I am on a plane and have an unshakeable itch to beautypost about Hot Rat Summer.
I walked into the park ignorant.
First, I saw the posters.
The message was everywhere, in every medium. Scribbled on utility poles, on the ground, strung onto fences.
Saint Rat, the pièce de résistance…
I am in awe of the care that went into Her. From design to materials to cutting to arranging to rearranging to cementing to transporting to installing (into what used to be a cloudy grey depression in an equally drab wall), how many hours did they give Her?
She looms, eye piercing from the center of Her halo the sun, while Her heart, a living ember, floats in that vitreous sky. This filthy, sinful, loving creature. The photo doesn’t show how wads of rosy glass push Her tail out into the third dimension. Or that She watches over a great pool, people and pigeons crowding the sides, Her fellow vermin. She’s beautiful.
The bombardment of Hot Rat Summer occurred overnight in Seattle's Cal Anderson Park, in the summer of 2024. Between 2024 and 2025, the city painted over Saint Rat at least four times, and every time, Her loving subjects stripped the paint.
Since 2025, the city has allowed the mosaic to remain, with two more mosaics being added: Hot Rat Mother/Community is Mother and Give us our Roses (while we are still here).
The goal of the artists was to create a symbol of trans resilience.
"Rats are never going to go anywhere. People can try to eradicate us, they can try to remove us from society but we are always there. So, we all love rats as a result." - KNKX Radio
And during that summer, you could tell. Messages of trans joy, love, and persistence covered every surface. Saint Rat had a fragment of the trans flag in Her lower righthand corner, alcove stuffed with offerings of used T bottles and Marsha P candles. New artists kept contributing, strangers to one another, individually building this communal piece.
"The project speaks to different artists in different ways, but the power of community uplifting us, our visibility, the act of asserting ourselves in our neighborhood spaces, and feeling our own presence has been powerful for all of us. Trans people are all around us. And we have always been here." - FANE Mag, issue 4
Trans people will keep being here, and will keep being loved. Hot Rat Summer is eternal.
This is a big part of what makes it so powerful for me—being rather gender nonconforming, it reminds me that I am not alone. Yet it wasn’t just that. People found many different meanings. 1 In particular, I remember friends musing about “rat race” commentary, and in reading messages like "every body is a rat body,” feeling a welcome sense of body neutrality. And there’s another reason I keep coming back.
See, at the foot of each of these murals is an altar. When I'm in Seattle, I make a pilgrimage to them nearly every day, and, nearly every day, there are candles burning.2 Someone lights them. Someone brings new candles when they're needed, and someone takes the used ones away. Others bring flowers, necklaces, cocktails that spill into the pool Saint Rat gazes upon, dye spiraling from their tiny paper parasols.
It's art! It's the art of humanity, the art of care. It is care, leaving narcan and toothpaste and candy for anyone they might help out. It is not a tidy sort of art. But it's smiley faces in the snow, smudged hearts drawn in pencil on school desks. A mark.
My favorite part, that which feels most imbued with sacrality, is the grimy path that lies underfoot—the step people walk on to pass the altars—and the water underneath it. I don't know why it makes such an impression on me. Perhaps it’s in the accident of what it reveals?
I notice the disgusting, littered muck of the fountain, hidden under its shimmering surface. The cigarette butts, an apple core, the glittering broken glass standing in remembrance of lost candle holders, beer bottles, lip gloss. People were here.
It calls to my mind a quote from Neil Gaiman's American Gods:
"That’s the American Way – they need to give people an excuse to come and worship. These days, people can't just go and see a mountain. Thus, Mister Gutzon Borglum's tremendous presidential faces. Once they were carved, permission was granted, and now the people drive out in their multitudes to see something in the flesh that they've already seen on a thousand postcards."
Perhaps the word "worship" strikes alarm bells in your head. I’ll reframe; people seek to honor something, to sacralize, ritualize. We want to care about something beyond “I.” But doing that with intention is falling out of fashion. We want an excuse to stumble into worship without realizing that’s what we’re doing. Hot Rat Summer gives one to us.
It’s a guerilla temple, built to honor a community ever wary of houses of worship. In this devotion, it raises to a holy standing the hands that build it. Bringing an offering to Her feet is not just a celebration of the group, the innumerable friends and lovers and strangers who contributed, but it also honors yourself, regardless of who you may be, your place in that greater whole.
I’m thankful to have seen it arise, and to have taken part in my many minuscule ways. When I do, I feel love, and I feel loved. I feel in community. Even though all I see in the end are traces left by invisible hands, invisible feet.
Thank you for reading. <3
Footnotes:
1) This reddit thread has some wonderful thoughts, if you are curious about more interpretations
2) …it's right by my gym. I must admit that I am not so fervent a devotee
You can find more information at https://www.hotratsummer.gay/ (this is where I got the photo of the Cal Anderson is a Holy Place sticker, alongside the second image with the fence rat and trash rat, and the Hot Rat Summer is eternal image), or check out the @hotratsummereternal instagram page.
Alsooooo:
- If you have anything to add to this post, please reach out!! If you were directly involved with the creation of this piece, I'd love to know your thoughts, especially any disagreements.
- I wrote this because my friend was confused about this line item in stuff I like: "Hot rat summer (ᓚᘏᕐᐷ NOT the nerds)," and I didn't feel like any other sources touched on what I found interesting. Thank you for the inspiration, Max!!
- I am very new to thinking about anything that, like, smells woo. This is weird for me! Feels vulnerable, scary, new. I'm excited to see how my thoughts evolve.
Here are some photos from the instagram:
And here are some photos I've taken:
