Click here to join this online CLGS Lavender Lunch via Zoom!

Since their founding in San Francisco in 1979, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence have used drag, camp, public joy, and irreverent spirituality as tools for service, protest, and radical care. What began as a small group of queer men in habits has grown into a global order of activist nuns committed to expiating stigmatic guilt and spreading universal joy.

In this Lavender Lunch, Sister Hera Sees Candy will offer an introduction to the history of the Sisters, situating the Order within queer religious resistance, AIDS-era mutual aid, and contemporary movements for LGBTQ+ justice. The presentation will explore how humor, spectacle, and devotion operate together as serious spiritual and political practice.

The conversation will then shift to the lived experiences of individual Sisters, focusing on the concept of “calling” and the diverse range of ministries in which Sisters engage today. These include street outreach, fundraising for grassroots organizations, public ritual, grief work, education, and presence in moments of both celebration and crisis.

This session invites participants to consider what happens when queerness, faith, and service refuse respectability, and why the Sisters continue to be both beloved and controversial more than four decades later.

Our Presenter

Sister Hera Sees Candy

Sister Hera Sees Candy is a fundraising professional, long-time community advocate, and the current Abbess of the San Francisco House of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. She was initiated into the Order in 2012 and fully professed in 2014. Her ministry weaves joy, humor, and service, drawing inspiration from sacred clowns, queer spirituality, and drag as spiritual functionary.

Sister Hera has held numerous leadership roles within the Order, including serving as the first Mistress of Prides, chairing three Project Nunways, one of which received a Bay Area Reporter “Bestie” Award, and completing two terms on the board. She has stewarded the Nuns of the Above records, led Dia de los Muertos altar creations and remembrances, delivered blessings for community organizations, and supported a wide range of fundraising and service ministries.

Professionally, Sister Hera works in higher education, focusing on fundraising, development, and alum relations. She brings training in fine arts, psychology, and spiritual guidance to her work, with a focus on listening, empowerment, and making space for queer joy as a form of resistance and care. She lives in San Francisco with her husband, Mr. Sr. Rock Candy.

A CLGS Spring 2026 Lavender Lunch