Uranian

Not to be confused with uranic.

The proposed uranian flag.

An alternate uranian flag.

Uranian is a term originally used in the 19th and early 20th centuries referring primarily to gay men, as well as "effeminate" men and transfeminine people were attracted to men. It was occasionally expanded to refer to gay people of any gender. In the 21st century, it has made a resurgence as a term for gay men and men-aligned people and is now one of multiple terms used to describe gay men such as 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 self-identify as uranians.

History

The term was first published by German 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. Ulrichs developed his terminology before the first public use of the term homosexual. Later, another sexologist named Magnus Hirschfeld would use Ulrichs work to create the terms urning, a "male-bodied person with a female psyche" who is attracted to men and urningin (or uranierin, urnin, and urnigin), a "female-bodied person with a male psyche" who is attracted to women. However, by the 1900s, the concept of "women urnings" had fallen out of use.

John Addington Symonds was the first person to use the term "Uranian" in the English language, and its etymology through Ulrichs is credited to him. However, it has been argued that this usage of the word is unrelated to Ulrichs' coinage and was independently thought of among English speakers familiar with Plato's Symposium.

The term would define a movement of primarily gay male artists and philosophers in the English-speaking world interested in the study of classics and who dabbled in pederastic poetry from the 1870s to the 1930s, including Oscar Wilde. The writings of this group are now known as Uranian poetry.

Flag

Twitter user BelyaevValentin proposed a uranian flag on or before June 2020. The flag is similar to his alternate gay flag, with the last three stripes reflected to indicate gay men's love for gay men.

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 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.

Ulrichs interpreted Uranian love as leaving urnings with a "feminine soul."