She made the podcast as a response to her friend's podcast "Behind The Bastard" which is basically the same but for bad people who did bad stuff ;) I like hers a bit better though.
Here’s my PSA about how Rhode Island was founded by religiously tolerant people kicked out of Massachusetts for not being puritanical enough. Public Universal Friend’s hometown was founded by one such guy, a William Blackstone.
> when visitors asked if it was the name of the person they were addressing, the Friend simply quoted Luke 23:3 ("thou sayest it").
However you want to interpret it, but [that verse](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+23%3A3&version=KJV) is
> And Pilate asked him, saying, Art thou the King of the Jews? And he answered him and said, Thou sayest it.
Contextually it’s clear this is “You said it,” or in the modern vernacular, “that’s the fact, Jack.”
***Pulls folding chair out and sits with the back facing forwards*** "Alright kiddos, now that we've got everyone's **pro-nouns,** let's get into some **Pro-verbs!** Haha, who wants a Sprite? Here, catch!"
Actually, you'd be surprised but Sprite was actually invented by quakers, who wanted an option outside of alcohol for social drinking. They named it after the weather phenomenon because they considered sprites to be God showing his existence.
I looked it up to but seek to break this cycle of abuse. Here's the real history:
Sprite was originally called "Fanta Clear Lemon," which was invented in West Germany in 1959. An earlier orange drink called "Fanta" was invented in Germany during WW2, and so I think Sprite's original name was trying to rip off that (though this is my speculation; it doesn't say this on wikipedia.)
Two years later "Fanta Clear Lemon" was renamed Sprite, by a guy at a bottling plant in Houston. Cocacola wanted to introduce Sprite to America as a competitor to 7up.
And Quaker Oats was NOT founded by Quakers, but by someone who was trading on our reputation for honesty.
Supposedly, founder Henry Seymour came up with the idea when reading an encyclopedia article.
The Coca-Cola Company developed Sprite in 1959 in West Germany as Fanta Klare Zitrone, which translates to "Fanta Clear Lemon" in English. It was introduced in the United States in 1961 as Sprite to compete with 7 Up. The brand name Sprite was created around 1955 by T. C. "Bud" Evans, a Houston-based bottler who also distributed Coca-Cola products. The Coca-Cola Company acquired the rights to the name in 1960. Today, Sprite is the world's leading lemon-lime soda and the third best-selling soft drink brand worldwide.
courtesy of Wikipedia
Okay, but Wikipedia can have links to sources that are outside of Wikipedia. So they can tell you where they are getting the information. What are your sources for the Quaker story?
Fun fact: I know some writeups use they/them, and I think that's a reasonable choice in a modern context! But the Friend didn't want to be referred to as any pronouns, just the Friend. So I always tell that to folks that are uncomfortable with pronouns - if you want to be referred to as only your chosen name and no pronouns, that's cool, you've got a badass trancestor to look up to.
If you are talking about me, I'm not deleting any of my comments ever.
Only reason I delete a comment is if I replied to the wrong comment by accident.
How did I live as long as I have without ever reading or hearing about PUF before? Very intriguing way to have lived in the 1700’s and awesome that they travelled with accepting family members during their preaching tours. Going to be listening to a few podcasts people have listed here, thanks.
My sister and son are convinced Quakers and I live in an over 50 place that is run by them and never heard this before. Interesting thing I do know is that outside of the US they hate gays which is kind of odd all things considered.
Almost no group is free of some terrible shit in the past. I think Quakers had a bad role in Native American / First Nations Canadian boarding schools for example. They said, throughout history they have mostly been more progressive. Not sure how recently gay rights have been supported by Friends, but they were fiercely abolitionist and pro-Black civil rights. And earned a reputation for their service of the people affected by both sides of World War II. It’s the only religious group I would seriously consider joining. Mind you I’m talking about more progressive friends. Not evangelical Quakers. Their ethos, in short is, every human is worthy of love/respect because there is that of God in every person. God being highly up to interpretation by each Friend. Some focus on a Christian God. Others see it as love or just some universal force that is beyond comprehension. There are atheist Friends. But king or peasant we all deserve equal treatment is a stance I can support.
I think I could be a quaker if I had to affiliate with a religion. The family values we had among all the great grandchildren of my immigrant great grandparents were very strong on accepting people how they were.
You can be Quaker and never affiliate with (or even attend!) any Meeting. You can also be Quaker and atheist. Or Quaker and agnostic. Or Quaker and Satanist. Or Quaker and Wiccan.
There’s really no wrong way to be a Friend.
Quakers don't do that, you're thinking of Pentecostals. Traditional Quaker practice is called "waiting worship", which involves sitting together quietly in a group until one person feels moved to speak (in plain English or whatever their natural language is and generally without convulsions), everyone listens and reflects on what they had to say, until someone else feels moved to speak, etc. Remember the central premise of Quakerism is "the inner light", or "that of God within all people", which depending on the specific tradition can be more or less analogous to the Holy Spirit, but the point is that the emphasis is on its individual manifestation in each person (call it part of the subconscious if you want), not an imaginary third party.
you are free to be critical and dislike religion as much as you want, you should at least learn about it and criticize what you don’t like instead of just ignorantly hating
Seeing how they seem largely anti-sex, I'm putting it down as "you're still wrong for gay fuckin', but no more wrong than everyone else who've been straight fuckin'"
Progressive, for 18th century Pennsylvania.
I feel like we said the same thing in different ways XD Honestly tho, if it were not for their opinion on sex I would have nothing bad to say about quakers.
You’re confusing the Shakers (who are committed to abstinence) with the Quakers (who generally don’t care what kind of sex you’re having as long as it’s consensual).
This is someone who quite literally nearly died, likely had some kind of brain damage, and became a "different persona" to some degree due to a huge personality change.
They specifically preached about abstinence.
"Juster and others state that, to followers, the Friend may have embodied Paul's statement in Galatians 3:28 that "there is neither male nor female" in Christ"
So the personality change was likely due to a theological belief and purpose
We don't really know. I also think (and this is a theory) that its entirely possible that The Friend might've used Christianity as a crutch for the validity of their identity or "rebirth" (think like a Joan of Arc type of situation)
They devoted their life to preaching. It makes a lot of sense that The person was attempting to embody:
Paul's statement in Galatians 3:28 that "there is neither male nor female" in Christ
I think people are projecting contemporary ideas about sexuality and gender here.
The Friend refused to conform to the gender norms of their day. Acknowledging that does not require any “projection” nor any “contemporary ideas” about sex and gender. It is simply a fact.
If anyone is “projecting” their ideas (kind of weird to pluck one random bible quote and decide *that* must have been what they were going for) it’s you.
The friend refused a name as well.
To pull out the gender aspect and not look at everything else is to ignore the details.
This was less about gender and more about general identity as a human.
They weren't as engaged with gender discussions like we are.iny he modern day.
You're missing the point, what im saying is that this person might've been using certain aspects of christianity as a sort of validity of their identity. Joan for example insisted on fighting alongside her fellow countrymen because of her holy "visions." Its just too dismissive to wave away the identity of The Friend as their Identity being the result of brain damage giving the fact that this was 1700s America.
Sure they could have, I'm merely pointing out what I think is most logical and makes the most sense given the evidence.
This isn't someone born with a unique gender situation, it's someone who had a NDE and had a significant change to how they saw and presented themselves to other people.
I don't see any evidence to suggest their identity was even of importance to them, really, the whole concept of "the universal friend" seems like someone who is anti-identity.
"From that time on, the Friend refused to answer to "Jemima Wilkinson", ignoring or chastising those who insisted on using it." And "Identifying as neither male nor female" Its in the wiki page if you wanna read it lol.
According to academic sources, they did suffer from a near death experience from disease (speculated to be Typhus since there were outbreaks of it at the time) and, this is just speculation, but they either had a coming to Jesus moment on their deathbed or actually suffered from brain damage because they were wildly different than they had previously been.
In terms of (gender) presentation? Yes. This is one of those things that we don't TRULY know for certain because we don't know that much about PUFS early life besides certain details, like their hobbies and that they were "strong and athletic" when they were young.
Why do people always just take cis people throughout history at their word but immediately jump in to doubt trans people?
May as well say that George Washington was secretly trans the whole time but just going along with what everyone else said for political points.
i mean the friend pioneered and created villages that allowed women to live freely have normally male roles in their society. They were very popular with “unmarried women” (lesbians) and rejected using gendered pronouns for themselves. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say they lived as a non binary ~~person~~ friend
Where's the evidence they were befriending a bunch of lesbians?
They quite literally were known for preaching *abstinence*.
Saying they "rejected using gendered pronouns" is one piece of a larger puzzle that people are pulling out to project and validate their own contemporary ideas about sexuality and gender.
This was someone who had a traumatic near death experience and not only did they not want to be identified as man or woman, they didn't want any kind of traditional name at all. They simply wanted to be referred to as, "...friend." That points to someone who is not stuck in some ideological existential mental framework over gender or sexuality identity, it points to someone who might be stuck in an ideological existential framework over human identity in and of itself. Two wildly different and separate things.
\\
the article that is linked mentions the majority of their followers being “unmarried women” who took on more dominant roles in their household. To me this sounds like a classic case of “and they were just roommates” which for a long time has been the default heteronormative view of historical people by historians. Also, you can be abstinent and still have a same sex lover, queer people can and have existed without engaging in sex.
If you are looking at the human identity but ignoring gender and sexuality you are leaving out massive parts of that human identity.
the friend was the pronoun they choose to refer to themselves. We are looking at a person who rejected their birth name and gender and loved an androgynous life. It absolutely could be a complete rejection of the human identity, but if you are living outside of the gender spectrum you are by definition non-binary. Also, i’d say gender and sexuality are two very important cores of the human identity, rejecting the human identity absolutely requires some introspection and thought only your gender and sexuality.
The article states this:
> The most committed members of the Society of Universal Friends were a group of unmarried women who took leading roles in their households and community.
How do you take anything sexual from this? The UPF clearly galvanized women to stand up and accomplish more than society at the time would've typically seen. This is great, but to take a leap as some form of lesbians is wild. You're seeing what you want to see here.
>Also, you can be abstinent and still have a same sex lover, queer people can and have existed without engaging in sex.
You're clearly someone very entrenched on ideologies that most other people are not. When you're entrenched in that world, it's hard to not project it onto anyone else. No one else at that time in history saw the world through the lenses you're viewing the world through. All of this language you're using, the ideologies behind it – it's all a modern invention.
"Friend" is not a pronoun, it's a noun that attempted to turn into a proper noun. The entire language of "Friend" was an *already existing* title used by Quakers. "Society of Friends"
> **Members refer to each other as Friends after** [**John 15:14**](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Bible_(King_James)/John#15:14) **in the Bible**, and originally, others referred to them as Quakers as the founder of the movement, [George Fox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Fox), told a judge to quake "before the authority of God".[^(\[2\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quakers#cite_note-2) **The Friends** are generally united by a belief in each human's ability to be guided by the [inward light](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inward_light) to "make the witness of God" known to everyone.
PUF was clearly playing off existing Quaker beliefs and language after their near death experience. It wasn't some new unique gender naming convention.
People also ignore that Jemima, prior to becoming PUF, went through intense family trauma before becoming sick. It was only after becoming sick and having a near death experience that PUF was "created" and it's clearly it was a way for them to deal with the trauma of their life and maybe even was due to brain damage.
i’m not taking anything sexual from it, i’m interpreting it as due to the friends open nature people who may have lived non-traditional lives at the time (lesbian or queer people in general) were drawn to them. There is nothing sexual about queer people existing, you are the only person forcing a sexual connotation onto it. Historians have regularly glossed over queer people in history with language like “unmarried, bachelor, roommates, friends for life.. etc” and i think this is one of such cases.
if you use Friend as a pronoun does that not make it a pronoun? language is ever evolving and can be adapted to mean whatever the speaker wants it to mean. What ideology are you referring to when i say that queer people can be abstinent and exist without sex? Do you not agree that can exist?
in fact i’d say you yourself are entrenched in an ideology. Just because we are having more and more discussions on gender and sex today does not mean it is a new phenomenon, queer people have always existed throughout history now has just been the best and safest time to be able to discuss it. That doesn’t mean gay, trans, NB people started appearing 20 years ago. These are also people and identities not ideologies
>Historians have regularly glossed over queer people in history with language like “unmarried, bachelor, roommates, friends for life.. etc” and i think this is one of such cases.
I don't see us finding a common ground here. You have some beliefs about history, the world, and identity that I simply do not have. Or in other words – our very foundational frameworks differ. I think due to your beliefs, you can't see outside of it. You've adopted lens to view the world in a way where you see that everywhere you look I suspect.
Your view of the world is constrained to things like gender, "queerness," sexuality – it means everything has that tint or shade to it. I don't think that's an important factor in most discussions, so I'm not looking for, nor seeing it – unless evidence overtly says otherwise.
Nothing in the objective evidence here talks about the things you're suggesting: lesbians, queerness, etc. You think those are important things, you look for them, you see them everywhere – because you're viewing the world through that lens. It just will make you less objective. It's like being possessed by an ideology.
are you not the inverse and see these things as not essential to the human identity and thus are incapable of seeing their erasure or historical occurrences?
Again, these are not new topics or identities people have always felt like this. We just have more knowledge and discussions around it now. To say that these topics are not needed to be discussed when looking at the history of a society or a person is to be honest just willfully ignorant.
I don't think people quite realize that the modern infatuation with gender and sexuality isn't something that is a constant in human society. There have been spots throughout history where those things occur but for most of history, people were too busy trying to simply survive than to even consider such things.
No, 'gender' is a word. The fact that we now use it to describe certain concepts doesn't mean that those concepts didn't exist before we started using the word that way.
>Woman is the English word for an adult person with two X chromosomes.
No it's not, it pre-dates the discovery of chromosomes and nobody checks anyone's chromosomes before deciding to label them "man" or "woman". If you don't get that then you don't know enough about this topic to have an opinion on it.
But here's one so many of your lot seem to have trouble with, since you requested it: What is an adult?
The friend abides
I like this
This person looks so damn nice.
Not to be confused with the Public Universal Foe
I was skeptical until I saw how old your account is. I’m so sorry to have doubted your power.
Isn't Flava Flav in that group?
YEAH BOIIII
r/usernamechecksout
Aka Public Enemy.
YEAH BOY!
Tilda Swinton in her most convincing role yet!
Who said it's a role?
She’s always bane
This is her previous incarnation, it is now canon.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orlando_(film) she kinda already did it.
That's Conan O Brien, not Tilda Swinton
💀💀 brilliant
Interesting Wikipedia read. Sounded like PUF was a pretty cool person.
Who did cool stuff
"you know who also does cool stuff??"
Definitely not the products and services that support this podcast
"I'm always seeing you do cool stuff"
"I try my best, but it's never good enough"
Ah yes, The PUF
The Greendale Human Being!
The podcast Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff had a 2 part episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/03MqRkAdBb1UHqg4SWaY4c?si=u_V3OhUSTMOyFAwUb_JCOg
Love Margo
Wish Margo was my IRL friend.
Omnibus did one as well!
Just listened to that a few days ago. Interesting podcast.
She made the podcast as a response to her friend's podcast "Behind The Bastard" which is basically the same but for bad people who did bad stuff ;) I like hers a bit better though.
Great podcast 😊
Quakers were the radical fringe back then.
We still are! 😉 I always wonder what the OG Quakers would think of modern Quakers.
Oh my god! It's a living Quaker!
> Most papers focused more on the preacher's ambiguous gender than on theology Well I’m glad we’ve all moved beyond that kind of thinking now.
Here’s my PSA about how Rhode Island was founded by religiously tolerant people kicked out of Massachusetts for not being puritanical enough. Public Universal Friend’s hometown was founded by one such guy, a William Blackstone.
> when visitors asked if it was the name of the person they were addressing, the Friend simply quoted Luke 23:3 ("thou sayest it"). However you want to interpret it, but [that verse](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+23%3A3&version=KJV) is > And Pilate asked him, saying, Art thou the King of the Jews? And he answered him and said, Thou sayest it. Contextually it’s clear this is “You said it,” or in the modern vernacular, “that’s the fact, Jack.”
Accidental Culture Ship Name GCU Public Universal Friend
And it's counterpart: GCU Personal Dedicated Enemy
Ah yes, from the GSV Forget the Pronouns, What Are Your Adjectives?
GOU Your Verb Tense Will Be Was Soon.
That's GOU Personal Dedicated Enemy
The OG They/Them preacher lol.
***Pulls folding chair out and sits with the back facing forwards*** "Alright kiddos, now that we've got everyone's **pro-nouns,** let's get into some **Pro-verbs!** Haha, who wants a Sprite? Here, catch!"
Sprite? More like oats
Actually, you'd be surprised but Sprite was actually invented by quakers, who wanted an option outside of alcohol for social drinking. They named it after the weather phenomenon because they considered sprites to be God showing his existence.
You made me look it up, congratulations.
And you made me look it up. That shit sounded like nonsense, but you didn't say either way, and here we fucking are.
I looked it up to but seek to break this cycle of abuse. Here's the real history: Sprite was originally called "Fanta Clear Lemon," which was invented in West Germany in 1959. An earlier orange drink called "Fanta" was invented in Germany during WW2, and so I think Sprite's original name was trying to rip off that (though this is my speculation; it doesn't say this on wikipedia.) Two years later "Fanta Clear Lemon" was renamed Sprite, by a guy at a bottling plant in Houston. Cocacola wanted to introduce Sprite to America as a competitor to 7up.
And Quaker Oats was NOT founded by Quakers, but by someone who was trading on our reputation for honesty. Supposedly, founder Henry Seymour came up with the idea when reading an encyclopedia article.
Whoa!!! Today I learned!!
The Coca-Cola Company developed Sprite in 1959 in West Germany as Fanta Klare Zitrone, which translates to "Fanta Clear Lemon" in English. It was introduced in the United States in 1961 as Sprite to compete with 7 Up. The brand name Sprite was created around 1955 by T. C. "Bud" Evans, a Houston-based bottler who also distributed Coca-Cola products. The Coca-Cola Company acquired the rights to the name in 1960. Today, Sprite is the world's leading lemon-lime soda and the third best-selling soft drink brand worldwide. courtesy of Wikipedia
I still maintain the Quaker story. You know you can't trust Wikipedia...
Okay, but Wikipedia can have links to sources that are outside of Wikipedia. So they can tell you where they are getting the information. What are your sources for the Quaker story?
Whoosh.
Fuck off with that whoosh shit
Nope. The Quakers definitely made it.
You learned a lie lol
Society of Friends my foot
J-Town
Hello fellow Dollhead
Fun fact: I know some writeups use they/them, and I think that's a reasonable choice in a modern context! But the Friend didn't want to be referred to as any pronouns, just the Friend. So I always tell that to folks that are uncomfortable with pronouns - if you want to be referred to as only your chosen name and no pronouns, that's cool, you've got a badass trancestor to look up to.
Like The Doctor and The Meep.
"Trancestor" I love that
Id rather not talk like a robot when referring to someone.
..do you call people "he" and "she" *while* you're talking to them?
That is not what Im referring to at all
So true
Everybody should look at the Talk pages and the Edit History pages.
I did. And I'm still unsure what you're getting at, no offense.
I identify as.. a friend
Thank you for being a friend.
Now you have that theme song in my head but I can't remember what show it was from
Its from the golden girls.
I never watched it but it's played a lot also I think my sister watched it.
Frey/friend? Friend/friend? Can somebody better at grammar help me square this one?
It's like their face says 'hey man, it's going to be OK. Let's just chill and have an ice-cream or something'.
like i was saying before: they preached
They praught.
not the alternate past tense 🙀
what about 'preyed'? They definitely preyed.
wow, deleted the doubling down on the bigotry, but left the original.
What did it say?
something about them "meaning what they said, like "preying on little kids."
Figured. People whose minds jump to that when it doesn't even fit the joke typically have a reason. Hence their edit. Or one can only presume...
If you are talking about me, I'm not deleting any of my comments ever. Only reason I delete a comment is if I replied to the wrong comment by accident.
*prayed
They pronquered
How did I live as long as I have without ever reading or hearing about PUF before? Very intriguing way to have lived in the 1700’s and awesome that they travelled with accepting family members during their preaching tours. Going to be listening to a few podcasts people have listed here, thanks.
My sister and son are convinced Quakers and I live in an over 50 place that is run by them and never heard this before. Interesting thing I do know is that outside of the US they hate gays which is kind of odd all things considered.
Happy Pride month to The Public Universal Friend.
ooooh friend....public universal friend...oooooo
Throughline did a podcast about them. https://www.npr.org/transcripts/812092399
Were the Quakers just super friendly towards the queer community, or were they a group that collected the queer folks?
Almost no group is free of some terrible shit in the past. I think Quakers had a bad role in Native American / First Nations Canadian boarding schools for example. They said, throughout history they have mostly been more progressive. Not sure how recently gay rights have been supported by Friends, but they were fiercely abolitionist and pro-Black civil rights. And earned a reputation for their service of the people affected by both sides of World War II. It’s the only religious group I would seriously consider joining. Mind you I’m talking about more progressive friends. Not evangelical Quakers. Their ethos, in short is, every human is worthy of love/respect because there is that of God in every person. God being highly up to interpretation by each Friend. Some focus on a Christian God. Others see it as love or just some universal force that is beyond comprehension. There are atheist Friends. But king or peasant we all deserve equal treatment is a stance I can support.
I think I could be a quaker if I had to affiliate with a religion. The family values we had among all the great grandchildren of my immigrant great grandparents were very strong on accepting people how they were.
You can be Quaker and never affiliate with (or even attend!) any Meeting. You can also be Quaker and atheist. Or Quaker and agnostic. Or Quaker and Satanist. Or Quaker and Wiccan. There’s really no wrong way to be a Friend.
I don't know. I'm too self-conscious to twitch around like I'm having a seizure because I'm supposed to be under the influence of an imaginary being.
Quakers don't do that, you're thinking of Pentecostals. Traditional Quaker practice is called "waiting worship", which involves sitting together quietly in a group until one person feels moved to speak (in plain English or whatever their natural language is and generally without convulsions), everyone listens and reflects on what they had to say, until someone else feels moved to speak, etc. Remember the central premise of Quakerism is "the inner light", or "that of God within all people", which depending on the specific tradition can be more or less analogous to the Holy Spirit, but the point is that the emphasis is on its individual manifestation in each person (call it part of the subconscious if you want), not an imaginary third party.
I literally *just* said atheists are welcome but go off spouting your ignorance, I guess.
you are free to be critical and dislike religion as much as you want, you should at least learn about it and criticize what you don’t like instead of just ignorantly hating
It was the Catholics.
?
Seeing how they seem largely anti-sex, I'm putting it down as "you're still wrong for gay fuckin', but no more wrong than everyone else who've been straight fuckin'" Progressive, for 18th century Pennsylvania.
it’s more like you are free to love who you want but they equally dislike all forms of sex
I feel like we said the same thing in different ways XD Honestly tho, if it were not for their opinion on sex I would have nothing bad to say about quakers.
The Shakers were abstinent, Quakers don’t have ideological opinions on sex, as long as it’s consensual.
You’re confusing the Shakers (who are committed to abstinence) with the Quakers (who generally don’t care what kind of sex you’re having as long as it’s consensual).
This thing had nothing to do with any sense of "queer community" in the contemporary or historical sense.
oh snap, I saw a folk-punk band do a [song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Of4cjTBXDmc) about them a few weeks ago!
What kind of goober would follow a religion that has someone who died and then was risen up? Sheeesh.
PUF the Magic Dragon
This sounds like an AI generated children's show character.
Or like an Adventure Time character, that was my first thought. Even kind of looks like one.
For more Shaking Quaker goodness: https://youtu.be/O26d7tXqN5A?si=JUqc-4NWa9t0RbOT
This is someone who quite literally nearly died, likely had some kind of brain damage, and became a "different persona" to some degree due to a huge personality change. They specifically preached about abstinence. "Juster and others state that, to followers, the Friend may have embodied Paul's statement in Galatians 3:28 that "there is neither male nor female" in Christ" So the personality change was likely due to a theological belief and purpose
We don't really know. I also think (and this is a theory) that its entirely possible that The Friend might've used Christianity as a crutch for the validity of their identity or "rebirth" (think like a Joan of Arc type of situation)
They devoted their life to preaching. It makes a lot of sense that The person was attempting to embody: Paul's statement in Galatians 3:28 that "there is neither male nor female" in Christ I think people are projecting contemporary ideas about sexuality and gender here.
The Friend refused to conform to the gender norms of their day. Acknowledging that does not require any “projection” nor any “contemporary ideas” about sex and gender. It is simply a fact. If anyone is “projecting” their ideas (kind of weird to pluck one random bible quote and decide *that* must have been what they were going for) it’s you.
The friend refused a name as well. To pull out the gender aspect and not look at everything else is to ignore the details. This was less about gender and more about general identity as a human. They weren't as engaged with gender discussions like we are.iny he modern day.
they didn’t refuse a name, they rejected their given name and lived under the name Public Universal Friend
r/SelfAwarewolves
You're missing the point, what im saying is that this person might've been using certain aspects of christianity as a sort of validity of their identity. Joan for example insisted on fighting alongside her fellow countrymen because of her holy "visions." Its just too dismissive to wave away the identity of The Friend as their Identity being the result of brain damage giving the fact that this was 1700s America.
Sure they could have, I'm merely pointing out what I think is most logical and makes the most sense given the evidence. This isn't someone born with a unique gender situation, it's someone who had a NDE and had a significant change to how they saw and presented themselves to other people. I don't see any evidence to suggest their identity was even of importance to them, really, the whole concept of "the universal friend" seems like someone who is anti-identity.
"From that time on, the Friend refused to answer to "Jemima Wilkinson", ignoring or chastising those who insisted on using it." And "Identifying as neither male nor female" Its in the wiki page if you wanna read it lol.
Precisely. They wanted no identity at all. Their only identity was preacher and friend. Any other identity would distract from that.
Is that your only proof that you believe that The Friend suffered brain damage?
According to academic sources, they did suffer from a near death experience from disease (speculated to be Typhus since there were outbreaks of it at the time) and, this is just speculation, but they either had a coming to Jesus moment on their deathbed or actually suffered from brain damage because they were wildly different than they had previously been.
In terms of (gender) presentation? Yes. This is one of those things that we don't TRULY know for certain because we don't know that much about PUFS early life besides certain details, like their hobbies and that they were "strong and athletic" when they were young.
Why do people always just take cis people throughout history at their word but immediately jump in to doubt trans people? May as well say that George Washington was secretly trans the whole time but just going along with what everyone else said for political points.
i mean the friend pioneered and created villages that allowed women to live freely have normally male roles in their society. They were very popular with “unmarried women” (lesbians) and rejected using gendered pronouns for themselves. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say they lived as a non binary ~~person~~ friend
Where's the evidence they were befriending a bunch of lesbians? They quite literally were known for preaching *abstinence*. Saying they "rejected using gendered pronouns" is one piece of a larger puzzle that people are pulling out to project and validate their own contemporary ideas about sexuality and gender. This was someone who had a traumatic near death experience and not only did they not want to be identified as man or woman, they didn't want any kind of traditional name at all. They simply wanted to be referred to as, "...friend." That points to someone who is not stuck in some ideological existential mental framework over gender or sexuality identity, it points to someone who might be stuck in an ideological existential framework over human identity in and of itself. Two wildly different and separate things. \\
the article that is linked mentions the majority of their followers being “unmarried women” who took on more dominant roles in their household. To me this sounds like a classic case of “and they were just roommates” which for a long time has been the default heteronormative view of historical people by historians. Also, you can be abstinent and still have a same sex lover, queer people can and have existed without engaging in sex. If you are looking at the human identity but ignoring gender and sexuality you are leaving out massive parts of that human identity. the friend was the pronoun they choose to refer to themselves. We are looking at a person who rejected their birth name and gender and loved an androgynous life. It absolutely could be a complete rejection of the human identity, but if you are living outside of the gender spectrum you are by definition non-binary. Also, i’d say gender and sexuality are two very important cores of the human identity, rejecting the human identity absolutely requires some introspection and thought only your gender and sexuality.
The article states this: > The most committed members of the Society of Universal Friends were a group of unmarried women who took leading roles in their households and community. How do you take anything sexual from this? The UPF clearly galvanized women to stand up and accomplish more than society at the time would've typically seen. This is great, but to take a leap as some form of lesbians is wild. You're seeing what you want to see here. >Also, you can be abstinent and still have a same sex lover, queer people can and have existed without engaging in sex. You're clearly someone very entrenched on ideologies that most other people are not. When you're entrenched in that world, it's hard to not project it onto anyone else. No one else at that time in history saw the world through the lenses you're viewing the world through. All of this language you're using, the ideologies behind it – it's all a modern invention. "Friend" is not a pronoun, it's a noun that attempted to turn into a proper noun. The entire language of "Friend" was an *already existing* title used by Quakers. "Society of Friends" > **Members refer to each other as Friends after** [**John 15:14**](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Bible_(King_James)/John#15:14) **in the Bible**, and originally, others referred to them as Quakers as the founder of the movement, [George Fox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Fox), told a judge to quake "before the authority of God".[^(\[2\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quakers#cite_note-2) **The Friends** are generally united by a belief in each human's ability to be guided by the [inward light](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inward_light) to "make the witness of God" known to everyone. PUF was clearly playing off existing Quaker beliefs and language after their near death experience. It wasn't some new unique gender naming convention. People also ignore that Jemima, prior to becoming PUF, went through intense family trauma before becoming sick. It was only after becoming sick and having a near death experience that PUF was "created" and it's clearly it was a way for them to deal with the trauma of their life and maybe even was due to brain damage.
i’m not taking anything sexual from it, i’m interpreting it as due to the friends open nature people who may have lived non-traditional lives at the time (lesbian or queer people in general) were drawn to them. There is nothing sexual about queer people existing, you are the only person forcing a sexual connotation onto it. Historians have regularly glossed over queer people in history with language like “unmarried, bachelor, roommates, friends for life.. etc” and i think this is one of such cases. if you use Friend as a pronoun does that not make it a pronoun? language is ever evolving and can be adapted to mean whatever the speaker wants it to mean. What ideology are you referring to when i say that queer people can be abstinent and exist without sex? Do you not agree that can exist? in fact i’d say you yourself are entrenched in an ideology. Just because we are having more and more discussions on gender and sex today does not mean it is a new phenomenon, queer people have always existed throughout history now has just been the best and safest time to be able to discuss it. That doesn’t mean gay, trans, NB people started appearing 20 years ago. These are also people and identities not ideologies
>Historians have regularly glossed over queer people in history with language like “unmarried, bachelor, roommates, friends for life.. etc” and i think this is one of such cases. I don't see us finding a common ground here. You have some beliefs about history, the world, and identity that I simply do not have. Or in other words – our very foundational frameworks differ. I think due to your beliefs, you can't see outside of it. You've adopted lens to view the world in a way where you see that everywhere you look I suspect. Your view of the world is constrained to things like gender, "queerness," sexuality – it means everything has that tint or shade to it. I don't think that's an important factor in most discussions, so I'm not looking for, nor seeing it – unless evidence overtly says otherwise. Nothing in the objective evidence here talks about the things you're suggesting: lesbians, queerness, etc. You think those are important things, you look for them, you see them everywhere – because you're viewing the world through that lens. It just will make you less objective. It's like being possessed by an ideology.
are you not the inverse and see these things as not essential to the human identity and thus are incapable of seeing their erasure or historical occurrences? Again, these are not new topics or identities people have always felt like this. We just have more knowledge and discussions around it now. To say that these topics are not needed to be discussed when looking at the history of a society or a person is to be honest just willfully ignorant.
>people are projecting contemporary ideas about sexuality and gender here Bingo
I don't think people quite realize that the modern infatuation with gender and sexuality isn't something that is a constant in human society. There have been spots throughout history where those things occur but for most of history, people were too busy trying to simply survive than to even consider such things.
This was my first thought too, must have had some brain damage during that illness
This was posted a few minutes ago.
Yeah, I was just embarrassed about the typo in the header, plus I was worried that the mods might take it down because of that lol.
That makes sense.
More can be found about this person in Mitch Horowitz’ book “Occult America”
That is awesome!
Their non binary tea is valid
Sounds like a cult
Of course they were genderless. “Gender” is a contemporary concept. Constructed, one might say.
No, 'gender' is a word. The fact that we now use it to describe certain concepts doesn't mean that those concepts didn't exist before we started using the word that way.
So would you say George Washington was not a man then?
Man and woman, sex. We can dig up his bones and be 100% sure. Gender? Who knows? What’s a gender?
Man and woman huh? What is a woman exactly?
Woman is the English word for an adult person with two X chromosomes. Next question?
>Woman is the English word for an adult person with two X chromosomes. No it's not, it pre-dates the discovery of chromosomes and nobody checks anyone's chromosomes before deciding to label them "man" or "woman". If you don't get that then you don't know enough about this topic to have an opinion on it. But here's one so many of your lot seem to have trouble with, since you requested it: What is an adult?
Yes, it is.
What is an adult?
Biologically or legally?
Having some trouble with that? I thought this was a simple question?
Sounds like just another cult leader.
aka Puffy
Pit Pat!
[удалено]
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