The non-binary prophet arrived on this earth on a fall day in 1776, when a young woman named Jemima Wilkinson lay in her bed with a terrible fever, on the cusp of death.
The body of the woman, a 23-year-old former Quaker from Rhode Island, suddenly rose from the bed. But the person who spoke would no longer be known as Jemima Wilkinson. Her body had been reincarnated by God, she said, resurrected as a prophet sent to tell all of humanity that the apocalypse was near.
Unlike most self-proclaimed prophets, this divine messenger was neither a woman nor a man. The figure would be known simply as the “Public Universal Friend.”
In the decades that followed, the Friend would draw hundreds of disciples, traversing New England by horseback while wearing male minister’s clothing, according to letters from the time. For generations, historians have studied the Public Universal Friend as an odd yet effective spiritual leader during the American Revolution, a tumultuous time of religious experimentation.
But 200 years after the self-proclaimed prophet’s death, the Friend’s story has circulated widely on social media and taken on a new meaning: a rare example of a person in early American history who publicly identified as non-binary and gained acceptance while doing so, said Michael Bronski, a Harvard University professor and author of “A Queer History of the United States.”
A growing group of Americans today are identifying as genders other than male or female. State governments, airlines and school districts across the country have begun offering a gender option of “X.” Merriam-Webster officially adopted the use of the non-binary pronoun “they,” which it also declared the 2019 word of the year.
While non-binary identities have grown in visibility in recent years, some historians point to characters like the Public Universal Friend as evidence that gender-nonconforming people have always been a part of American society, long before the language existed to recognize them.
Historians have struggled to decide which pronouns to use for the Public Universal Friend. While the Friend’s followers often used “he” or “him” when referring to their religious leader, the evangelist avoided pronouns altogether, signing letters as simply “Public Universal Friend” or “Friend,” said Tricia L. Noel, executive director of the Yates County History Center in New York. The center has a permanent exhibit focused on the Friend, who formed the first pioneer settlement in what is now Yates County for many years.
“That’s indicative of the fact that the Friend wasn’t identifying as male or female,” Noel said.