GLR May-June 2026

terest in him. But he steers clear of explaining the give-and-take of their relationship or what really keeps them together. Lowen thal’s decision to stay quiet is the elephant in the room, because all the other essays tell us, in one way or another, how much Lowenthal craves a relationship that would be exclusive, com mitted, and extremely passionate. But Scott finds Lowenthal’s sensibility foreign and somewhat distasteful, impossible for him to seriously consider. We wonder where this leaves them. When Lowenthal writes about the possibility of perfect love, his heart opens with a warmth and generosity that’s contagious. He writes about meeting a man in Taipei and feeling a special connection. He worries that perhaps he’s exoticizing his new lover but falls hard for him. He feels uncomfortable about his white privilege yet allows himself to stay with Liang for a few unforgettable weeks. When Liang begins to ask him for money, Lowenthal suspects he’s being used. Second thoughts set in. On a trip to Brazil, he hooks up with Uilliam and feels an ec static connection. He writes: “Kissing him was like discover

ing I could breathe underwater, a blue infinity: I never wanted to surface.” When he tries to tell Scott, he seems uninterested. When he walks with Uilliam on the streets of Brazil, he notices a passerby who seem to be laughing at him. Lowenthal is much older than Uilliam, pale and pudgy, unlike his lover, who’s dark skinned and has a boyish appeal. When Lowenthal returns home, he Skypes with Uilliam and then returns to Brazil to spend more magical weeks with him, convinced he’s found the love he’s been looking for. Lowenthal never explains why he couldn’t make this romantic leap and tells us only that Uilliam eventually hooked up with another older man and then got heav ily involved with drugs. We hear his sorrow when he writes of him, thinking of what might have been. At the end of the book, he briefly mentions Scott, whom he thanks politely “for all the miles and years.” But it rings hollow and highlights the painful solitude in which Lowenthal has spent most of his life. His book is an exquisite testament to the costs and complications of such loneliness.

couraged sexual abstinence, and promoted equality of the sexes. It may have been the gender ambiguity of Friend’s presentation rather than anything special in their message that led some to at tend their sermons. The Yates County Docu ment Center writes that it was “a tremendous novelty for a woman in the 1770s” to preach, which suggests that there was a practical reason for adopting an an drogynous persona. By disclaiming a fe male identity, even without claiming a specifically male one, Friend may have tried to overcome the limitations that were placed on women, including the belief in some denominations that women shouldn’t speak in church. Asked “Are you a man or a woman?” Friend replied: “I am that I am.” Elfreth’s Alley Museum in Philadelphia’s Old City suggests this answer “served the dual pur pose of acknowledging an indescribable gender identity and associating this inde scribable being with the divine, as this was a phrase uttered by God in the Old Testa ment.” Friend and some followers found lodging with a widow at Elfreth’s Alley in 1782. A contemporary wrote that soon after ward an “unruly company assembled” and caused “a dreadful scene of outrage” as they threw stones and bricks at the house to drive Friend and their disciples away. The group left, taking refuge with Quaker Christopher Marshall, who, along with his sons, would provide refuge for the sect Friend founded, the Society of Universal Friends, when they returned to the area in 1784 and in 1790. P. U. F. did not allow hooligans to deter them from preaching. Only a couple of days after the riot, Friend preached at a meeting house a five-minute walk from Elfreth’s Alley and drew a friendly crowd. Subsequent sermons gained more followers.

In 1784 a pamphlet called “The Universal Friend’s Advice, to Those of the Same Reli gious Society” was published. It encouraged overcoming worldly pleasures in favor of spiritual growth and advocated human free will and universal salvation. While the mes sage Friend delivered was not necessarily unfamiliar, its delivery by the androgynous Friend made it threatening to some. Even more chillingly, some accused Friend of claiming to be the second coming of Christ. There’s no clear evidence that Friend ever made any such claim, but the rumor was enough to get Friend accused of blasphemy. Even without that unsubstantiated rumor, Friend’s performance of nonbinary gender was disconcerting to many. The well-known Congregationalist minister Ezra Stiles wrote in his diary: “her disorder is temporary in sanity or Lunacy or Dementia.” Others ac cused Friend of usurping male authority by preaching. Such criticisms did not keep people from joining the Society of Universal Friends. Around 1786 Friend associates started searching for a settlement, and the follow ing year three scouts from Friend’s group traveled into Pennsylvania’s Wyoming Val ley. They eventually found an area they considered promising and returned home to tell Friend. During the summer of 1787, a party of 25 Society of Universal Friends members—not including Friend—founded the first permanent white settlement in western New York. Many other members joined the settlement, until there were about 300 people when Friend came there in early spring 1790. The group had sought isolation but failed to find it, as they were unwit tingly part of a surge westward. In 1794, Friend and some followers moved further west and established a town that remains to this day: Jerusalem, NY.

Friend remained there until their death in 1819. Following Friend’s wishes, their body was buried in an unmarked grave. The Soci ety of Universal Friends disbanded shortly after the death. The Oliver House Museum in Penn Yan, NY, preserves Friend’s papers, portrait, Bible, and other belongings. Interpreting Friend’s legacy is compli cated. Some see Friend as a woman who adopted a gender-free persona to avoid the sexist constraints of the era, but an upsurge in interest in nonbinary identities has led to a reevaluation. British YouTuber and writer Jessica Kellgren-Fozard observes that the life of this early American is susceptible to multiple interpretations: “Some people con sider the Public Universal Friend to have been asexual, a gender non-conformist, or a queer saint, whilst others consider that re porting having seen angels means they may have been suffering from a mental illness.” Kellgren-Fozard continues that Friend “may or may not have been nonbinary or trans gender” since it is difficult to place past fig ures into contemporary categories. Historian Michael Bronski in AQueer History of the United States describes P. U. F. as a “transgender evangelist.” Researcher Susan Juster believed Friend was “danger ous” to the established order because they blurred gender lines, but they may have in advertently reinforced the idea of male au thority by “dressing like a man” (partly) to preach. Bronski and Juster see Friend as in spired by the Bible verse Galatians 3:28: “there is neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” However their story is interpreted, Friend reaches out across centuries as an example of a life lived out side the gender binary. Denise Noe is the author of The Bloodied and the Broken and Justice Gone Haywire.

May–June 2026

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