Sister Kitty Catalyst O.C.P.

Sister Kitty Catalyst O.C.P. (of the Catnip Patch) is a San Francisco based social activist, AIDS educator, writer, performance artist and underground artist mainly serving queer (lesbian, gay, bisexual, intersex, transgender - LGBT and kink) communities. She is one of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence and has taken part in political actions, ongoing campaigns and staged exorcisms and blessings supporting queer activists in a variety of causes including hate crimes, media activism, gay marriage, transgender issues, AIDS, queer homeless youth and women and cancer issues.

Sister Kitty is a liberal activist who uses guerrilla style theater to enliven and enlighten.

She has led and organised numerous panels, seminars and skills-building projects as well as conceived and launched projects to bring attention to or address societal needs including co-founding the San Francisco Queer Club & Circuit Party Outreach Project to promote harm-reduction with drug users and starting in 2005 a project to provide hepatitis vaccinations to those in need called OUCH (Organizing Up Communities against Hepatitis) which met with public acclaim and official recognition from the City of San Francisco for its unique public-private partnership in working with the San Francisco Department of Public Health.cite web|url=http://www.sfbaytimes.com/index.php?sec=article&article_id=3839|title=SF Bay Times, 03 May 2007, Article names Sister Kitty as organiser and states involvement of public health department|accessdate=2007-05-06]

A self-professed "femme-nazi" (also spelled feminazi, a term popularized by right-wing conservative broadcaster Rush Limbaugh) and "homo-propagandist", she has been bending gender on in the Bay Area and beyond via writings, live performances, appearances on radio, film and television.

Co-founder and creative director of the Sister Sock Show (SSS) - a dada-istic alternative sock show with forced audience participation and poorly executed narrative she coordinated the SSS seven-year retrospective at the San Jose Museum of Art.

She also co-founded BLOWcite web|url=http://www.sfbaytimes.com/index.php?sec=article&article_id=3718|title=SF Bay Times 2 June 2005|accessdate=2007-05-06] - Beautiful Lips On Whistles, a grassroots campaign using a safety whistle as a symbol to confront hate crimes and is the co-director of the SF AIDS Candlelight Vigil. An event that started simultaneously in San Francisco and New York City which has now grown to be the world's largest annual grassroots event.

She also helped organize and transform San Francisco's largest underground party, Pink Saturday, from a "non-event" into a street party which now raises thousands for queer charities has an estimated quarter of a million people attending. She continues to organize and produce alternative and counter-culture events including the annual Looking Good Feeling Fab events educating about cancer issues and raising funds for charities fighting cancer.

She joined the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence in 1991cite web|url=http://thesisters.org/bios/kitty.html|title=Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence website potted biography] in London and joined the San Francisco "Mother House" when she moved there in 1993.

From 1995 she led a project to produce the Sisters' AIDS Names Project quilt for the "Nuns of the Above" which was featured at the 1996 NAMES Project Quilt display in Washington D.C. in front of the United States House of Representatives and was the first memorial quilt viewed by then Vice President Al Gore and his wife Tipper Gore and later featured in the Names Projects' calendar worldwide. The Nuns of The Above quilt itself has been flown around the United States and is in high demand for local displays. While in town for the AIDS Memorial Quilt display she also led an exorcism of homophobia, classism and racism on the steps of the U.S. House of Representatives and assisted with an activist AIDS death march and protest to the gates of the White House where ashes of people who had died from AIDS were illegally spread on the lawn.

For five years she was the Mistress of Archives in the SF Mother House coordinating archiving and organizing the records and ephemera of the anarchistic group while educating the worldwide network on the importance of preserving their history when so many would try to wipe it and them away.

She currently also directs the San Francisco AIDS Hero Awards recognizing and raising the voices of those fighting against the worldwide AIDS pandemic which had San Francisco amongst it initial strongholds and which continues to be on the vanguard of fighting AIDS and all sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).

ee also

*Gay pride parade
*Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence
*Pink Saturday
*Nuns of the Above

Sources and References

External links

* [http://thesisters.org/bios/kitty.html Sister Kitty Catalyst Q & A]
* [http://www.bayswan.org/swfest2005/SisterKitty.html Sister Kitty Catalyst OCP]
* [http://www.transbay.org/skoq/sister_kitty_catalyst.html Performers Bios Sister Kitty Catalyst O.C.P.]
* [http://projects.is.asu.edu/pipermail/hpn/2001-June/004046.html Sisters Proclaim June Queer Pride Month]
* [http://www.womeninblack.net/stats/pride6_01.html Nuns Bless Where President Fails]
* [http://www.onlinepolicy.org/media/queersupreme030612.shtml Sister Kitty Catalyst O.C.P. & Sister Dana Van Iquity leading a ritual blessing and kiss-in]
* [http://www.glbthistory.org/about/mkcase2k/sisters.lasso Making A Case For History]
* [http://www.sfweekly.com/Issues/1995-11-15/news/letters.html Making a Habit of Halloween Safety]
* [http://www.sfpride.org/media/prarchive/2001/042301.html Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence Inc., as SF Pride Parade Grand Marshals]
* [http://www.transgenderpride.org/altar.html SF Transgender Pride Altar]
* [http://www.sfbaytimes.com/?sec=article&article_id=3938 OUCH To Raise Funds And Awareness About Hepatitis ]
* [http://www.dancesafe.org/news/news020801.html#sisters San Francisco Queer Club & Circuit Party Outreach Project]