A Big Thank You To Everyone at Creating Change

To all the folks who made Creating Change such a success, I do not have enough words to thank you. I saw so many excited and energized LGBTQ activists this weekend I feel a whole lot better about the state of our movement.

I also wanted to thank the NLGTF for their unexpected award for Leather Leadership. I will cherish this for the rest of my life and I will try to live into the expectations such an honor means. I hope I am up to it.

I thought I would print my thank you speech here, in case some of my friends might want to read it.

I am incredibly honored to receive this award. I want to thank the task force for their bravery in continuing to present this award every year. I well understand that the Leather community is often used by our enemies as that boogie man that can drum up fear in their followers. They portray the LGBTQ community and more specifically the leather community with half truths and inflammatory lies.

It is sad that they cannot see people like us as simply another facet in the jewel that is God’s gift of sexuality. Now I also understand there are those here who will get uncomfortable when I bring God into the discussion, but I can find no better explanation for the intense and rewarding relationships I have found in the LGBTQ leather community but a gift of the divine.

On a hopeful note, I want you to know that in my travels and presentations at leather, BDSM and Fetish events across the continent, I find that we leatherfolk have a unique ability to unite people of many sexual orientations including heterosexuals. These people have found common ground in the leather BDSM fetish realm and have come to understand the unique difficulties being a sexual minority. The knowledge we share with one another, the principals of safety, consensuality and negotiation in our activities contributes to a richness and authenticity in their lives and relationships. That can only be a good thing.

I sincerely hope that the work of the task force continues, but not for too long. The goal of any organization that works to end discrimination and intolerance is to work itself out of a job. My fondest dream is that someday we will no longer need to dedicate so much time and money and effort to enjoy the freedoms and rights that most Americans take for granted. Until that time, we all have a lot of work to do.