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genderoutlaws · 1 year

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Sister Phatima La Dyke Van Dick (A.K.A. Sister Hateful Sow) and Sister Sistah of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, working as shop girls and hostesses at the Under One Roof gift shop for AIDS charity event | 1995

#op #photography #1990s #1995 #the sisters of perpetual indulgence #g #tgnc #drag #sister sistah #phatima rude #sister hateful sow

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macmanx · 11 months

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The Dodgers have gone from having one of professional sports’ most anticipated Pride celebrations to being called out for hypocrisy after uninviting the queer group The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence from their Pride Night after complaints from so-called Christian groups.

The Sisters, an order of queer and trans nuns who are devoted to community service, promoting human rights, and respect for diversity and spiritual enlightenment was set to receive a Community Hero Award at the June 16 game. However, that has now changed.

#lgbtqia+#transgender #drag performers #the sisters of perpetual indulgence #dodgers

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batboyblog · 11 months

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Fuck the LA Dodgers for disinviting the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence because they were a "distraction" to the alleged "great efforts" of their shallow and over priced Pride night. I hope all the bad press for making this cowardly decision won't be too distracting for the folks in the head office.

In the words of my Jewish New Yorker grandfather, "Go back to Brooklyn you bums!"

You know, I don't expect brands to be the best allies ever because they're brands and they love money above all other things.

but! If they are trying to get our gay dollars, our queer dollars, the pink dollar, and they advertise to us, they hold events for us with our leaders and community, etc, they better have the nerve when there's push back because ANY ANYYYY! LGBT advertisement or event will get push back no matter how "safe" it is because they HATE US all of us and want us ALL dead, any ways when a brand gets that push back they don't say the polite, brand friendly, customer service voice version of "fuck off" then they can drop dead, no pink dollars for you

and thats what is happening to the Dodgers

Don't come at the Sisters or we come after you. Any ways the Dodgers pride night is in flames and thats what it should be, when brands try to get our money and then fold, we should show them they lose a lot more by selling us out then they do standing by their choice to market to us.

#Dodgers #The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence #Pride #LGBT

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lemonbalmgirl · 11 months

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Hey Portland folks, would you like to help support our local chapter of the Sister of Perpetual Indulgence, the Order of Benevolent Bliss*?

They just updated their Etsy shop with a bunch of awesome new merch!

https://www.etsy.com/shop/PortlandSisters/

I happen to be wearing my Sis-Squatch shirt today, so here's a close of the design. (I now want the Sis-Squatch tote bag, too.)

* From Wikipedia:

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence (SPI), also called Order of Perpetual Indulgence (OPI), is a charity, protest, and street performance organization that uses drag and religious imagery to satirize issues of sex, gender, and morality (particularly Christian perspectives on these topics) and fund raise for charity. Upon their move to San Francisco from Iowa City in 1979, a small group of gay men in San Francisco began wearing the attire of Catholic nuns in visible situations using camp to promote various social and political causes in the Castro District.

#lgbtqia #the sisters of perpetual indulgence #portland or #portland #queer #charity

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gwydionmisha · 11 months

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#The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence #Los Angeles #Drag History #Drag

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redshift-13 · 11 months

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I love the sisters. Their critics, however, can’t see beyond the makeup and garb to the reality of their positive role in society.

The sisters’ mission statement is “the expiation of stigmatic guilt and the promulgation of universal joy,” but since their inception, they’ve been called diabolical and anti-Catholic and accused by their detractors of mocking Catholic nuns.

“We’re not mocking anything,” said Sister Harlot D Lite (red ribbed mini-dress, red tassel earrings, ornate pink makeup). “We appreciate nuns, and we’re doing it our own way, for our community.”

...

Some sisters think the anonymity of the white makeup allows people to open up to them.

“It’s a mask, and sometimes people are more comfortable talking to a mask than an actual person’s face,” Sister Candy Cide said.

Sister Loose Clarita, whose striped iridescent makeup resembles the Mexican flag, said the sisters are playing with the archetype of the jester or the clown.

“Unless you have a phobia, you know the clown is not going to hurt you. He’s the dumb one, the one that has no value,” she said. “And so it allows us to access in other people the dark places they might be afraid to go.”

...

More at the link.

#the sisters of perpetual indulgence #lgbt

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vaspider · 9 months

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Last year I wrote about what happened at Pride when a couple of kids didn't understand why us older folx were so bitter about Reagan.

This year, I have something a little softer.

Someone who looked a little older than me came up to the booth wearing a pink t-shirt proclaiming him one of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, San Francisco chapter. As I was ringing him up, I asked if he'd been involved for a while.

"Yes," he said, "for a bit," in that way us middle-aged people do when we're sort of wincing and feeling old.

"Okay, well," I said, sitting at my register in my queer booth full of queer clothes and patches and pins, topless in public for the first time. (I had pasties on for my own comfort bc I was working, but I live in the city of the Naked Bike Ride, and I took full advantage). My baby brother and both of my partners ran around behind me, my brother wearing a loose tank top that makes his scars visible.

"I need to tell you that you all helped keep me alive."

He blinked at me as I continued, "I was a kid in high school in the early 90s. I lived in the middle of nowhere in Pennsylvania, and what you all were doing was so loud and so out there that even I heard about your work. It was one of the things that kept me alive. So thank you, and please thank the rest of the Sisters."

I heard about them through people in my parents' church complaining about them, and then I sought more information through the beginning of the internet, through newspapers, through anything I could find. I found the cover of Newsweek that one of the Sisters was on. I read about their "exorcism" of fundamentalist preachers whose books sat on the shelf in my parents' basement and probably still do. I saw how loud and colorful and unapologetically queer they were.

The knowledge that someone was out there, so full of defiant joy, refusing the shame that people kept trying to put on them? Oh, that kept me alive. I saw them, and I knew I could make it through. I wrapped my hands around that knowledge, and I held on so tight.

It took me a long time - a long, long time - to unwind most of it for myself and get to the point where my fat butch ass was sitting bare-chested in the July breeze, looking up at him as he held out his arms and said "you're actually giving me chills." I answered, "I mean every word. You helped keep me alive. So thank you."

I never know what to say when people come up to me in public and tell me that I helped them or changed their life in some way. I appreciate it, and I genuinely love the people who apologized for "fanpersoning" at me last weekend, I just never know what to say. I'm incredibly grateful that the Sister I spoke to was incredibly gracious, saying "usually we give blessings, but I feel like you blessed me." Another member of the party let me pet their tiny dog, who was not very interested in me, and that's okay. It was an overwhelming day. Then, they moved on.

Me? I'm still sitting with the fact that I looked last weekend into the faces of people who didn't know they were holding my head above water, and that I got to tell them the work they do matters. It's a rare thing to get to tell someone, "You saved me," and I'm treasuring it.

Last weekend, I wore my new battle vest with nothing underneath it, unless it was too hot, and then I just sat in my chair, chatting and ringing ppl out with my skin free to the air. I decided last year that top surgery isn't for me, but that also I'm going to love this body unapologetically, and it's no less a transmasculine body because the soft new dark hair on my belly isn't accompanied by pink scars along my ribs.

I didn't get here on my own. I got here because someone else cut through the undergrowth ahead of me so I could take another step forward. Here I am, decades later, still taking step after step, one at a time, and trying to lay paving stones behind me.

Last weekend was another step along that way, another step through unwinding the fear and shame and sadness that my parents and their church built into me. Another step out of hating myself for hiding parts of myself for so long, for acting out in other ways to distract people from my queerness, for feeling so much guilt when other people tell me I'm brave, because I know how much of myself I hid for how long because I was a coward, because I was afraid.

Another step into expiating stigmatic guilt.

#sisters of perpetual indulgence

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thoughtportal · 11 months

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The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence® https://www.thesisters.org/

The Dodgers booted the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. Then came a big-league backlash https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-dodgers-booted-the-sisters-of-perpetual-indulgence-then-came-a-big-league-backlash/ar-AA1bqtoE

#tiktok #Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence #AIDS #1980s #lgbtq history #lgbtq rights #LGBTQ #article

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noelcowards-addressbook · 29 days

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Early pic of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence

#Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence #vintage drag #camp #gay history

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sister-rosebud · 26 days

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Happy 45th Anniversary to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence! The first manifestation of the Sisters in the Castro District in San Francisco occurred during Easter weekend, 1979.

#sisters of perpetual indulgence #lgbt+#queer rights

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angeltreasure · 11 months

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This is sacrilege! 🚫

#Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence #Dodgers #MLB #sacrilege

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danhalen · 11 months

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#🥰 back in blue baby #❤️🧡💛💚💙💜🩷🤍🩵🤎🖤#dodgers #baseball #pride #sisters of perpetual indulgence

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apostate-in-an-alcove · 10 months

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#ex catholic #deconversion #excatholic #meme #theyre too stupid to understand satire i guess #yes this is about the sisters of perpetual indulgence and the dodgers #catholics get more upset over drag queens than the systemic abuse in their church #ghoulish people the lot of them

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pieandhotdogs · 10 months

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Ya boy was elevated to the level of Postulant in the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence tonight. Got a Sister Mom and everything.

🌹

#sisters of perpetual indulgence

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littlequeenies · 8 months

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Helena Harland, who runs World of Demri instagram account, has a blog at substack where she is publishing interviews she does to people who knew Demri. I asked for permission to share this entry about Demri's activism in here and she kindly allowed.

From her substack blog:

"Demri possessed a radical nature alongside immense charisma. She was a nudist, openly bisexual, modeled for several adult magazines like Penthouse and Hustler, and was unabashedly sexually liberated at a time where it was seen as taboo. She did not view other people with a critical eye, but rather embraced those who most would find “off-center”. Demri’s late mother Kathleen recalled a memory of driving 20 year-old Demri home one day when she suddenly started shouting “Mom, stop! Stop!” Kathleen stopped the car and Demri jumped out to her friend who had green skin, pointed ears, and pointed elf shoes. Demri said, “This is my friend, he’s an elf. Can we give him a ride?” Kathleen, who likely passed on to Demri her attribute of non-judgment and acceptance, gave the elf a ride as he and Demri squeaked and chirped at each other in their own elf language.

Demri’s uniqueness has always intrigued me, and I often wonder what her moral and political beliefs were, as well as what she would think of today’s political issues. The 90s were marked with many social justice issues like LGBT rights— specifically the AIDS crisis. I asked Amber Ferrano, a close friend of Demri’s what she thought about the AIDS epidemic at the time, and it can be beautifully summed up by this memory:

“Demri was bi. She loved everyone and judged no one. We went to shows in gay clubs and they were awesome. I loved that they handed out free condoms even for our crowd. AIDS was horrible at the time. I remember a few times when guys in full drag (with gloves on, mind you) put their hand out to shake and pulled back saying they had AIDS, but Demri went in for a kiss and a hug. People would make negative comments saying she had AIDS or hepatitis from drugs. She didn't understand why people were so mean. If she were here today she'd be on the frontline along with Layne.”

Demri was also visited in the hospital by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a subversive LGBT activism group that satirized traditional standards and gender roles by combining drag and religious imagery to their street performances. Kathleen said that they adored Demri, and the nurses would gawk at them on their way in.

To seek some more insight on Demri’s activism history, I reached out to Vivian McPeak, the founder of the Seattle activism group called the Peace Heathens, of which Demri was a member. The Peace Heathens were known for their annual Seattle Hempfests, and many Alice in Chains fans have likely seen this video of Layne Staley making an appearance at one in 1994. It is one of the few videos we have of Layne during that year, taken shortly after the release of Jar of Flies.

H: myself, V: Vivian

H: I was wondering what the core beliefs of the Peace Heathens are and how the organization was conceived?

V: In 1988 I had this idea to start a street-level volunteer group composed of alternative culture folks to do good things in the name of the alt-culture, community service projects and benefit shows for righteous causes that got little support from the mainstream. I called it the Seattle Peace Heathens. I created this manifesto, and Yossarrian “Rex” Kelley did a logo graphic I put at the top of it. I plastered the paper fliers all over The Ave, at places like the Allegro Cafe, Espresso Roma, and The Last Exit. I started getting lots of calls from people excited about my crazy vision quest, wanting to learn more and get involved. We started having meetings in people’s homes that eventually got too large, and we moved them to Ravenna Park, where we turned them into potluck feeds that started attracting a homeless contingent.

Meetings started attracting as many as 70 people, mostly music culture and street culture folks - hippies, punk rockers, and an eclectic mix of just progressive, activism-type people. The thing that struck me most, though, is I would be approached by some very neat and clean folks who came on really strong, talking about how resourceful they were and how they were going to contribute all these things. I became very excited about these folks and what they might bring to the group. Then there was an entirely different contingent of absolute street people. These folks were often disheveled, unkempt; they might even have a distinct odor about them. At first, I was not sure what to think about these people, and I placed much of my focus on the other group of folks who seemed to have their shit really together.

The core values of the Seattle Peace Heathens were a commitment to service to society and others through volunteerism, basic counter-culture values of peace and love, Left politics such as social and environmental justice, and a commitment to the power of change through art (visual and music).

H: -It was said that Demri Parrott was a member of the Peace Heathens, do you have memories of her attending meetings or the Hempfests?

V: [I was closer with Layne, so I’ll tell the story of us meeting first.] I was at a hard rock club called the Prime Rib Palace in Totem Lakes, Washington and I struck up a conversation with a blonde dude with long hair and silver pants. We hit it off. He learned I was fresh from Hollywood and wanted to know all about the club scene there. He said his name was Layne, and he had a band called Sleze that was being renamed Alice in Chains. He gave me his number. He was the first person I developed a friendship after I moved to Washington State. A few years later, he invited me to his apartment in a big old brick complex above Eastlake. I met his lady Demri, a petite girl with a beautiful smile and sparkling eyes. I didn't know where to buy weed, and they told me I could get my weed from them. I am not really sure if they were dealing weed or if they were just helping me out, but they always had an eighth when I needed to buy one.

Around 1988 Layne had developed a heroin problem, and I had a cocaine one. I would pick Layne up and drive us to TUNA (Tuesday Night N.A.) at the Rendezvous on 2nd in Belltown, where a guy named Will ran the Narcotics Anonymous meetings. It was pretty much the rocker NA for the area. Unlike his rock persona, Layne was a quiet, almost shy person. He was sensitive and kind,in my experience. It was stunning watching the band climb to rock stardom. I loved their music and was impressed with the strength and power of his voice.

Demri was a bubbly, outgoing person. She volunteered for the Peace Heathens and helped at several of the benefit shows we produced at the famed OK Hotel, one of the only venues with all-age shows. She helped put up posters promoting the shows around town, and at the shows, she worked the merch table and helped us load gear in and out, even though she was a very diminutive person. She was sweet and kind and fearless. She resonated with the Peace Heathens's core belief that all of the various cultural sub-genres of the music/youth/alt-culture (punk, metal, hippie, Reggae, etc.) shared a common spirit and was essentially responding to the same mainstream desire for conformity and control. She believed in the benevolent act of helping others, which was central to the Peace Heathen identity.

I hope this provided some insight on the free spirited nature of Demri, and the ways in which she provided to her community and led with love and compassion. Big thanks to Vivian for taking the time to speak with me and tell me of all his cool stories, and to MemoriesOfDemri on instagram who pointed out the Peace Heathens sticker on Demri’s suitcase as well as provided the information regarding the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.

Thank you for reading!

-Helena"

***

Thank you very much Helena for allowing us to share this story here!! Go and follow her on instagram or subscibe to her blog!

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erotesianangel · 2 months

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A friend of mine interviewed one of the founders of the nun-themed drag group the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence! It's a fun little read and glimpse into a slice of queer history

#motherFUCKER I forgot to hit 'insert' on the link when I posted it the other day #kill me #Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence #LGBT history #LGBTQ history #queer history #please give the article a click #I DO recommend reading it too her recollections of things are very interesting #but at the very least follow the link so my friend gets more views plz

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