Christian nationalists hate increasing agreement Revolutionary War hero was gay
Gen. Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben transformed Washington’s army into a winning one
Painting by Ralph Earl. Credit: Public domain.
In the long march of American history, some of our most celebrated heroes lived lives more complex—and more queer—than the sanitized textbooks would have us believe.
One such figure is Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, the Prussian military officer who transformed George Washington’s ragtag Revolutionary army into a disciplined force that could take on the British Empire.
One of our storied high schools in Chicago is named in his honor.
As The Washington Post reported, von Steuben was almost certainly what today we would understand as a closeted gay man, possibly bisexual, or even somewhere on the asexual spectrum.
This revelation is not new to scholars and queer historians.
Von Steuben was dismissed from the Prussian army amid accusations of inappropriate relationships with young men—charges that, though unproven, forced him into exile.
Later in America, he lived with and formed intimate, emotionally charged relationships with two young men: Benjamin Walker and William North.
They weren’t just assistants—they were his chosen family.
He never married, and he left his entire estate to the two men who shared his life.
As historian Alexander Burns noted, von Steuben’s story isn’t easily labeled by modern sexual categories, but his queerness is undeniable.
And this matters.
It matters because at a time when Christian nationalists are trying to rewrite American history through the lens of white supremacy and rigid heterosexual machismo, the truth about figures like von Steuben threatens their entire mythos.
Their vision of history is not one of truth, but of purity: a whitewashed, hyper-masculine, God-and-country narrative in which LGBTQ people are either erased or cast as villains.
They are not interested in complexity.
They are interested in conformity.
And von Steuben’s legacy refuses to conform.
What scares them is not just that von Steuben may have been gay. What scares them is that someone queer helped found the nation they claim to uniquely understand.
His brilliance in developing drills and discipline at Valley Forge, his creation of the first American military manual, his role in securing our independence—all of it stands in contradiction to the lie that queerness is incompatible with patriotism.
And let’s be honest! This isn’t just about von Steuben.
It’s about erasing all of us.
When LGBTQ history is attacked, it is because we are living proof that queer people have always been here—fighting wars, building institutions, loving deeply, and shaping the world.
Christian nationalists claim they are defending “traditional values,” but what they are really defending is a myth.
A myth built not only on heteronormativity, but on white supremacy—where queer people, Black and Brown people, immigrants, women, and religious minorities are written out of the story.
The myth demands a narrow, idealized image of the Founding Fathers as straight, white, Christian men building a holy empire.
The truth is far more human—and far more powerful.
Baron von Steuben’s queerness though closeted doesn’t tarnish his legacy; it completes it.
It reminds us that American greatness was built not in spite of diversity, but through it.
His presence in our founding narrative is not an aberration.
It is a testimony.
And that’s exactly what Christian nationalists fear.
So we must keep telling these stories.
We must refuse to let them be erased.
We must remind this country that queerness has always been a part of its soul—from Valley Forge to Stonewall, from suffrage marches to Pride parades.
We belong in the story.
And we always have.
Read the original reporting from The Washington Post:
Was this Revolutionary War hero America’s first openly gay general?