The LA Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. Photo: The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence
When a major league US baseball team recently picked a fight with a group of queer and trans 'nuns', they struck out.
After announcing the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence would be honoured with a community heroes award, the LA Dodgers buckled to conservative pressure from Republican politicians and some Catholic groups, revoking the award and an invitation to their Pride Night.
Founded in 1979, the Sisters are a drag group that use satirical Catholic imagery to push back against religious homophobia. They are devoted to community service, ministry and outreach to those on the edges. They also raise money for unhoused queer and trans youth, HIV and breast cancer research.
Sister Unity - a member of the LA chapter of the group - joined Saturday Morning to spill the tea on the Sisters and all the drama with the Dodgers.
While the Sisters got started in San Francisco, the group's origin story also has a midwestern influence, thanks to some founding members who moved to the city from Iowa.
"[They] had borrowed actual deceased Catholic nuns' habits from a convent in Iowa City for a production of the Sound of Music," says Sister Unity. "They unfortunately neglected to return them and they moved to San Francisco with them in their luggage."
On the night before Easter, they "got a bee in their bonnets" and decided to hit the town wearing the habits - and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence were born.
"They got such a tremendous response that they realised that they could use this image of a hairy-chested bearded nun, with the iconoclastic sarcastic gay sense of humour, to use joy and humour and satire for gay rights," Sister Unity says. "And so they did."
Sister Unity. Photo: Sister Unity
As the AIDS crisis hit in the 1980s, the group were among the first to help those affected by the virus, while also educating their community on how to prevent getting it. They also held the first candlelight vigil in San Francisco to bring attention to AIDS and remember those who had died from it.
Despite their long history, the Sisters have managed to stay fairly obscure until recently. When the LA Dodgers approached the group to be honoured as community heroes on their Pride Night, Sister Unity says they were surprised.
"Drag queens are used to people ignoring us, we're a little too queer, we're a little too weird to put in the press or to have at the vanguard of your public exposure, you know we get that, we're used to it. So it was a very big surprise that a national organisation would recognise us."
But not long after the announcement was made, the backlash began, with Republican senator Marco Rubio putting out a tweet decrying the Sisters as a "hate-based trans group".
The Sisters do have transgender members, but Sister Unity says they also have cisgender members and non-binary members - and are open to anyone, regardless of their gender identity or sexuality.
And while the initial award may have come as a surprise, the backlash did not.
"In America there's this big push against trans and drag, because after the conservatives did very poorly in the 2022 elections, their think tanks went to work finding hot button issues to motivate their base," Sister Unity says.
"And up we popped with this announcement from the Dodgers of the award and they jumped on that at first."
Mission work, with Sister Unity (R) and Sister Electra. Photo: The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence
It followed similar outcries towards beer company Budweiser for featuring trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney on a Bud Light can, and department store Target for stocking pride themed clothing for children. The latter was accused of sexualising children, an accusation that angers Sister Unity.
"That is the worst of all of this, is this glib flinging about of the word groomer and the idea of paedophilia. I am a survivor of childhood sexual assault, I am also a drag nun that serves my LGBT community as an LGBT nun.
"And I am incensed and offended as a survivor to hear people who are not survivors throwing around one of the most difficult, complex horrors that can happen to a living human being, as a political weapon just to get points."
Criticism from Catholic groups is nothing new to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence - and while some might see their drag as hateful, Sister Unity says this is not their intention at all.
While the group's roots are in humour, it evolved into something else over time - a way of healing from religious trauma. Sister Unity first found them at a gay pride parade with her sister.
"Then the sisters appeared, with Sister Boom Boom in the back of a convertible car, like the politicians always sit in the back of a convertible," she remembers.
"And she was waving an enormous, shall we call it, a marital aid of the excitement variety in her hand, a big floppy one and blessing the crowd with it.
"And that image was certainly out of the Catholic tradition, but she had turned it into something with this white face and this colourful makeup over it.
"I was electrified at the idea of taking iconicism and satire to push off the damage and the violence that had been done to our community, by people who have used religious tenets and have used the Bible to hit people over the head with."
The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence at a protest rally. Photo: The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence
Despite the controversy, Sister Unity says everything was handled well by the Dodgers.
And after meetings with the company and representatives from national LGBT organisations, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence received a full back down, apology and a reinvitation to Pride Night.
It's progress that Sister Unity hopes will continue.
"As we know from naturally occurring phenomena like homosexuality, bisexuality, transgenderism, it's something that happens at birth and birth happens to all sorts of people and all sorts of families," she says.
"So we're really everywhere in all walks of life, including in the administration and indeed in the roster of players of major athletic teams, in football, in soccer football and in baseball.
"As we like to say we're here, we're queer, get used to it - this is the getting used to it part."
