Often erroneously credited as a founder of the group, Sister Boom Boom actually joined the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence in 1980, several months after its founding. His persona's full name was Sister Rose of the Bloody Stains of the Sacred Robes of Jesus, which—when spoken—would trail into a sing-song cadence and a long fermata.[5]
In 1982, Sister Boom Boom ran for a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors with agitprop campaigning tactics bringing humor and raising issues[which?] he felt were being ignored in the race. He won 23,124 votes with his occupation listed as "Nun of the Above". Five supervisors were elected; he placed eighth.[6] After he started campaigning for mayor in the 1983 recall election against incumbent Dianne Feinstein, San Francisco passed an ordinance requiring candidates to use only their legal names on the ballot. This was commonly called the "Sister Boom Boom law".[3]
Fertig retired Sister Boom Boom in 1985, and joined a sobriety program.[4] He left the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence in the spring of 1986, though he would continue activism beyond drag.[10]
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Moritz, Michael; Dick Thompson; William R. Doerner (July 16, 1984). "What's Happening off the Floor". Time Magazine. Archived from the original on July 4, 2009. Retrieved 2009-04-09. Sister Boom Boom. No large gathering in San Francisco's homosexual community, including the gay rights march planned for the day before the convention opens, would be quite complete without the appearance of a figure clad in a hiked-up nun's habit, black fishnet stockings, and a tightly drawn wimple that sometimes fails to hold in an unruly shock of red hair. These have become the transvestite trademarks of Sister Boom Boom, member of the Order of Perpetual Indulgence, and the drag creation of a 29-year-old astrologer named Jack Fertig. Part put-on artist and part self-promoter, Boom Boom sparks reactions that run the gamut from righteous outrage to raucous approbation. Outside San Francisco, Fertig's bizarre alter ego has come to symbolize a climate of tolerance gone haywire.Boom Boom's "order," which consists of about 20 other "nuns" who go by names like Sister Mary Media and Sister Sadie Sadie Rabbi Lady, has performed legitimate charity work by raising funds for AIDS victims and gay Cuban refugees. Fertig ran for the board of supervisors in 1982; with five seats open, he placed a respectable eighth, collecting 23,124 votes. Even some gays find it offensive when he wears a cross as part of his costume or mocks the sacred. But Fertig insists that he is genuinely, if not conventionally, pious. "The sisters share my own sense of absurdist theater," he says. "I believe that you can reach God through your own means."
^Godfrey, Donal (2008). Gays and Grays: The Story of the Gay Community at Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Parish in San Francisco. Lexington Books. p. 43. ISBN9780739119389. I feel supremely blessed to have found a home in this wonderful family of God and Humanity, this fallibly human, yet gloriously divine Roman Catholic Church.