Public Universalist Friend: One of America’s earliest non-binary preachers

Rejecting a male or female identity, the Public Universalist Friend (PUF) was one of America’s first non binary preachers.

Alleged death and rebirth

The PUF was born Jemima Wilkinson in 1752 in Rhode Island to Quaker parents. At the age of 23, Wilkinson suffered a severe illness, most likely typhus, which resulted in a life-threatening fever. Wilkinson later claimed to have died during that fever and, through the intervention of angels, to have been reborn as a genderless spirit from God named the Public Universal Friend, or simply the Friend.

Refusing gendered pronouns, the PUF insisted on being addressed in the third person. When questioned about identity, the Friend replied in biblical language:

“I am that I am.”

It is possible that the PUF was influenced by both Paul’s statement in Galatians 3:28 that Christ is “neither male nor female” and Jeremiah 31:22, which states, “the Lord hath created a new thing in the earth, A woman shall compass a man.”

The PUF dressed in a manner perceived as androgynous or masculine, wearing long, loose clerical robes, most often black, along with a white or purple kerchief or cravat around the neck in a style associated with men of the time.

Early preaching

The PUF travelled and preached throughout Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania, often accompanied by four siblings. Preaching a mixture of Free Grace and Universal Love, the PUF argued that God’s love was everywhere and equal to all, in a way that may recall Anne Hutchinson two centuries earlier. Delivering long sermons from memory, the PUF preached that people needed to repent of their sins and be saved before an imminent Day of Judgment.

Many of the PUF’s beliefs were aligned with those of the Society of Friends, apart from the expectation of an approaching apocalypse. However, the PUF and their siblings proved too radical for the times and drew significant criticism, particularly in Philadelphia, where rioters threw sticks and bricks at the home where the PUF was lodging. Much of that hostility appears to have focused less on Quaker-based theology than on the PUF’s rejection of gender.

As a result of this backlash, the PUF and their siblings were disowned by the Society of Friends.

Society of Universal Friends

Despite being disowned by the Quakers, the PUF continued as an independent travelling preacher whose Quaker-style meetings drew large crowds of followers. Some of these followers formed a congregation that called itself the Society of Universal Friends, making the PUF one of the earliest native-born Americans to found a religious community.

Many members of the Society of Universal Friends were Quakers who felt that the Society of Friends had become too strict. One group especially sympathetic to the PUF and the Society of Universal Friends was the Free Quakers, who had themselves been disowned by the Society of Friends for their participation in the Revolutionary War. The Free Quakers opened their Meeting Houses to the new society, and as a result it thrived and openly campaigned for both American independence and the abolition of slavery.

The most committed members of the Society of Universal Friends were a group of unmarried women who took leading roles and named themselves the Faithful Sisterhood. In the 1790s, members of the Society of Universal Friends acquired land in western New York, where they formed the township of Jerusalem near Penn Yan.

The PUF gave a final regular sermon in November 1818 and died the following year, aged 66. When addressed by the name Jemima Wilkinson, the Friend is reported to have responded simply:

“Thou sayest it.”

The Society of Universal Friends continued for a few decades, but as members died off, the society had ceased to exist by the 1860s.