Sister Roma is an American

drag queen A drag queen is a person, usually male, who uses drag clothing and makeup to imitate and often exaggerate female gender signifiers and gender roles for entertainment purposes. Historically, drag queens have usually been gay men, and part o ...

activist,

gay pornography Gay pornography is the representation of sexual activity between males. Its primary goal is sexual arousal in its audience. Softcore gay pornography also exists; it at one time constituted the genre, and may be produced as beefcake pornogra ...

director, fundraiser, entertainer and event host/emcee. He has been a member of San Francisco's

Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence (SPI), also called Order of Perpetual Indulgence (OPI) is a charity, protest, and street performance organization that uses drag and religious imagery to call attention to sexual intolerance and satirizes issue ...

since 1987.Personal bio at thesisters.org
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Career

Roma was the long-time

art director Art director is the title for a variety of similar job functions in theater, advertising, marketing, publishing, fashion, film industry, film and television, the Internet, and video games. It is the charge of a sole art director to supervise and ...

at gay pornography studio

Hot House Entertainment Steven Scarborough (born June 23, 1953) is an American gay pornographic film director, the founder of Hot House Entertainment (1993), and he was an Executive Vice-President and director for Falcon Studios from 1987 to 1993. Career In 1974 ...

until Hot House was bought by NakedSword, in 2014; he now serves as "art director and overall Ambassador of NakedSword". Roma also co-hosts an online talk show, ''The Tim and Roma Show,'' that focuses on gay pornographic movies and the

LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is a ...

community. Roma has been a presenter at the

GayVN Awards The GayVN Awards are film awards presented annually to honor work done in the gay pornographic industry. The awards were sponsored by '' AVN Magazine'', the parent publication of ''GAYVN Magazine'', and continue the recognition for gay pornograp ...

, a pornography industry awards show. Roma has served as an emcee and judge for the San Francisco Drag King Contest, the 2005 benefit ''Porn Idol''; and at the

BDSM BDSM is a variety of often erotic practices or roleplaying involving bondage, discipline, dominance and submission, sadomasochism, and other related interpersonal dynamics. Given the wide range of practices, some of which may be engaged ...

/leather event the

Folsom Street Fair Folsom Street Fair (FSF) is an annual BDSM and leather subculture street fair, held in September, that caps San Francisco's "Leather Pride Week". The Folsom Street Fair, sometimes simply referred to as "Folsom", takes place on Folsom Street bet ...

. For the 24th annual

, held September 30, 2007, the official poster artwork was a controversial photo featuring well-known

and

community members in festive and fetish attire including Roma "as players in an innovative version of the culturally iconographic" ''

The Last Supper Image:The Last Supper - Leonardo Da Vinci - High Resolution 32x16.jpg, 400px, alt=''The Last Supper'' by Leonardo da Vinci - Clickable Image, Depictions of the Last Supper in Christian art have been undertaken by artistic masters for centuries, ...

'' by

Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, Drawing, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially res ...

, complete with table draped with the

Leather Pride flag The leather pride flag is a symbol used by the leather subculture since the 1990s. It was designed by Tony DeBlase, and was quickly embraced by the gay leather community. It has since become associated with leather in general and also with relat ...

and "cluttered with

sex toys A sex toy is an object or device that is primarily used to facilitate human sexual pleasure, such as a dildo, artificial vagina or vibrator. Many popular sex toys are designed to resemble human genitals, and may be vibrating or non-vibrating ...

whip A whip is a tool or weapon designed to strike humans or other animals to exert control through pain compliance or fear of pain. They can also be used without inflicting pain, for audiovisual cues, such as in equestrianism. They are generally e ...

s, and various (BDSM)

restraints Physical restraint refers to means of purposely limiting or obstructing the freedom of a person's bodily movement. Basic methods Usually, binding objects such as handcuffs, legcuffs, ropes, chains, straps or straitjackets are used for this ...

". The image by FredAlert was used on the official event guide and produced as collector's posters that were displayed throughout the city as advertising for the event. In 2003, Roma's drag act was incorporated into

Ronnie Larsen Ronnie Larsen is a playwright and film director specializing in writing plays about sex. His play ''Making Porn'' was about the gay porn industry in the 1980s, and the production was notable for casting gay porn actors. Productions have starred Blu ...

's play ''Sleeping With Straight Men'' with

Mink Stole Nancy Paine Stoll (born August 25, 1947), known professionally as Mink Stole, is an American actress from Baltimore, Maryland. She began her career working for director John Waters, and has appeared in all of his feature films to date (a distinc ...

in San Francisco. In 2006, Roma was nominated for ''Best Nonsexual Performance'' Gay Adult Video News (GAYVN) award for her portrayal of Mona Lott, the maid of ''Wet Palms'', which is a ten-episode gay-porn

soap opera A soap opera, or ''soap'' for short, is a typically long-running radio or television serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term "soap opera" originated from radio dramas originally being sponsored ...

series. He also has performed at San Francisco's long-running

drag show A drag show is a form of entertainment performed by drag artists impersonating men or women. Typically, a drag show involves performers singing or lip-synching to songs while performing a pre-planned pantomime or dancing. There might also be so ...

Trannyshack Trannyshack is a San Francisco drag club started by drag queen Heklina in 1996 as an offshoot of Klubstitute, and was a weekly fixture at The Stud bar in San Francisco for 12 years, drawing large crowds on a regular basis. The Tuesday night p ...

. In 2012, Sister Roma was the sole community-elected grand marshal, serving with twelve other marshals appointed by the Pride Board of the San Francisco Pride Parade.SF Pride official website
In 2014, Roma objected to

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

's real-name policy after the site suspended multiple accounts belonging to LGBT entertainers, and was one of a group of San Francisco residents who met with Facebook representatives to discuss the policy.

Awards and nominations

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Sister Roma American LGBT rights activists Culture of San Francisco American drag queens American LGBT writers Living people Male actors from San Francisco 1962 births LGBT people from California LGBT and Catholicism Activists from California