The revolutionary era was one of surprising possibilities to express same-sex attraction and gender nonconformity.
At the time, gender was widely understood not as an inner truth but as a social practice: something one did, not something one was. That understanding made gender surprisingly flexible.
In a moment when LGBTQ+ people are again being told that they do not belong in the nation’s story, Revolutionary America offers a different lesson.
(This essay is part of the FEMINIST 250: Founding Feminists series, marking the 250th anniversary of America by reclaiming the revolution through the women and gender-expansive people whose ideas, labor and resistance shaped U.S. democracy.)