U

U = U — Undetectable = Untransmittable, a contemporary health campaign by Prevention Access Campaign to educate the public about HIV and reduce stigma about living with HIV.

The US Center for Disease Control, under pressure from the U = U campaign, released a statement in September 2017 saying that “People who take ART [antiretroviral therapy] daily as prescribed and achieve and maintain an undetectable viral load have effectively no risk of sexually transmitting the virus to an HIV-negative partner.” It’s commonly accepted that once a patient’s viral load has been undetectable for six months, they are at no risk of transmitting HIV.

see also: UNDETECTABLE

UNDETECTABLE — An HIV status, where the person is HIV-positive but has a viral load which is low enough not to appear in HIV tests, and is therefore extremely unlikely or not at all likely to transmit the virus.

Once a patient has reached an undetectable viral load for at least six months, there is no risk of them transmitting the virus.

Undetectable status can be reached for HIV-positive patients who undergo antiretroviral therapy. About half of the people living with HIV in the US are undetectable. In the UK, over 90% of people diagnosed with HIV have reached an undetectable viral load.

see also: HIV; POZ; AIDS; PrEP; PEP

UNISEX — Gender neutral, designed for anyone to use.

Many products marketed as being unisex are actually quite masculine, because masculinity is afforded the “default” status while femininity is gendered. There is an implication that women will use masculine-coded items and clothing, but men will not use anything in proximity to femininity lest it undermine their masculinity and heterosexuality.

see also: GENDER NEUTRAL

UNNATURAL — see: NATURAL.

URANIAN — A 19th-century term for “third sex,” or someone with a “male body and female psyche” who is attracted to men.

The uranian is an early pathology of (straight) trans women, later expanded to include butch women who had sex with women, and other sexual deviants of the time.

Uranian was first used in print by Karl Heinrich Ulrichs in a series of five books published 1864–1865. The term was derived from the goddess Aphrodite Urania, who was created out of the testicles of the god Uranus. The Uranian’s heterosexual opposite is Dionian, derived from Aphrodite Dionea.

Uranian is a German word, but I’m including it because it was used by prominent Anglophonic scholars on gender and sexuality, and was maybe the first identifying term for homosexuals as an identity instead of denoting sexual behavior.

Uranian predates the first public use of “homosexual,” first published in an anonymous pamphlet in 1869. Uranian was adopted into Victorian academic and activist language and was used to advocate for homosexual emancipation. It was suggested that Uranian love was comradely, and would unite the estranged ranks of society and bring about a true democracy without class or gender barriers.

Already we see the marriage of gender and sexuality, though Ulrichs eventually learned that not all men attracted to men are feminine (or trans). He later divided people on three axes: sexual orientation (male-attracted, bisexual, or female-attracted); preferred sexual behavior (active, no preference, passive); and gender characteristics (masculine, intermediate, feminine). It’s interesting to note that Ulrichs did not define sexual orientation as a position of “same” or “opposite” gender attraction and based it on the gender only of the object of attraction, not the subject. Ulrichs himself was a “Weibling” or “feminine homosexual” who preferred an active role in sex.

Below is the taxonomy or uranismus, by Ulrich, with expanded modern terms (note that “-in” in German is a feminine suffix).

Ulrichs’ taxonomy	Gender identity	Gender characteristics	Sexual orientation	Modern taxonomy
Urning	Assigned male, with a female psyche		Attracted to men	Straight trans woman
Urningin	Assigned female, with a male psyche		Attracted to women	Straight trans man
Dioning	(Cis) man	Masculine	Attracted to women (heterosexual)	Cishet masculine man
Dioningin	(Cis) woman	Feminine	Attracted to men (heterosexual)	Cishet feminine woman
Uranodioning	(Cis) man	Masculine	Bisexual	Bi butch man
Uranodioningin	(Cis) woman	Feminine	Bisexual	Bi femme woman
Zwitter	Intersex			Today we recognize that intersex is not itself a gender

Ulrichs later expanded on Urningthum (male homosexuality) using the following terms (with some amusing, roughly equivalent modern terms):

Ulrichs’ taxonomy	Gender identity	Gender characteristics	Sexual orientation	Modern taxonomy
Mannling	Feminine psyche	Masculine appearance	Attracted to effeminate men	Butch gay
Weibling	(Cis) man	Feminine appearance	Attracted to masculine men	Queen
Manuring	(Cis) man	Feminine appearance	Attracted to women	Effeminate straight man
Zwischen-Urning	(Cis) man	Androgynous	Attracted to “young normal chaps”	Twink
Conjunctive			Romantically and sexually attracted to men	Gay
Disjunctive			Romantically attracted to men, but sexually attracted to women	Bromance
Virilisietre Mannlinge	Urnings	Feminine, but masculine-behaving	Attracted to men but pretend to be attracted to women	Straight acting, cis acting
Uraniaster	A Dionings i.e., (cis) man	Masculine	Attracted to women but situational homosexuality, e.g., homosocial spaces like the military	A “no homo” straight man who has same-sex experiences

see also: PATHOLOGY; TRANSGENDER; INVERT; BORN THIS WAY