Károly Mária Kertbeny (born Karl Maria Benkert; 28 February 1824 – 23 January 1882) was a Hungarian journalist, translator, memoirist and human rights campaigner.

[1] He translated works by Hungarian poets and writers Sándor Petőfi, János Arany and Mór Jókai into German.

Among his acquaintances were Heinrich Heine, George Sand, Alfred de Musset, Hans Christian Andersen, Karl Marx,[2] and the Brothers Grimm.

After a stint in the Hungarian army, Benkert made a living as a journalist and travel writer and wrote at least twenty-five books on various subjects.

He wrote:[1] We should convince our opponents that exactly according to their legal notions they do not have anything to do with this inclination, let it be innate or voluntary, because the state does not have the right to intervene in what is happening between two consenting people aged over 14, excluding publicity [in private], not hurting the rights of any third party.On the other hand, he repeatedly described one's sexual drive as "innate and unchanging".

In addition, he called those who masturbate monosexualists, practitioners of anal intercourse pygists, those who have sex with animals heterogenists, and a man who prefers women sexually normalsexuals (English: normosexual),[7] term of which he used to describe himself.

His first literary activities were received with mockery, but he did not give up and he brought light to Hungarian literature for foreign people".

[citation needed] He also said: "He was born effeminately sensitive, soft, believing, fair, open minded and enthusiastic for beauty.

"[12] Kertbeny's gravesite, which was identified in 2001, is located in Budapest's Kerepesi Cemetery, which is the final resting place of numerous prominent Hungarians of the 19th and the 20th centuries.