Uranian

DisclaimerThis article contains terminology from the 19th and 20th centuries which some may consider outdated, insensitive, and/or offensive depending on their context or usage.

A drawing made by Adolf, a schizophrenia patient who identified himself as Uranian, when explaining his gender identity to the psychoanalyst Dudley Ward Fay in 1922.

Uranian, or Urning, was a term used during the 19th and early-20th Centuries whose meanings have varied depending on the circumstances of its use. Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, who is believed to have coined the term, divided Uranian into separate sub-classifications, with Mannling Uranians generally describing effeminate homosexual men, and Weibling Uranians being used to describe people, who were not assigned female at birth, who identify and act female in all regards. Although this distinction did originally exist, by the early-20th century Uranian had become an umbrella term for effeminate, homosexual men, third gender people, and assigned men at birth who identified themselves as female, with few using Ulrichs' original sub-classifications.

In Ulrichs' work where he first uses the term Urning (a German word from which the English "Uranian" is said to have derived), the separate term Urningin was proposed for homosexual, assigned female at birth people who identify and/or act in a generally-masculine way. Urningin was very rarely used (if at all) in English language publications however, and its meaning was considered by some to fall within the range of meanings of Uranian on its own.

By the 1920s or 1930s, the term Uranian had fallen out of usage in English, most likely due to the lack of definition and general impreciseness it had acquired during the decades prior.

History

Karl Heinrich Ulrichs

Uranian is believed to be an English adaptation of the German word Urning, which was first published by activist Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (1825–95) in a series of five booklets (1864–65) that were collected under the title Forschungen über das Räthsel der mannmännlichen Liebe ("Research into the Riddle of Man-Male Love"). Ulrich developed his terminology before the first public use of the term "homosexual", which appeared in 1869 in a pamphlet published anonymously by Karl-Maria Kertbeny (1824–82).

The word Uranian (Urning) was derived by Ulrichs from the Greek goddess Aphrodite Urania, who was created out of the god Uranus' testicles; it stood for homosexuality, while Aphrodite Dionea (Dioning) represented heterosexuality.

Ulrichs divided the term Uranian into two sub-classifications, the definitions of which in the original German and translated are below:

a) Mannlinge: Körperhabitus, d. i. der Gesammtausdruck der Bewegungen, Gebärden und Manieren, Gemüthsart, Art der Liebessehnsucht und des geschlechtlichen Begehrens: sämmtlich männlich; weiblich also nur das nackte Geschlect der Seele, weiblich nur der Liebessehnsucht Richtung; d. i. gerichtet auf das männliche Geschlecht.

b) Weiblinge: die ganannten Stücke sämmtlich weiblich; männlich also nur das alleinige Geschlect des Körpers.

a) Mannling: [Manling] (in) body habit, i.e. the overall expression of movements, gestures, manners, mood, and the type of love-longing and sexual desire are all male; femininity is therefore only within the sex of the psyche, meaning (one is) feminine only in pursuit of longing for love; i.e. being directed towards the male sex.

b) Weibling: [Womanling] all of the above-mentioned aspects are female; and (one is) masculine therefore only the in the sex of the body.

—Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, Forschungen über das Räthsel der mannmännlichen Liebe

Anna Rueling

Lesbian activist Anna Rueling used the term in a 1904 speech, "What Interest Does the Women's Movement Have in Solving the Homosexual Problem?"

Dudley Ward Fay and Adolf

In 1922, Dudley Ward Fay, a psychoanalyst, visited a hospital for mental illnesses where he came into contact with a person, diagnosed with schizophrenia, who identified himself as a Uranian. (Fay uses he/him pronouns in his work to refer to the individual.) As part of an agreement reached concerning publication, Fay refers to the individual as Adolf, withholding his true identity. There was no correlation between Adolf's schizophrenia diagnosis and his gender identity, with both relating to Adolf simply being a coincidence. Both before experiencing any symptoms of schizophrenia, and being released from the hospital, Adolf is reported to have made remarks and conducted himself in ways not traditionally seen as completely masculine.

In an interview with his parents, Adolf was described as having "never cared much for rough and tumble play and was inclined to play indoors and read rather than mingle with studier boys outside." During his late-teens, Adolf became romantically involved with several men, occasionally making remarks that less-masculine men were superior to more masculine ones. During this same period, many of his actions and decisions became more rash, eventually culminating in an episode of psychosis requiring hospitalization. During the first day of his hospitalization, Adolf revealed to his doctor that he was "of the intermediate sex (not strongly masculine)". Resulting from his schizophrenia, many of Adolf's statements became progressively more unclear and nonsensical, although reflecting on his gender identity was reoccurring theme:

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"I'm ambidextrous, ambisextrous. I'm intermediate sex."

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[I'm] Uranian. Uranus for the benefit of the Uranians.

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Adolf claimed to have been born with female anatomical characteristics which he claimed to have been removed by his doctors. (This is likely a delusion resulting from his schizophrenia.) There is no evidence Adolf was born with these characteristics, although by the fourth month of Adolf's observation by Fay, he seems to have identified more so as Uranian and/or female than any point previously.

Many of Adolf's statements during his hospitalization were significantly affected by his schizophrenia, although upon his release, he still considered himself to be at least somewhat less male than his peers. Begun shortly before, and continued after his release, Fay attempted to pressure Adolf toward "trying to become male", which could possibly be considered a form of conversion therapy.