Uranian

Not to be confused with uranic.

The proposed uranian/gay man flag.

An alternate uranian flag.

Uranian is a term originally used in the 19th and early 20th centuries, most commonly referring to gay men. It was occasionally also extended to cover gay people of any gender, and other sexual and gender variant people, similar to the word queer today.

In the modern day it is most commonly used to refer to gay men and men-aligned people. Is one of multiple terms used to describe gay men and is similar to vincian and turian. It is generally used as a masculine equivalent of lesbian. The term is also sometimes used by neutral-aligned, abinary, or unaligned non-binary people who are attracted to men, men-aligned people, masculine aligned people, and other non-binary people who identify as uranians.

History

The term was first published by sexologist and activist Karl Heinrich Ulrichs in a series of five booklets collected under the title Forschungen über das Räthsel der mannmännlichen Liebe or The Riddle of Man–Manly Love. In his book he described Urning as "a male-bodied person with a female psyche" who is attracted to men, and Urningin (or Uranierin, Urnin, and Urnigin) as "a female-bodied person with a male psyche" who is attracted to women. Ulrichs developed his terminology before the first public use of the term homosexual.

John Addington Symonds, who was one of the first to use the term Urnanian in the English language. The term also gained currency among a group that studied classics and dabbled in pederastic poetry from the 1870s to the 1930s. The writings of this group are now known by the phrase Uranian poetry. The art of Henry Scott Tuke and Wilhelm von Gloeden is also sometimes referred to as Uranian. However, it has been argued that this usage of the word is unrelated to Ulrichs's coinage, and has independently thought of among English speakers.

Flag

Twitter user BelyaevValentin proposed a uranian flag on or before June 2020. The flag is similar to his alternate gay flag.

An alternate uranian flag was created by Tumblr user beyond-mogai-pride-flags on February 19, 2021.

Etymology

The word refers to a dialogue in Plato's Symposium on male eros or love. In the dialogue, Pausanias distinguishes between two types of love, symbolized by two different accounts of the birth of Aphrodite, the goddess of love:

• Heavenly birth, born of Uranus or the heavens, a birth in which "the female has no part." Uranian Aphrodite is associated with a noble love for male youths and is the source of sexologist Karl Heinrich Ulrichs's term urning.
• Common birth, as the daughter of Zeus and Dione. Dionic Aphrodite is associated with a common love which "is apt to be of women as well as of youths, and is of the body rather than of the soul." After Dione, Ulrichs gave the name dioning to men who are sexually attracted to women.