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Meet Jack Thompson: The Kinky, Biracial, Trans, HIV-Positive Man Who Just Won The International Mr. Leather Title: WATCH

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Jack Thompson by Mark S. King

The fabulous Mark S. King spoke to Jack Thompson over at My Fabulous Disease.

Here’s a snippet:

Jack Thompson, who just won the 2019 International Mr. Leather (IML), is a lot. And he carries it well.

Jack is biracial. He’s gay. He’s transgender. He’s extremely kinky, depending on what scale you use to measure such things.

CREDIT

Jack is also utterly transparent about all that he is, to a disarming degree. His speech at the IML competition (“You are enough.”) laid bare all of his identities and became an instant viral meme.

Over breakfast at his favorite diner in his newly adopted home city of Baltimore, Jack discussed coming out (as many things), sex, drugs, HIV — and his reaction to a transphobic social media post by a leather community leader that nearly eclipsed the drama of Jack’s win at IML.

There’s been an explosion of trans awareness over the last few years. My trans activist friends would point out that this has been a long, hard road, though.

I came out as trans when I was 15 (living in the Bay area). That was 18 years ago. And it was exploding because there were a lot of hate crimes going on.

Thompson in The Bare Chest Calendar.

I know several trans men who were lesbians first, who thought they must be, before they realized they were trans. And gay. It’s a perfect example of the difference between gender and sexuality.

I didn’t even start dating men until I met my husband. I still am attracted to women. It gets very deep very fast between us, with women. I just got out of a long relationship with a woman about a year ago.

Speaking of crazy, right after you won, some bonehead says a transphobic thing that sounds like it could have been said in 2002. And it was someone you think would have known better. (Only hours after Jack’s win, the leader of a regional leather association known as Craig MrCode posted on Facebook, “I am happy for the winner, BUT it is International MR. Leather. He identifies as a man. But not born a man. I feel that the decision is politically motivated. Now this is just my opinion.” The post was later defended by MrCode, making things worse, followed by calls for his ouster as leader of the leather association. He was removed within a couple of days. Leather clubs are typically known as inclusive, safe spaces for people of trans experience.)

I understand that the world doesn’t deal with trans issues. If you are someone who doesn’t have many trans friends, it is easy to not understand. I am all about educating, and saying hey, here are articles why your opinion is not necessarily correct, or this is how what you said personally hurt me. I didn’t even hear about what happened until he stepped down. I was expecting, actually, way worse of a response. It wasn’t that bad, and the response of the community was 150% better than I thought.

READ THE FULL INTERVIEW HERE.

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