Rüling did not succeed in influencing women's rights campaigners to work for lesbian rights. Many lesbians at the time actively took part in promoting women's rights, but were shocked by Rüling's insistence on treating lesbian rights as a feminist issue. Rüling believed that homosexuals constituted a third gender, distinct from men and women. She argued that homosexual women were more reasonable than "clearly heterosexual women", and that a lesbian, "like an average normal man, was more objective, more energetic and goal-oriented than the feminine woman." This, she claimed, made homosexual women well-suited for professional occupations. What proved most controversial, however, were not her views themselves – it was her straightforward admission of her own homosexuality and evident taking pride in it. Her speech was the first political speech about lesbians. She was one of the first women to openly identify herself as homosexual, and has been called "the first lesbian activist", although the same is sometimes said about Johanna Elberskirchen. She is also known as an early lesbian feminist. Later career On 27 October 1904, Rüling gave a speech to Friedrich Radszuweit's Bund für Menschenrecht, another organisation working advocating gay rights, and was briefly a member. Two years later, she published a collection of lesbian-themed short stories. Leaving Berlin, Rüling moved to Düsseldorf, where she lived for 30 years. From 1914 until the mid-1920s, her writings were regularly published in Neue Deutsche Frauenzeitung, a right-wing paper with moderate views on women's rights. During the First World War, Rüling proved to be an ardent patriot, nationalist and imperialist. It does not appear, however, that she ever joined the Nazi Party. She left Düsseldorf, as well as full-time journalism, in the late 1930s, moving to Ulm. There she worked as secretary, director and script-editor at the municipal theatre. A decade later, she relocated to Delmenhorst, continuing the theatre career but also resuming journalism in 1949. At the time of her sudden death on 8 May 1953, the 72-year-old Theo Anna Sprüngli ("Anna Rüling") was one of the oldest female journalists in the Federal Republic of Germany. References External links Original text of Rüling's speech Translation of Rüling's speech 1880 births 1953 deaths German women short story writers German short story writers German women journalists German lesbian writers German LGBT journalists German LGBT rights activists 20th-century German writers 20th-century German women writers 20th-century German short story writers People from Hamburg Lesbian feminists German