John Laurens FanClub

Army Gays

A/N: Thank you MeliciaRenee for reminding me of this story!

What amuses me the most about the "Laurens had a wife and so he couldn't have been gay" argument is that people say it like it was something completely unheard of for a gay man to marry a woman in times where homosexuality was illegal. Gay men had two main options: marry a girl or never marry and probably live with your "best friend". The second one was probably never even an option for John, seeing his family's high status and the expectations that placed on him.

But you know what gay man in the 1700's never did marry? LADIES AND GENTLEMEN LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT BARON VON STEUBEN, THE BIGGEST GAY OF THE REVOLUTION!

(Yes, even bigger than John Laurens)

Steuben was kicked out of the Prussian army, and Benjamin Franklin recommended him to Washington. But Steuben was unimpressed about it and instead he jumped from job to job for a while. Eventually he tried to apply for another another military job in the court at Baden but he was rejected because of the rumors about him being gay. They accused him of "taking familiarities" with young boys. There's no historical evidence of Steuben being a pedophile so this was most likely just people being assholes toward gays.

After this, Steuben accepted Benjamin's offer. Now, at this time the American army sucked. There were shortages in food, morale, and discipline. Steuben arrived and he fixed his bloody mess (think of Make a Man Out of You from Mulan but instead of a Chinese bisexual man is a gay Prussian man)

And you might be thinking "well this was a nice lesson on LGBT history but what does this have to do with John?"

WELL

Steuben knew little to no English, and Hamilton and John's jobs were basically to know French. And so Hamilton and John, the gayest couple in the military, happened to assist Baron von Steuben, the gayest man in the military. They eventually because his unofficial advisors and helped him renew the army.

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