GLR May-June 2026

to his closest cousin Andy, who was becoming an Orthodox Jew, Andy spurned him, saying he was guilty of not adhering to God’s commandments. They never made amends. More humiliations followed. When Lowenthal graduated from Dartmouth in 1990 and was named valedictorian, he de cided to devote his graduation speech to gay rights. His family asked him not to invite his grandmother so she wouldn’t learn of his homosexuality. Lowenthal respected this request with a heavy dose of suppressed bitterness. He visited his grandmother a few months later, hoping to press her about Peter, but she did n’t want to speak about him. He wondered if Peter was “as soft as he looks in the picture? ... Would he have loved me?” Peter became a model for what it might be like not to feel so uncom fortable in the world. There was a brazen confidence he could see in his picture, along with an inner tenderness that reminded him of himself. If only he could break free. In synagogue, he would recite the Mourner’s Kaddish with only Peter in mind. Lowenthal began having sex with a classmate at college, but

they kept it hidden. He describes feeling as if he was about to explode: “My gayness felt like a molten truth that needed to erupt: I could picture it blasting out, forming a new landscape, but how much of my old world would burn?” He wanted to break free but still belong. He recalls a summer spent as a camp counselor trying to deal with a precocious camper who wants to have sex with him. The camper reminds him of a younger version of himself: in tense, distraught, confused, and sad. He tells the teenager he can’t do what he wants and tries to encourage him about the fu ture. Years later, Lowenthal looks him up, finds him on a dating site, and feels aroused. He’s tempted to make contact but re frains from doing so, convinced that “He deserves to live his life unresolved by my preoccupation.” Lowenthal falls short when writing about his life partner Scott, with whom he shares a home. They each have permission to hook up with others, which Scott does frequently. Lowenthal tells us how distressed he feels about Scott’s waning sexual in

Also Born in 1776: Public Universal Friend HISTORY MEMO

D ENISE N OE O NE OF AMERICA’S first public fig ures to declare a genderless identity was born Jemima Wilkinson in 1752 in what was then the British colony of Rhode Island. Wilkinson grew up in the Quaker church, officially known as the Religious So ciety of Friends, which lacks a formal hierar chy. In Quaker religious services, called “meetings,” congregants waited silently until someone felt divinely inspired to speak. Then that person stood to express what he or she believed God had inspired. Since the faith’s beginning in mid-17th-century Eng land, both women and men have been equally permitted to speak, but in other ways early Quakers adhered to common under standings of gender. Men and women were supposed to dress plainly in gender-specific attire, and in the 18th century Quaker meet ings were segregated by sex, with men on one side and women on the other. Wilkinson enjoyed a happy childhood and remained at home with her family into her mid-twenties. She came of age during a time of political and religious ferment, with discontent rife in the colonies over their treatment by King George III. Many new religious groups were forming and old ones were re forming in this period, known today as the First Great Awakening, as worshipers downplayed traditions of clerical authority. A transformation took place in Wilkin son’s life in early October 1776. She became feverishly sick with a disease that may have been typhus, lapsing into a coma. Her family expected death. Instead on October 10, 1776, the person occupying the body that had been

Wilkinson’s revived and announced that Wilkinson had died and ascended into heaven. The person elaborated that God, speaking through angels, had informed this reanimated spirit that they were the “Public Universal Friend” or “Comforter” who was on earth to spread Christian truths, and was neither male nor female. From then on, the person would never answer to “Jemima” but

brimmed hat typically worn by Quaker men graced Friend’s head and was removed in doors, as was customary for men. It was common practice for women to wear their hair up and under a cap. Typically Friend wore ministerial robes over a loose shirt and wide skirt, under which feminine petticoats could sometimes be glimpsed, with a cleri cal collar at the neck and women’s shoes on their feet. There was “ambiguity” in reports about Friend’s voice, with accounts differ ing as to whether it was low-pitched or high-pitched. Although 18th-century Quakers were egalitarian for their era, even they could not accept the transformation of Wilkinson to P. U. F. Since Quaker meetings were divided by sex, the new androgynous identity left Friend with no obvious place to sit. What’s more, the “clerical” garb Friend adopted of fended Quakers, who rejected the concept of clergy, believing God spoke to Christians with no need for an intermediary. As gender studies scholar Joy Michael Ellison ob serves: “Many Quakers held that the P. U. F. was placing themselves above others ... a practice that struck at the very heart of Quaker teachings.” At Quaker meetings, consternation en sued when Friend stood to preach. When Quakers expelled Friend from their meet ings, Friend began preaching across New England, giving sermons combining a popu lar mystical aspect of Quakerism with be liefs from other Christian denominations. Friend emphasized mystical experiences, including transcendence over death and a world beyond gender and bodily concerns. Friend preached against enslavement, en

Portrait of Public Universal Friend , 1816, by J.L.D. Mathies.

insisted on being called “Public Universal Friend,” “P. U. F.,” “Friend,” or “Comforter.” Some continue to call Friend female to this day, as the Document Center of Yates County (NY) does when it describes them as “the first American-born woman to found a reli gious movement.” Friend adopted a style of dress that delib erately mixed gender signifiers. A wide

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