It’s the last day of June, which means it’s the last day of Pride month, when members of the LGBTQ+ community celebrate out in the open. And, for decades, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence has been central to those celebrations.
The Sisters are committed to community service. They also dress up in outrageous, nun-inspired garb and use humor and joy to battle bigotry.
But, these days, a few members of the Grand Canyon chapter of the Sisters say it’s harder than ever to get new members to join them. They’re down to just 10 members today.
The Show spoke about it with Sister Jinger Breadmann and Sister Mimosa Romero, and they talked about how the original organization started in San Francisco on Easter Sunday, 1979.
Full conversation
SISTER JINGER BREADMANN: AIDS was becoming an epidemic. No one was caring for people suffering from it. There wasn’t any research. There wasn’t any funding. There was nothing.
And they decided they were going to do something. And one of them had a bunch of habits from “Sound of Music,” and they donned them.
SISTER MIMOSA ROMERO: To add to that, I will add, is they were also protesting the Castro clone. Have you heard that term before?
GILGER: No.
ROMERO: I don’t know if anyone uses it, but in the Castro district, it was in the early state of like the ’80s where there was this conflict of masculinity and infighting because they wanted a men to look “men,” like the leather men. Like masculine leather hat, boots and that.
And then said, “Screw that. There are other ways to look like a man. There are other ways to exist.” And then, add what Sister Jinger just said, “Let’s put on the nuns. Let’s go do something weird and get crazy.”
BREADMANN: From there, you know, they spread worldwide.
GILGER: Right. And worldwide for real. Like this has been happening for several decades. Let’s talk about the relevance of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence today, right? Like I think we’ve seen support for LGBTQ+ issues a very big and pretty quick cultural shift in how the country at least looks at the LGBTQ+ community.
But it does look in current polling like that’s starting to backslide. What does this look like today? What do you hear today?
ROMERO: It’s a little quiet. What do you think?
BREADMANN: I would agree with quiet because I think everybody’s kind of on eggshells. You don’t want to be noticed too much because then you will be a target.
ROMERO: And there’s also a lot of mistrust. Like for example, in Pride, there’s tension with law enforcement, but there’s also mistrust everywhere. And because there’s so much polarization, the places where people can go are smaller and smaller.
So it’s getting compressed, I would say. And I would probably need another 3 hours to make sense of what that means, but that’s what it feels like to me.
GILGER: Right, and we’re seeing Phoenix Pride file for bankruptcy, right? And it’s Pride Month, like it’s a difficult time for these organizations, it sounds like.
BREADMANN: I haven’t seen it like this since in my youth.
ROMERO: Ooh. Girl.
BREADMANN: Yeah, a long time ago. Decades ago.
GILGER: In terms of how you think you’re viewed from the outside world? Like threats, things like that?
BREADMANN: Yes. Yes. There was a point in my life where I accepted myself, my friends accepted me, and then I realized that certain parts of society was accepting, and then it allowed me to expand and grow and flourish.
And in these times, I feel like you’re regressing a little bit. You want to pull it back a little. You want to not stand out. But I’m grateful for the Sisters because it forces you to stand out. You stand out, you stand up.
GILGER: But so, I mean, that goes to the point of the Sisters, right? This organization was founded to sort of be over the top.
ROMERO: Girl, yeah yeah. To do that, yeah yeah.
GILGER: To be out there and to be funny, right? Make people laugh a little?
ROMERO: Good call. Look at her. She’s on it. We need to have her.
GILGER: Do we need that today more you think than than ever?
BREADMANN: I think so because it’s if if the Sisters were to go, you’d lose the history, you’d lose examples. I mean, there are so many examples of Sisters doing wonderful things.
For me personally, I do enjoy the mask part of it because it gives me courage that I didn’t have as my secular self. Public speaking was not within my forte at all. And here I am sitting talking to you on a microphone.
ROMERO: Girl’s growing up.
BREADMANN: Back in my youth, I’d go to a couple drag shows and stuff, was never any good. But dark car to get there, dark car back, never public transit. And as a Sister, it’s like, I’ve done public transit. When the the trains first came into town, we were on them.
I have no problem driving around in full daylight. I made it here no problem. It doesn’t even phase me if I get the looks and stuff because it’s like I put this on, I’m meant to be seen.
GILGER: But this does seem like a time in which it’s harder to get people to join the Sisters, right? Like you said you’re down to 10 members. It used to be upwards of 40, you said?
BREADMANN: Yes. Yes.
ROMERO: A lot of people don’t know the kind of work it takes to do this because people might view it as, “Yeah, do whatever you want to do, paint your face, wear your jewels, do your thing.”
But there’s actually work to do it. You have to go through over at minimum of 6 months of work and develop a community project. And there’s a lot of commitment to do it. This is an effort, it’s a work, it’s a calling.
BREADMANN: I will correct you on one thing, though. You said 6 months, it’s a minimum of a year.
ROMERO: Oh, I lied. See? It’s happening.
GILGER: A year to get in, wow.
BREADMANN: Because it’s two months is an aspirant, four months is a postulant, six months is a novice.
GILGER: Right. There’s a whole process to become a sister. Wow. I think that’s fascinating, though.
What did you each, as you went through that process, what did you like about it? Like, how did you come up with this new version of yourself when you came through it?
ROMERO: Ooh. Yeah, you go first, JB.
BREADMANN: Well, I had really good examples. And I was just fascinated with how they look across quad because they weren’t drag queens.
GILGER: Right. It’s different.
BREADMANN: There was something more, and I just thought that that was great, a way to give back to the community, have a creative outflow, and uh it just seemed fun and, you know, every now and then it’s like there’s nothing wrong with, you know, throwing on a dress and running around acting crazy. It’s kind of fun.
But it just, it sounded like a vocation to me. And next thing you know, I started on the path and here I am today.
GILGER: That’s so fascinating you referred to it as a vocation because you you’ve adopted all of this Catholic imagery but also like literal processes, like this is similar to what a a sister in the church would go through in a way.
BREADMANN: Well, yes. It it has been modeled after their commitment to the order.
GILGER: OK. What about you, Sister Mimosa? Tell us about your process.
ROMERO: It was just I something I didn’t know I could do. I did When I grew up, when I was looking at these individuals, I didn’t think of myself as someone who could do that, and I didn’t think of myself as someone who could be out. As Sister Jinger was talking about earlier.
It was in the ’80s — ooh, I’m dating myself! F-g was still being used. I mean, that’s a word that was tossed around on movies, television. It still is, in some cases. It was normal. So that’s the era. And I say that with pride because I own it back.
So you couldn’t be out. I was so scared of that being in high school. I didn’t come out in high school. It wasn’t until towards that, what could I explode and be?
I didn’t think I could help others along the journey, especially with all this nunsense. So that’s what brought me to it, to see if I could add or do something better for those around me.
GILGER: OK, so I have to ask you because I think one of the things, if people hear the phrase Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, they’re going to think of that Dodgers controversy in 2023, just a few years ago, where the Sisters were uninvited and then reinvited to the Pride Night. And because some Catholics will say this is offensive or demeaning to real nuns. What do you two say to that?
BREADMANN: I disagree on that completely because we don’t do this to dishonor them. We do this for the exact opposite reason. We do this to honor them, but we add glitter and jewels and glamour and color because we want to be even more joyous than a choir of nuns.
And, you know, I really like the new Pope. But I don’t think all Catholics have that view. I know in the past, very far past, yes, there were times when the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence did attack the Catholic church and the Pope.
But that was then. Being able to dress up in outlandish outfits to scare away the evil is right up my alley, and it just — I don’t know — just the whole process just brings me joy.
GILGER: Do you think it says something about the power of satire?
BREADMANN: Oh, absolutely. I mean, you have to be able to laugh at yourself first. And, you know, sitting there in front of the mirror, if you can’t laugh, I mean, it it is a shame your audience can’t see us because it’s, we look ridiculous —
GILGER: They can see you on the website. Yeah. Yeah.
ROMERO: Or some questionable Google searches, perhaps.
BREADMANN: Yeah, that’s true. But yeah, it’s just for me, it’s just been a joyous experience. And if I can help, as Mimosa said, spread that within the community, that’s what I plan to do probably until the day I die.
GILGER: All right. Sister Jinger Breadmann, Sister Mimosa Romero, thank you both so much for being here.
BREADMANN: Oh, thank you.
ROMERO: Thank you. It’s been a pleasure.
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