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Sister Boom Boom, the drag nun persona of astrologer Jack Fertig (born February 21, 1955 in Chicago, Illinois), was one of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence who has since retired from the group. Sister Boom Boom joined the Sisters in 1980, several months after its founding. She left the order in the Spring of 1986. Her full name was Sister Rose of the Bloody Stains of the Sacred Robes of Jesus, which would trail into a sing-song cadence and a long fermata. This called for a short nickname. In 1982, Jack ran for a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors as Sister Boom Boom with agitprop campaigning tactics bringing humor and raising issues 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. After he started campaigning for mayor in 1983 against incumbent Dianne Feinstein, San Francisco passed a law requiring candidates to use only their legal names on the ballot.
This was commonly called the “Sister Boom Boom law”. Jack wrote a theatrical-ritual exorcism of Jerry Falwell and Phyllis Schlafly performed in Union Square the Friday before the 1984 Democratic National Convention. Boom Boom is one of the characters in Emily Mann’s play Execution of Justice about the trial of Dan White for the 1978 Moscone–Milk assassinations. George Moscone was mayor of San Francisco and Harvey Milk was the city’s first openly gay supervisor. In the Broadway production she was played by Wesley Snipes. Jack Fertig retired Sister Boom Boom in 1986, and joined a sobriety program. He converted to Islam in 2001, and continues to live in San Francisco where he works as an astrologer.
