My full title is: Sister Emeritus Hellen Wheels, Acting Superior Mother of The Daughters of the Divine Eruption*


As Sister Helen Wheels or Brother Sirius Lee, I am a retired Fully Professed Member of the San Francisco Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, Inc. the San Francisco Mother House. I started with The Sisters in 1988.  After 26 years of service and thousands of hours of behind-the-scenes work, I am now retired. Retirement doesn't equal resignation in the Sisters so I will still be attending a few select events.


Hellen/Sirius's causes are;
 
  • Separation of Church & State
  • The Spiritual development of the individual free from religious dogma
  • An end to bigotry based on race, sex, sexuality or gender identity
  • Universal Healthcare and disease research
  • Get Out The Vote!
  • Community programs for LGBT+ elderly
I've been an LGBT+ activist since 1981,  an AIDS activist since 1983 and got lured into The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence Inc. in 1988. I have been a proponent of the separation of Church and state since my 5th grade American history class where we learned that the United States of America was founded by people seeking freedom from religious oppression (even if some of their descendants became the new oppressors.)

Over the years, I have had to learn to be tolerant of other people’s differences. Granted, it didn't happen all at once. I had to meet openly gay people in order to understand and accept them (not to mention become one of them!)  I had to meet and to become friends with some drag queens and female impersonators before I could accept the idea of their lifestyle. Yes, Hellen is a reformed drag-a-phobe!  After learning to accept drag queens, other lifestyles seemed easy, from different religions, leather, S&M, dominatrix, transgender folks, even the French!  ...Just kidding; my daughter GiGi is French.
I'm very happy in my chosen life, though that hasn't always that way. My childhood seemed dark and melodramatic, I kind of felt like I was Marlene Detrick trapped in a 10-year-old boy's body! At some point, I just said 'to hell with it, I'm tired of feeling negative about myself and if god and my parents don't like who I am too frickin bad!' That's when I started to take charge of my own life. From then on things started heading inexorably toward becoming a Sister of Perpetual of Indulgence, sort of a scary "white-faced manifest destiny..."
It still amazes me to think how much I would have freaked out if I had met someone like Hellen when I was 8 or 9. Even after 25+ years it still a little disconcerting to see a 'clown goddess' staring back from the mirror as I make my final wimple adjustment before scurrying out the door to a charity event. Oh well; if I had wanted a comfortable existence, I should have taken up philately in Philadelphia rather than the Sisters in San Francisco.

*More information on The Daughters of the Divine Eruption