Jemima Wilkinson

ABOUT JEMIMA WILKINSON

Quaker who led the Society of Universal Friends sect, who believed strongly in sexual abstinence and the idea of gender neutrality. Her followers believed that they were neither male nor female and refused to answer to their original birth names.

She grew up attending silent worship at the Smithfield Meeting House in Rhode Island. Following a severe bout with typhoid in the 1770's, she claimed to have been sent by God himself to preach his word.

After migrating to New York, she and her followers became the first white people whom Native Americans in the region traded with.

She was the daughter of Amy and Jeremiah Wilkinson.

Her father was the cousin of Rhode Island Governor and Chief Justice Stephen Hopkins .