Visible Queerness: Queer Kinship & Chosen Family

- Episode 02- Transcript

Georgie Williams, voiceover: For the following episode, I must include trigger warnings pertaining to the discussion of suicide, murder, and the AIDS crisis of the 1980s and 90s. 

When Kath Weston wrote her chapter on gay kinship in Naturalizing Power: Essays in Feminist Cultural Analysis in 1995, she noted the heteronormative, socially pervasive notions of what differentiated close friendships from familial bonds. In addressing these observations, she wrote, "procreation determined 'true' kinship, and what was genuine was not subject to change." Weston's critique of these norms surpassed those framing kinship, in the nuclear family sense, as Eurocentric, but suggested that perhaps, what the West considered "true kinship" wasn't even representative of the modern Western family at all. It was in San Francisco that Weston found her evidence of this- as she began to document the lives of LGBT+ individuals who held their queer peers in regard as their mothers, fathers and siblings within what would come to be called a "chosen family." Welcome to the second episode of /Queer. You're here with me, your host, Georgie Williams.

In order to understand what queer kinship looks like, the /Queer podcast has been taken on a tour through Indianapolis, Chicago and San Francisco over the past 4 weeks. Initially, my intention was to address political resistance and queer social bonds within one episode but, upon conducting the interviews included in this episode, I felt that these two matters could not be condensed into one episode without omitting essential context and framing for these subjects. Thus, these subjects have been split into two separate episodes under the umbrella of ‘visible queerness’. In addressing what queer kinship looks like, how it manifests and what it represents socially, it seems important to acknowledge how, although queerness is inherently political, queer kinship can and does form outside of explicit matters of politics for many individuals. Our ability to find and form families should not have to be exclusively perceived as a political statement. 

Queer kinship is a matter very dear to my heart. Like many of my LGBTQ+ peers, I have faced rejection, abuse and neglect at the hands of a family member; I have been estranged from my biological mother for almost seven years due to her response to me coming out at fifteen years old. The trauma of losing family in the process of coming out or being outed against your will affects us all differently, but I am aware that I am not alone in stating that the rejection I experienced encouraged me to reach out to others who were vulnerable- if only to step in and be the kind of maternal figure I myself may have needed in those moments of vulnerability. Thus, I have become the matriarch of my own adoptive queer family; I have been the chosen maternal figure of my adoptive son for six years now, and he in turn plays a parental role to other younger queers. As part of this role I have, to varying degrees over time, taken my share of the responsibility for his mental health, his physical health including his diet, his engagement in education and personal development and his emotional growth from a teenage boy to an adult. This is now a man who can pick me off my feet when he comes to visit his 'mother'. This role has allowed me to find purpose, develop important bonds with my queer kin and become the kind of person I would have wanted to have been there for me during the emotional violence of my own early years as a queer adolescent. Queer kinship, for my chosen family, has been about both survival and love- with the latter making the former more feasible in a hostile social climate.

It was during my trip to Purdue University in Indianapolis as a visiting speaker that I found the inspiration I was looking for for the second episode of this podcast. Having been offered a tour of the university's LGBTQ+ Center, I was awestruck by the warmth of the space- this space boasts study areas, a kitchen area with free food available to students, a myriad of queer resources, 24/7 access to safe sex materials and even a canvas hung on the wall which was designed by the iconic drag queen Sasha Velour, and painted by the students of Purdue. This was a space within which queer youth had a place to come together, to bond, to be social and communal, away from the pressures of the outside world. There was a congeniality amongst the students which, as a graduate, I envied- I had not had the fortune of being able to find a space such as this during my own studies. There was a familial energy to the space; a space which fed, sheltered and supported it's young people.

Having already planned a research trip to Chicago that weekend, I decided to start scoping out who best could provide a better idea of what it means to be familial as a queer individual. As it happens, Chicago is one of the best places to explore queer kinship- and when it comes to educational resources regarding LGBTQ+ family dynamics, The Chicago Leather Archives and Museum takes the cake. For those of you less familiar with these circles, the term ‘leather’ is largely used as an umbrella term to include all BDSM and kink-related communities. Gary Wasdin, the Executive Director of these archives, had a lot to say on the matter of leather communities and kinship.

Gary Wasdin, in interview: You know I think for many, if you look at the history of leather and the sort of development of the leather community, it largely rose out of people looking for connections to others, seeking out people who were like them or who in some way shared some sense of their values and their interests and again, wearing leather in many ways was a signifier of who I am and what I value, and I could look for that in others, and one of the earliest manifestations we saw of this was the formation of leather groups, often calling themselves motorcycle clubs, and the self-disclosed irony of motorcycle clubs with no motorcycles- but groups of people would come together, leather people, and create organisations. There were often social clubs, mostly social clubs for many but just a chance to get together with other people like them- and you know, it’s something that’s replicated in almost all facets of the human experience, of wanting to build those bonds, and while it wasn’t necessarily true for every individual we certainly know that many people who were doing this didn’t necessarily have that family unit, didn’t have that connection with other people and you know it’s really that concept then of chosen family, of the people that I sought out and made that conscious decision of “these are the people that I want to have that connection with, these are the people who I want to be my family”, and you see that really strong throughout the leather community- and those clubs, those motorcycle clubs and other leather organisations have really long, rich histories of providing those opportunities for people and creating not just again the social connections, which were great you know; friends, sexual partners, um, just opportunities to have that socialisation aspect, but also caring for each other and just playing that role that many of our biological families might do, of taking care of each other when we’re sick or when we have problems or stress in our lives. Many of those clubs were decimated in the nineties and the early 2000s by AIDS, and lost many, many of those members, so a lot of the clubs are no longer in existence- just, the few people who survived were exhausted and tired, and a lot of clubs are gone, but some still exist. The Centaurs’ Motorcycle Club in the DC area is celebrating it’s 40th anniversary next year, so you know, there are a number of them that continue today and still you know, largely have that same role of providing community, providing family connections for others.

Georgie Williams, in interview: What different kinds of social power dynamics have historically existed within these circles? Do we see replications of paternal, maternal, fraternal or sororal bonds within these communities?

Gary Wasdin, in interview: So, within the leather community; so we absolutely I think recreate the kinds of connections we find really in any social circles and any family circles. And it’s somewhat different for each person- but you know, people find their niche, find their role, something that meets their own personal needs but also the needs of their communities. And people identify in different ways; I myself identify as a Leather Daddy, and I’m, you know, very much a Daddy in my community with my friends, with my partners- and that’s a little bit different than just a sort of friendship or even partner role in that it includes a sort of mentor and caretaker aspect to it that is very parental uh, for many, and you certainly see that happen throughout communities. You have leather boys, you have leather Sirs, and in that respect that each has a slightly different way that they relate to and connect with other people. And they’re taking in many instances these identities, these relationships are taking their genesis from the heteronormative world in many respects but also kind of reinventing it and making it fit for us and it’s one of the wonderful aspects of the empowerment, I think that comes from being part of a leather community is that you have the opportunity to make this whatever you want it to be, and it’s okay that it’s different for everybody. And you have people at really all points in the spectrum of how they connect and relate to others- so it can be very different. It can be very vanilla and very traditional for one person, and very kinky and very non-normative for someone else. You have people in you know, poly relationships that can be very complex on the surface when you first look at it. You might have someone who identifies as a Leather Sir that has a husband, that has a Daddy, that has a boyfriend or a Leather boy, and then they might have Leather pups- and all of those are slightly different. And it can sound really complicated, but when you see it in action, when you participate in it or even when you’re just adjacent to it, it just looks like a bunch of people who care for each other and have found a way to both accomplish their own life goals and get something out of it for themselves that satisfies a need for themselves, but also that is helping others and connecting with others. So I think one of the true pleasures that comes from being in a kink community is that freedom to create whatever kind of connections you need or want and whatever kind of family you need or want.

Georgie Williams, in interview: I’m addressing the idea of queer joy with a lot of my interviewees, which is a very subjective term. So, based on your perspective, do you think queer joy was experienced by many individuals who engaged in these circles and continue to do so? What did queer joy look like, how did it manifest, based on your definition of what that is?

Gary Wasdin, in interview: You know I think, we are surrounded by queer joy, and to some extent I think we always have been. I don’t think we always acknowledge it, uh, and we sometimes get distracted by the angst and the drama and the stress that goes hand in hand often with this but, certainly it’s something that I experience and as part of my job, you know, I am out in the community quite a lot, um, and going to leather events throughout the year all over the country- and I see people who I only see maybe 3 or 4 times a year and we jokingly sort of refer to them as family reunions- but it is really what they are, it is a joke that is quite serious at its core. And we then post-event, we refer to it as event drop because people go back and sort of have that moment of sadness of leaving that behind. And I think that’s ultimately what it is a reflection on, is that being together with each other and seeing each other and having a weekend of bonding with Leather brothers, Leather sisters is a true expression of that queer joy- and I think any time we’re with people in our community, it’s that moment we can sort of turn off the rest of the world and truly experience that queer joy.

But probably one of the things that pops into my head when I hear ‘queer joy’ is this photograph, there’s a couple of photographs that have been circulating lately that someone found that were from the 50s, and it was a gay wedding in the 1950s- and you look at these photos and everyone that sees them describes them the same way; is that, it’s a group of men who, you can just see the joy on their faces, and they’re ecstatic and it’s a wedding, and you can see you know, the grooms kissing, there is a minister there officiating and it’s a good reminder that even in a time that was so immensely challenging for a gay man, that here’s this moment captured in photographs of absolute, 100%, pure queer joy. And people are trying to figure out who these people are to track them down and find them but right now they’re anonymous! And it is that moment that’s good to remind us today and to step back from our own lives and to look at the experiences we have and realise that yes, we live in a country right now that is terrifying and we see oppression, we see suicide and murder of our trans family members. There is no much happening that is awful, but looking inside that we find those moments of queer joy, and we have to, because if we can’t find those moments of queer joy, we’re not going to survive all of the other bad stuff.

Georgie Williams, voiceover: For those who wish to see those photographs as I so eagerly did, they have been made available in the gallery for this episode on the /Queer website. 

Gary’s insight into the kinship amongst those engaging in leather circles was both fascinating and unexpectedly wholesome. The nurturing aspect of BSDM and kink communities, and how these communities could facilitate queer joy, reassured me that these non-normative family dynamics may be as widespread and pervasive as I hoped they might be within parts of the LGBTQ+ population. However, as part of exploring what kinship looks like in queer communities, I felt it was pertinent to collect multiple perspectives from individuals in differing queer circles; and, given Kath Weston’s aforementioned research, it seemed like the next stop on the journey couldn’t be anywhere else, but San Francisco.

Arriving in San Francisco, it truly feels like there is no better place in the world that one could go to observe queer kinship. When you stand at the rainbow crosswalks of the Castro, the queer hub of the city, on a busy weekday, you will easily find yourself in the company of couples, throuples and other families whose queerness is both visible and being openly celebrated. The queer history of San Francisco is well known but, at times, integral factors in the development and preservation of that queerness have been overlooked in mainstream explorations of said history. 

In both this Episode and Episode 3, I will be including segments from interviews with various members of the international activist group known as The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. Originating in San Francisco 40 years ago, the group are easily spotted in public areas due to their visual presentation as drag nuns- usually with white painted faces and elaborate headpieces. The Sisters are infamous around San Francisco but, unfortunately, their work outside of the city has not been so widely recognised. To introduce the sisters to you, I was fortunate enough to have Sister Roma introduce them for me. Sister Roma is the international ambassador for the sisters, and has been a member for 33 years. She holds the title as the most photographed nun in the world and is a self-described activist, fundraiser, supermodel and icon; and having met her in the flesh, I am more than happy to vouch for these descriptives. She was kind enough to provide me with a crash course on what the establishment of The Sisters looked like, back in 1979.

Sister Roma, in interview: Well it’s really interesting because the sisters actually started in San Francisco when a group of like five friends got together on Easter Sunday Weekend and they had borrowed these nun’s habits from a convent in Iowa and- under the pretext of doing a production of The Sound of Music, which was a complete lie. And they looked around the Castro and everybody was sort of like this- they called it ‘the Castro Clone’, they all looked like the Marlborough Man like, moustaches and leather jackets and jeans and everybody was the same and these guys were so bored so they decided to throw on these nun’s habits and just go out and fuck with people. So they went to the Castro and the Mission and out to the nude gay beach- and one of our founders, Sister Vicious Power Hungry Bitch- Ken Bunch- likes to say that “everywhere they went, they caused emotional car wrecks.” So afterwards they got back and they were just kind of like “what just happened?” and then a couple of other friends joined them, and they did it again, they realised that they were on to something because it was just having such a big impact on people, they didn’t really know what it was but they got together and they came up with the name ‘The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence’- and they even wrote our vows which are “To promulgate universal joy and expiate stigmatic guilt.” That was in 1979 in just a few short years HIV and AIDS started to ravage the community: that’s when the sisters really found their purpose. Because there was a, there was so much fear and stigma around HIV and AIDS and a lot of people were saying that because it was attacking and killing gay men and prostitutes and intravenous drug users that it was ‘killing all the right people’. And there was a sort of sentiment that it was a punishment for sin. And the sisters were like “you know what, fuck that, that is ridiculous, it’s a virus”, one of the sisters was a registered nurse, Sister Florence Nightmare, and they rallied together and they came up with the world’s first ever safer sex pamphlet called ‘Play Fair’, that we still produce today to help people- to educate people about HIV and AIDS and to protect our community, and the sisters were the first ever group to hold a fundraiser, because our community was, people in our community were dying, and they needed money, they needed practical care, so we were the first group ever to hold a fundraiser to raise money for people who were sick and dying of HIV and AIDS.

When I came around in 1987, there was still a lot of fear and stigma around HIV and AIDS. When I left my home town of Grand Rapids, Michigan- whenever you leave a smaller place for a bigger city, people quite often say “you’ll be back”. One of the other things that I heard from some of my gay friends and other people was “you’ll get AIDS”, because they didn’t know- hadn’t hit my home town yet and they thought it was something that just happened in the big cities. So I came to San Francisco and there was a bit of AIDS hysteria around it for me, we always checked our tongues to make sure we didn’t have white spots and were we having night sweats, it was a real thing, but it turned out that I couldn’t have moved to a better place because groups like The Sisters were actually tackling HIV and AIDS head-on. And the sisters and our allies in the community taught the rest of the world how to deal with ‘the plague’ with compassion and practical care. So that’s one of the things I’m most proud of because when we started our ministry and men were covered in kaposi’s of, these big purple spots all over their faces and bodies, they lost hundreds of pounds and were like walking dead, and they lost their homes and their jobs and their friends and their families. And they were so alone that they hadn’t had any really human contact because everybody was afraid to touch them- but not The Sisters. The Sisters taught me right away that we would go out and find these members of our community and sit with them and just engage in conversation and listen- and quite often at the end of those conversations they would ask for a hug because they just hadn’t had any contact with people and The Sisters always said yes. So that’s when I knew I’d found my purpose and my reason for joining the order. And at the time, there was- the order had grown to, in its heyday probably about 20 or 30 members in San Francisco. There was an order that popped up in Sydney, Australia, and that was basically it. And then by the time I joined, the sisters had dropped down to about 5 active members, in the 80s in San Francisco in the late 80s, and um, it was a different group- we still had a lot of work to do, people weren’t quite as accepting of us as they are now- they were suspicious, they thought that- because there was a desire to be sort of an assimilationist community.  People used to think like, “We’re gay but we’re just like you”, you know and like I was that way too- I was like “I’m not any different from you because I’m gay”, I didn’t, I thought that was they way to get acceptance- and what the sisters taught me is that- my civil rights are mine, and I don’t have to ask for them, I should demand them. They’re already there. I just have to make sure that I get them. So as the order started to grow and pop up in other places, people became more aware of the good work that the sisters do, and in my 33 years or whatever it is now, it’s been really inspiring to see orders pop up in places like Lafayette, Indiana or even in Michigan or around the bible belt and all over the country- finding people and now all over the world, finding people who share a similar passion and mission. We’re all like one huge intertwined family of uh, people who care about other people. And we look around our communities and see what needs to be done and how we can best be of service, and we all do it.

Georgie Williams, voiceover: Sister Roma represents a group whose work I have been lucky enough to learn a lot about whilst visiting California- I had had the fortune to spend much of my second weekend in San Francisco with a gaggle of the sisters, including Sister Purrr Do, who runs the aforementioned LGBTQ+ centre at Purdue University (not the same spelling), and her partner, Sister Tara NuHole. Sister Tara has been a postulant sister for six months- which is probably best described as being a sister-in-training. One can remain a postulant for between 6 months to one year. Tara is a born and raised Californian, so was conscientious of the history of the sisters prior to her direct involvement with them. Tara’s personal story regarding how she came to join the sisters is one which piqued my interest with regards her feelings of kinship with her fellow sisters. At one point in her life Tara was homeless, a drug addict and a sex addict, and was holding a sign asking for change when a San Francisco sister greeted her and provided her with essential supplies in order to allow her to survive. Touched by this act of kindness, when Tara eventually moved to Indiana and spotted a group of the sisters at a local pride event, she saw joining the sisters as an opportunity to pay back that kindness and pay it forward. Outside of her work with the sisters, Tara also works in the education and care sector with physically and developmentally disabled youth.

Georgie Williams, in interview: So how have your experiences, both personally and as part of The Sisters, shaped your feelings about what the term ‘family’ represents for queer communities?

Tara NuHole, in interview: So for me the term ‘family’, before I had joined the sisters of was even aware of the sisters, the term family was very tricky and dangerous to me. From my experience, the term family meant obligations to people who could be poisonous to you, and that terrified me that I was forever... tethered to these people that caused me harm that caused me pain- not specifically physical but emotional and just things that I experienced in my life and my developmental years that weren’t fair for anyone to go through, yet as I grew up I was supposed to love these people. So my idea of family was very, very dark and muddy. So I felt very trapped in that world of again, obligation to these people that have caused me harm. Now when i grew into my own as a queer person and I left behind the folks that I called my family and of course when I joined the sisters, I realised that since i had left those people behind, there was kind of a void, there was something missing and as much as you know, you shouldn’t be missing people that hurt you, that was kind of a factor! I really missed people that hurt me- not just those people specifically but having those people, having that tight-knit, small private community of people that were there for you in certain times, so I needed to fill that hole (Tara imitates a drum sting), um, sorry.

So when i met the sisters, one of the questions they asked me in my Q&A to join the sisters was “what do you want to get out of the sisters?” and that was a quick and easy answer for me and that was ‘family’. I wanted to finally have that family. And I noticed that I was joining an organisation and a group of people that was already in a lot of ways super dysfunctional, in a lot of aspects. There were a lot of little drama things going on, you know, little tiny, tiffs between this sister, that sister, differences in opinion, differences in idea or foresight in general, but I kind of accepted that. You’re not going to find a perfect family even if you pick it. So what I noticed traditionally being family, it can be tricky, it can be scary, and it can make you feel like you’re forced to put up with and put yourself through situations with people that really don’t have your best interests in mind all the time, versus this new version of family that I’ve discovered, and that is just as dangerous as the original sometimes- but at the same time, there’s no-one forcing you to stay with those people. There’s no one forcing you- if any of those people cause you harm, can you really consider them family? So yeah, there’s a lot of similarities, there’s a lot of differences.

Georgie Williams, in interview: How do you think queer family dynamics differ, both positively and negatively, from biological or normatively adoptive families? So, how are maternal and paternal roles ‘queered’ in that sense?

Tara NuHole, in interview: So that’s, that’s a really fun one. So they are similar and they differ, again, when it comes to the obligation. For example there are people in my family that raised me that I had discovered were poisonous for me- now if I wanted to cut that person out and no longer associate with that person, there would be a big backlash from the rest of the family, you know, I would be disloyal to the family, I would be seen as someone who doesn’t love my family and that just- doesn’t that just sound terrible? That just sounds awful and it sounds like you’re such a bad person but you are hurting, you are emotionally bleeding out and you shouldn’t have to put yourself through that. Now whereas I think in a queer family, you know, we don’t always make the right decisions when it comes to choosing your family. I’ve seen a lot of situations play out where a person thought they had chosen this tight-knit perfect family where one person was actually doing them dirty behind closed doors. And you have every right to say goodbye to that person. There is no blood tie, there is no um, requirement, there is no stigma if you decide that you don’t want to associate with that person anymore. So there’s a bit of freedom to stay connected with certain people if you discover things are going negatively for you in your own life- you get to do this one time- you should be able to cut out negative things when necessary. So some similarities I guess, again, the danger aspect. But the difference is you’re able to take care of it in a different way, you’re able to look out for yourself in a different way. And also, if I decided to cut out one person from my chosen family, the rest of my chosen family isn’t going to, they’re not going to come for me for looking out for myself- as a matter of fact, they might hear my perspective and they might share some of that opinion- they might, you know, help you stay on top of continuing without that person. 

Now when you talk about paternal and maternal, that part is so fun for me. So my ‘Sister Mother’ is Sister Purrr Do and she is a lovely vessel… most of the time, and with that being said, I don’t have a mother in my family. I don’t come from a family that has a set mother. I lost my mother at a pretty early age, so I wasn’t familiar with that idea- and I noticed that when I was in college I would befriend these older women and I realise now, it was because I was hungry for a mother figure. I met my Sister Mother Purrr Do and the way she taught me to do ‘sister face’- one of my struggles was actually gluing down my eyebrows, I could not glue down my eyebrows- these things are caterpillars. They move around like caterpillars so there’s no making them stay still. Now this one, first try, just verbally instructed me and actually did eyebrows in front of me and I was able to do it first try- and her eyebrows are very short so I don’t think she understood what she was you know, getting into but again it was successful. But for someone to sit down and have this teaching moment in a feminine subject was something that I was longing for, you know, for a very long time. So that maternal aspect- just because that person isn’t my mother biologically or even from some weird family structure like step-mother or whatever else- it still was as effective, I think as if my biological mother had taught me those things- you know, I know a lot of drag queens learn their make-up skills and you know, a lot of their ideas of fashion first from their mother- of course very supportive mothers I think are known for doing that. But I got to have that through somebody that I chose, and I think that was just as effective. But paternally and when it comes to a father figure, there are a lot of gay men in the drag community I think that had it really rough previously, in the last couple of decades, they had it really really rough, things were not as easy and accessible as they are now and I think that they’re very willing and happy to jump in and be that kind of father figure that they never got to experience because it wasn’t so easy back then, and you couldn’t openly share and express love for a subject like drag or sistery or sistering- you can openly express those interests today, I don’t think you could express those things so openly in the community, really anywhere, twenty years ago. So I think it’s this new light and this new freedom to dive into that world has led to people wanting to create a better experience for the younger generation so I’m really thankful for that. That really has nothing to do with me doing anything, but I really do enjoy the fact that that dynamic exists.

Georgie Williams, voiceover: Throughout my interviews with Gary, Roma and Tara, I continually found myself coming back to Kath Weston’s observation of those early anthropological conceptions of what defines kinship- in particular, that “what was genuine was not subject to change”.  Tara’s words, about how toxicity could be found in chosen families but that you could choose to distance yourself from that toxicity, resonated with me personally. There is a relief to be found in the freedom of that, of knowing that you are not obligated to tie yourselves to those who may, directly or indirectly, seek to harm you. There is, of course, an obsession with authenticity when it comes to queerness, a question of what is ‘real’, what is ‘genuine’ that is used to regulate and discipline queer bodies- we see this in the way that gender and sexuality, as well as aesthetic presentation, are expected to align with pre-determined and pre-approved categories. 

The truth is, for many queer individuals, our early experiences of kinship were subject to change; we experienced familial love that was conditional, and those conditions were heterosexuality or identification with our assigned gender at birth. Whether we were pushed from those families, chose to step away from them or did in fact experience familial support in response to our coming out, there is nothing inauthentic in the formation of familial ties outside of the realms of biology or normative adoption. Shared experiences help foster empathy, understanding, and even thinking back to our interview with Carrie Davis in Episode 1, her comments about the comfort found in spending time around people who can commiserate with you in your troubles also seem pertinent. Some of us have the fortune to be born to our mothers, our fathers, the person who will nurture and endeavour to protect us unconditionally. Some of us have to go the long way round to find that person or those people. Some of us make the choice to become what we were denied when we see others who need what we needed once, long ago. Familial love is a kindness, a selflessness which is invaluable in the often-hostile world we live in. When a group of people are considerate, respectful and nurturing towards one another, it feels counterproductive to try and police what a family is or isn’t supposed to look like. For many of us, life is just too short to say no to the love we are offered by the people we love in turn. For many of us, the families we choose are the families we needed in order to learn how to thrive. 

Thank you once again for listening to and supporting the /Queer podcast. This episode was edited by Charles Makemson and scripted and produced by me, Georgie Williams. A very special thanks to Gary Wasdin and the staff of the Leather Archives & Museum in Chicago, as well as the many Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence that I have had the fortune to talk to- in particular, Sister Roma and Sister Tara NuHole- many thanks for your interviews and insight. An additional thanks specifically to Sister Purrr Do, from the LGBTQ+ centre at Purdue University- thank you so very much for all you have done for this podcast, and I look forward to sharing your interview in the next episode. This episode was recorded on location in Chicago, Illinois and San Francisco, California. Music in this episode was composed by Kevin MacLeod. If you enjoyed this episode or have any feedback, please get in touch on Instagram or Twitter at @SlashQueer, that’s @ S-L-A-S-H Queer, or email us at slashqueer@outlook.com. Once again, until next time stay kind, stay radical and stay queer.