The word homosexual first appeared in print in 1869
Before the late nineteenth century, the modern concept of a fixed sexual identity did not exist in the written record.
In 1869, a Hungarian author named Karl Maria Kertbeny wrote a letter to a German lawyer that would inadvertently change how the world views human identity. In this correspondence, Kertbeny used the German word for homosexual for the first time in print. While same sex desire had been documented for millennia, it was previously viewed as a series of specific acts rather than a core, defining characteristic of a person's nature.
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