Claiming the Revolution: Gender, Sexuality and the Radical Promise of 1776

The American Revolution can feel like a legacy that belongs to a select few. It has often been told as the story of wealthy white men—many of them enslavers, many of them beneficiaries of Indigenous dispossession—who rebelled in the name of liberty while denying it to most of the people around them.

Claiming the Revolution: Gender, Sexuality and the Radical Promise of 1776

The American Revolution can feel like a legacy that belongs to a select few. It has often been told as the story of wealthy white men—many of them enslavers, many of them beneficiaries of Indigenous dispossession—who rebelled in the name of liberty while denying it to most of the people around them. From this perspective, those who are most marginalized—including women, LGBTQ people and communities of color—may feel as if they are reinforcing political amnesia, or worse, complicity, in patriotic celebrations of 1776.   

The post Claiming the Revolution: Gender, Sexuality and the Radical Promise of 1776 appeared first on Ms. Magazine.

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