5fish
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Karl Maria Kertbeny created and gave us the terms we use for gay and straight people in society. He fought for gay rights and changes in the laws.
In a letter, in German, to Karl Heinrich Ulrichs on May 6, 1868, an early sex-law reformer, the writer Karl Maria Kertbeny, is first known to have privately used four new terms he had coined: "Monosexual; Homosexual; Heterosexual; und Heterogenit" -- the debut of the homosexual and heterosexual categories, and two now forgotten terms.
en.wikipedia.org
He settled in Berlin in 1868, when he was still unmarried at 44. Kertbeny claimed in his writings to be "normally sexed". However, his diaries list a self-censored string of encounters with youths and men ("young barber lad"; "very much in love with the lad"; "I have done it"), and recurring fear following the arrest of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs with whom he corresponded ("Awful days!.... Horrible nightmares. I have burnt all the dangerous letters"), which suggest he was secretly homosexual.[1]
He explained his interest in sexual minorities as his "instinctive drive to take issue with every injustice". He cited as a formative experience from his teenage years the suicide of a co-worker who was being blackmailed and threatened with exposure as a homosexual.
In a letter, in German, to Karl Heinrich Ulrichs on May 6, 1868, an early sex-law reformer, the writer Karl Maria Kertbeny, is first known to have privately used four new terms he had coined: "Monosexual; Homosexual; Heterosexual; und Heterogenit" -- the debut of the homosexual and heterosexual categories, and two now forgotten terms.
Karl Maria Kertbeny - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
He settled in Berlin in 1868, when he was still unmarried at 44. Kertbeny claimed in his writings to be "normally sexed". However, his diaries list a self-censored string of encounters with youths and men ("young barber lad"; "very much in love with the lad"; "I have done it"), and recurring fear following the arrest of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs with whom he corresponded ("Awful days!.... Horrible nightmares. I have burnt all the dangerous letters"), which suggest he was secretly homosexual.[1]
He explained his interest in sexual minorities as his "instinctive drive to take issue with every injustice". He cited as a formative experience from his teenage years the suicide of a co-worker who was being blackmailed and threatened with exposure as a homosexual.
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