Columbia University. His research interests include the history of medicine and sexuality, the historiography of science, and the history and philosophy of psychology and psychiatry. Among other publications he is the author of L’Usage du sexe. Lettres au Dr Tissot, auteur de L’Onanisme(1760) (BHMS, 2014), and the co-editor (with Steeves Demazeux) of The DSM-5 in Perspective: Philosophical Reflections on the Psychiatric Babel(Springer, 2015).

Published

2022-01-19

Issue

Vol. 30 No. 3 (2021): September

Section

Studies