ABSTRACT
In 1974 the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from the category of pathological illness; such a dramatic removal raises the question of how a pattern of sexual behavior can be classed as pathological one day and not the next. There have always been homosexuals, however, and some attempted to justify homosexuality in medical terms. The inevitable result was the classification of homosexuality as a pathological illness. One result of the passion for classification and description of the various forms of sexual impulse was to give medical backing to stigmatizing behavior. One of the medical opponents of this was Karl Heinrich Ulrichs who, under both his own name and the pseudonym of Numa Numantius, poured out a series of polemical, analytical, and theoretical pamphlets defending homosexuality in the period between 1864 and 1870. Puberty and the approach of senility were times of particular trauma for those predisposed to homosexuality.
