In June 2023, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence went viral in conservative media yet again when the L.A. Dodgers announced plans to honor the local house of the order at the team’s annual Pride Night. Reporting on the ensuing scuffle focused largely on sports, politics, and culture wars, not on religion, and it largely misrepresented or overlooked the international order of queer and trans nuns at the heart of the story. So who are these nuns, and why do they keep rankling the right and delighting the left?

Melissa M. Wilcox is Professor and Holstein Family & Community Chair of Religious Studies at the University of California, Riverside. Dr. Wilcox has authored or edited seven books, including most recently Queer Nuns: Religion, Activism, and Serious Parody (2018); Queer Religiosities: An Introduction to Queer and Transgender Studies in Religion (2020); and (with Nina Hoel and Liz Wilson) Religion, the Body, and Sexuality: An Introduction (2020). Dr. Wilcox is founding co-editor with Ashon T. Crawley and Tamara C. Ho of the Hauntings book series at New York University Press and founding co-editor with Joseph A. Marchal of the new journal, QTR: A Journal of Queer and Transgender Studies in Religion. 

This event is co-sponsored by the Departments of Religious Studies and Feminist Studies at UCSB.