History of New Mexico Leather
& Alternative Communities
Overview • Venues • Artisans • Groups • Events • Media • Indivduals
History is a foundation that helps us approach the future with more understanding. Awareness of history helps us realize not just what came before us, but also understand how things have changed, are changing, what was attempted, successes, struggles, and the great time had by many in alternative lifestyle communities. It reminds us that time passes by quickly and to be sure to be kind as you travel through your journey through these alternative communities.
Notable Individuals
New Mexico’s Leather, Kink, and alternative communities were created and sustained by individuals and small teams of individuals who organized groups, produced events, taught skills, made art, operated gathering places, preserved community history, represented New Mexico elsewhere, and helped communities survive periods of crisis and change. This section recognizes some of those individuals that have stood in the light to benefit the community with their contributions. Looking at some of these individuals allows us to more easily see how they connect and influence community across its sectors. This is not intended to be a complete directory and has no ranking of importance.
Those from New Mexico that venture out to national and international events are our representatives, bring awareness of our community cultures to others. They also bring ideas and energy back to the community in New Mexico. Some of those living in New Mexico bring back experience from distinguished positions in the broader national and international communities. They also positively represent New Mexico in their travel and interactions.
One category of representatives are our regional, national, and international titleholders who not only put their energy into entering and participating in a local event, but do so at broader event venue, often competing with people from across the country or world. There is no doubt they grow from this experience. They also help New Mexico community grow through the shared experience and what they bring back to New Mexico.
Placement of individuals on this list is accomplished through a fairly unbiased method using AI. While ranking occurs, it is not displayed because it has no utility here. The process attempts to be independent of era and community because each person has experienced different challenges in serving during their involvement. More detail on selection criteria is at the end of this page for those interested in approach. Individual's are presented in alphabetical order by secondary name. Simplified standards for selecting individuals for this listing are as follows:
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Strong involvement in establishing or leading multiple organizations, events, venues, or related activity, with positive impact for the community.
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Connectivity across multiple community sectors resulting in significant positive community impact.
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Overall impact that is a combination of time in service to the community and degree of impact over time.
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International titleholders or the equivalent are listed by default.
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Awareness by the author historian and ability of the author historian to access information about the individual.
Note that this listing of individuals has enabled at least one analysis about this history available on the home page of this history.
Note: This is the newest page of this history, incomplete draft (26July26). Lack of a listing on this page may mean we have not had time to research and post about that person.
A listing of notable individuals on this page:
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Stan Alexander
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Leslie Anderson
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Pat Baille
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Maria Bautista
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Cindy Bookout
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Jaie Davis
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Lori Ellison
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Michael & Renato Estacio-Burdick
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Lesbian Extraordinaire
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Matie Fricker
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Ruben Gallegos
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Amber Garland
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Sir George
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Jayson DaBoi Johnson
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Sir Magnum
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Diva Marie
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Richard (Dick) Marleau
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Bear Marvin
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Tyler McCormick
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Bear Mike
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Sera Miles / Sarah E. Azizi
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Nancy Ava Miller
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Pat Sanchez
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PJ Sedillo
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JD Smith
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Tony Travis
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Andy Walden-Montoya
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Mauro Walden-Montoya
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Kevin Watson
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Steve Wearden
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Julian Addams-Wolf
Stan Alexander
Communities: Leather, BDSM, kink, power exchange, polyamory, and alternative relationships
Associations: Alternative Erotic Lifestyles, New Mexico Leather League, Albuquerque Leather Daddys, Mama’s Family, Leather Order of Honor and Service, and Corazón Leather
Period: Approximately 1997–present
Stan Alexander - also known as Master Stan, Daddy Stan, and Mama’s Whip Daddy - is a longtime Albuquerque Leather and BDSM educator, organizational leader, and community sustainer. His most important contribution has been his nearly three decades of leadership within Alternative Erotic Lifestyles (AEL), which was founded in 1991 by Diva Marie, jenny, Melissa, and other community members emerging from activity around People Exchanging Power (PEP).
Stan did not establish the organization. After AEL entered a dormant period, Bob and Diva asked Stan and his partner Kathryn Alexander to help revive it and resume events around 1997. Bob disappeared from the organization shortly afterward, and Diva later moved to Colorado, leaving Stan and Kathryn with increasing responsibility for its continuation. <a> Under their stewardship, AEL continued through changing venues, leadership transitions, fluctuations in attendance, the growth and disappearance of competing organizations, and the transformation of community communication from telephone answering machines to websites and social media. For part of its history, AEL concentrated primarily on private play parties and its public educational gatherings, later reestablished as the PowerMunch.
AEL currently operates as a comparatively quiet but consistent organization, ordinarily offering two activities each month: a PowerMunch and a meeting or play party. In July 2026, Stan, Kathryn, and slavegirl Laura celebrated AEL’s 35th Anniversary and introduced a new public website at nm-bdsm.com. AEL describes itself as New Mexico’s longest-running BDSM community, providing education, social connection, and play opportunities for people of all genders and sexual orientations. <b>
Historical distinction is important: Stan inherited an existing organization, but he helped prevent it from disappearing. By 2026, his period of stewardship, approximately 29 years, represented most of AEL’s entire existence. Founding an organization demonstrates initiative; sustaining one across several decades demonstrates persistence, adaptation, and the continued willingness to perform the ordinary work required to keep a community institution alive.
AEL received national Leather-community attention during this period. It was nominated for a 2003 Pantheon of Leather award in the Small Club category. Stan later received the 2010 Pantheon of Leather Rocky Mountain Regional Award, recognizing his broader service within the region. He also received the Rio Grande Leather Community Service Award. <c> <d>
Stan’s work extended beyond AEL. He was among the people involved in establishing the New Mexico Leather League during its organization in 2005–2006, along with Diane Wolf, Rex Swanda, and others. NMLL subsequently produced Spring Pandemonium and Leather Fiesta, two of New Mexico’s largest recurring regional Leather and kink events. These gatherings brought national educators to Albuquerque and combined classes, vendors, social activities, dungeons, and Leather-community programming.
He also taught at Amber Garland’s Leather Life gatherings, a series of intimate weekend programs held from approximately 2004 through 2014 to explore Leather identity, lifestyle, ethics, relationships, and skills. Amber inducted Stan into the Leather Order of Honor and Service, an association recognizing people who demonstrated honor, honesty, love, and service within the community. <a> In 2015, Stan served as one of the judges for the inaugural Corazón Leather Contest, alongside Tyler McCormick, Rosalinda Colin, Jayson DaBoi Johnson, and Lori Ellison. This was New Mexico’s first new Leather title contest after a five-year absence and the first pansexual Leather contest in the region. <e> Stan was also patched into the Albuquerque Leather Daddys. His inclusion as a straight man in an organization rooted largely in Albuquerque’s gay male Leather community is a small but meaningful indication of his cross-community relationships. His broader Leather recognition includes induction into Mama’s Family, the international honorary Leather family founded by Sandy “Mama” Reinhardt. Mama’s official family tree lists him as member #1929, “Mama’s Whip Daddy.” <f>
Education has remained central to Stan’s service. He and slavegirl Laura have taught fire play, Tantra, flogging, rope, Leather history, and other subjects. In April 2026 they presented The Art of Erotic Flogging at the New Mexico Leather & Kink Fair, covering safety, foundational techniques, erotic application, and advanced methods. Stan also continues to participate in teaching at cross-community events, including Kinktoberfest, demonstrating that his involvement has not been confined to the organizations and relationships of an earlier generation.
Stan’s professional work provides another connection between his community experience and alternative relationships. He holds an M.Ed. in counseling from the University of Texas at El Paso and certification in clinical hypnotherapy. The Kink Aware Professionals directory describes his work as addressing BDSM, Leather, polyamory, and the relationship dynamics associated with them. His professional practice should not be treated as equivalent to volunteer community service, but it does demonstrate a longstanding effort to provide informed, nonjudgmental support to people whose relationships and identities may be misunderstood by conventional providers. <g>
Stan’s historical importance rests less upon one spectacular event than upon sustained presence. He helped revive AEL, co-established New Mexico Leather League, taught across organizational boundaries, supported Leather titles and educational gatherings, and maintained relationships across Albuquerque’s gay Leather and predominantly heterosexual BDSM communities. His work illustrates a frequently overlooked form of leadership: accepting responsibility for institutions created by others and keeping them available for the people who arrive next.
Sources: GROUPS <a>, bdsm-nm.com <b>, theleatherjournal.com/component/k2/pantheon-of-leather-awards-all-time-recipients <c>, nm-real.org/post/educator-announcement-master-stan-and-slavegirl-laura-nm-leather-kink-fair-10-11-apr-2026 <d>, EVENTS <e>, mamas-family.org/boys_girls.html <f>, kapprofessionals.org/kap_directory/wpbdm-region/new-mexico/ <g>.
Leslie Anderson
Communities: Bootblack, Leather, LGBTQ
Associations: Motorcyclemen of New Mexico, Sandia Leathermen/Sandia Leatherwomen, International Ms Leather (IMsL), International Ms Bootblack, Rio Grande Leather, American Leatherwoman, American Brotherhood Weekend, Albuquerque Pride, Leather Women United, Leather Archives & Museum, International Mr. Leather, Team Shine, Mid-Atlantic Bootblack, Mid-Atlantic Leather.
Period: ~1990s-present
Leslie Anderson was one of New Mexico’s most nationally influential bootblacks and leather titleholders. He was associated with Motorcyclemen of New Mexico and Sandia Leathermen/Leatherwomen and participated in Albuquerque’s leather community during the 1990s and early 2000s. Read more about Bootblacking in Albuquerque in the "1979, 1989- Albuquerque's Bootblack Stand" entry on the VENUES page describing Leslie working with Pat Sanches of Motorcyclemen of NM and working on actor Val Kimler's boots multiple times.
Leslie held the title of Ms. New Mexico Leather 1996 and, with the support of Sandia Leathermen/Leatherwomen, won American Leatherwoman 1997 at American Brotherhood Weekend. In 1999, competing under his American Leatherwoman title, Leslie became the inaugural International Ms. Bootblack in 1999 at International Ms. Leather (IMsL). He was the first person to hold that international bootblack title.
Having learned from a succession of Bootblacks in Albuquerque, Leslie worked at and helped sustain the community’s bootblack stands, taught leather care, and passed on knowledge by mentoring other bootblacks. Leslie’s work helped connect New Mexico’s bar-based bootblack tradition with the emerging international bootblack community.
From September 1995 through May 1996, Leslie Anderson and Diva Marie produced and distributed five issues of New Mexico NEWSLEATHER, an independent Albuquerque leather-community newsletter. Published every two months and reproduced by photocopy, it connected New Mexico readers with local and national events, leather organizations, title contests, community resources, personal essays, poetry, artwork, photographs, and reports from gatherings such as International Ms. Leather. Contributors included Casey Newkirk, C.J. Diamond, Steve Wearden, Jeff Tucker, Lee Lambert, Cindy Bookout, James Peters, Eric Senff, Janet Ryan, and Viola Johnson. Although brief, NEWSLEATHER provided both a means of building community and an unusually valuable contemporary record of New Mexico leather life during the mid-1990s. The surviving issues are preserved by the Leather Archives & Museum and are available as PDFs through this history on the MEDIA page.
The newsletter’s premiere issue promoted the recently established Leather Archives & Museum and urged leather people to preserve their publications, photographs, organizational records, colors, patches, artwork, and equipment. Leslie’s later work as the Museum’s Leather Preservation Specialist represents a remarkable continuation of that early commitment to preserving leather history.
Leslie moved to Chicago in 2005 and became the Leather Preservation Specialist at the Leather Archives & Museum. His work there includes preserving leather garments, club colors, boots, equipment, and other artifacts carrying the histories of leather people and organizations. He is also recognized as an authority on leather history and preservation.
Leslie has remained active as an educator, contest judge, historian, and community bootblack. He has led Team Shine, the bootblack operation at International Mr. Leather, and has judged bootblack and leather contests nationally. Documented judging appearances range from the Mid-Atlantic Bootblack contest in 2000 to Mid-Atlantic Leather in 2024.
A "Leslie Anderson Documentary" is being developed by Unfurnished Films, directed by Shelley Gustavson & Curtis Matzke, with Executive Produced Lilly Wachowski. See unfurnishedfilms.com/leslie.html.
Honors:
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1996 — Ms. New Mexico Leather
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1997 — American Leatherwoman
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1998 — Pantheon of Leather, Rocky Mountain Regional Award
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1999 — Inaugural International Ms. Bootblack
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2000 — Pantheon of Leather, Rocky Mountain Regional Award, shared with Rich Dockter
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2015 — Pantheon of Leather, Mr. Marcus Hernandez Lifetime Achievement Award
Sources: Leslie Anderson (interviews), The Leather Journal, Internet, web.archive.net, Richard Van Steenburg (interview 30Dec24), imslbb.com, unfurnishedfilms.com/leslie.html, wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Ms._Leather, theleatherjournal.com/component/k2/pantheon-of-leather-awards-all-time-recipients/.
Pat Baille ("Bay-lee”)
Communities: Leather, Lesbian, Genderqueer, LGBTQ+, Veterans
Associations: Ms. San Jose Leather/Ms. LeatherMaster, International Ms Leather, LeatherWomen United, Albuquerque Pride, Rio Grande Leather, New Mexico Leather League, Consent Counts/NCSF, Out & Equal Workplace Advocates, IMsL Foundation
Period: ~1994–present; New Mexico activity ~1996–2007
Pat Baillie is a Leather titleholder, educator, community organizer, military veteran, and LGBTQ workplace-equality advocate whose work has connected Leather activism with public health, consent, Pride, transgender inclusion, and professional education. Pat identifies as a genderqueer Leather boy and describes service as central to their Leather identity.
California-born, Pat served in the United States Air Force as a weapons controller and space-operations officer, retiring as a major in 1993. Pat has said that the announcement of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” helped prompt the decision to retire and become publicly active in LGBTQ advocacy. Pat later worked as a government contractor and training specialist, continuing to be an advocating for workplace openness.
In late 1994, Pat won the South Bay Leather title generally remembered as Ms. San Jose Leather 1995. Some contemporary and later contest records call the title Ms. LeatherMaster 1995, reflecting a dispute over ownership and use of the San Jose title name. Pat then competed against nineteen contestants at International Ms Leather 1995 in Chicago and won the title. It was the first IMsL contest held outside San Francisco.
Pat used the international title to build LeatherWomen United, an early nationwide organizing network that relied heavily on AOL and the emerging Internet. Rather than functioning only as a social organization, LeatherWomen United collected and redistributed information and coordinated community action around four principal subjects: women’s health, voter registration, youth, and food insecurity. Its health initiative, “Exposing Ourselves to Women’s Health Care,” encouraged Leatherwomen to seek appropriate medical care and gathered information about their experiences. The campaign was reported nationally in 1996. <a>
LeatherWomen United also encouraged local food drives and helped connect activists in different cities before online community organizing became routine. Pat conducted early community surveying about the meaning of consent. Information from that work was eventually carried into the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom and its Consent Counts project, which sought clearer legal recognition of consent in BDSM practices. Pat received the 1997 Pantheon of Leather Woman of the Year Award, reflecting the national impact of this organizing work. Pat and Pat Langlois later received the 1999 Pantheon Couple of the Year Award. <b>
Pat moved to Albuquerque in late 1996 when a partner was called to serve at Emmanuel Metropolitan Community Church. In New Mexico, Pat participated in Sandia Leathermen/Leatherwomen activities, Sandia Women’s Dinner, Leather Life educational gatherings, Pride events, and the broader Leather and kink community. Pat also practiced acupuncture and was connected with community activity around Sisters & Brothers bookstore and the Café Next Door.
Beginning around 1997, Pat served for approximately a decade as a co-president or co-coordinator of Albuquerque Pride, working closely with PJ Sedillo and other community leaders. Pat worked to ensure that Leather people, transgender organizations, families, youth, bars, churches, and political groups all had a place within Pride. A 2003 New Mexico Gay Rodeo Association program described Pat as the female co-president of Albuquerque Pride for the preceding five years. Pat’s later public comments emphasized that Leather families and transgender families belonged within family-friendly Pride celebrations. <c> <d>
In 2007 and 2008, Pat served as executive producer for the Mr./Ms. Rio Grande Leather title events, working with the New Mexico Leather League (NMLL) and other community organizers. The events were held at the Howard Johnson hotel, in part so that people between eighteen and twenty-one could attend educational and contest activities that would have been inaccessible in a bar. Pat’s involvement helped connect New Mexico’s earlier women’s and men’s Leather traditions with the newer, more pansexual structure developing around NMLL.
After Pat's returned to California in December 2007, they continued community service and activism. In 2013, Pat and Pat’s wife, Sharrin Spector, assumed ownership and production responsibility for International Ms Leather and International Ms Bootblack. Pat also helped establish the IMsL Foundation and served as its board president from approximately 2014 through 2018. The foundation supported leadership, education, sexual freedom, and healthier participation by women and other marginalized people in Leather and kink communities. It received the 2016 Pantheon of Leather Nonprofit Organization of the Year Award.
In 2014, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force presented Pat with its Leather Leadership Award at the Creating Change Conference. The recognition reflected decades of work connecting Leather identity with health, consent, Pride, military service, workplace equality, and national community leadership. <e>
Pat’s importance to New Mexico lies not only in the offices or events Pat led, but in a broader philosophy of coalition building. Pat consistently treated Leather as part of the larger LGBTQ community while also encouraging gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, heterosexual, and pansexual communities to work together. Their New Mexico years helped connect an earlier generation represented by Sandia Leather with Albuquerque Pride, Rio Grande Leather, and the more inclusive organizations that followed.
Sources: The Leather Journal, Internet, web.archive.net, Pat Baillie (interview 31Aug2024), 1994 IMsL Contest program guide, Leather/Levi LEXICON Vol VIII, Number 2, 2 June 1996. Richard Van Steenburg (interview 30Dec24), en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Ms._Leather, theleatherjournal.com/news/1996 <a>, theleatherjournal.com/component/k2/pantheon-of-leather-awards-all-time-recipients <b>, gayrodeohistory.org/2003/ProgramNmgra.htm <c>, ebar.com/story/31290 <d>, theleatherjournal.com/component/k2/tag/Creating%20Change%20Conference <e>.
Pat Baillie, from the 2Jun1996 issue Leather/Levi LEXICON.
The Leather Leadership Award at Creating Change 2014.
Pat Baillie - The Fireside Chat Series, 29Oct2Fireside Chats with Douglas O'Keeffe
Maria Bautista
Communities: Lesbian, Leather, Motorcycle, LGBTQ+
Associations: Sirens Motorcycle Club, Leather & Blues Motorcycle Club, Tewa Women United, Albuquerque Pride
Period: 1988–2022
Maria Bautista was a lesbian motorcyclist, Leather-community participant, and community advocate who founded the Sirens Motorcycle Club of New Mexico in 1988. According to historian Gary L. Kieffner, Maria created the club after riding in San Francisco with Leather and Blues, a women’s patch-holding motorcycle club. The Sirens became an exclusively women’s, patch-holding club sanctioned by the American Motorcyclist Association. Maria served as its president and was known within the organization as the “Keeper of all Knowledge of Sirens.” Kieffner’s research drew upon Maria’s own written “History of the Sirens,” submitted to him in October 2000, interviews with other Sirens members, and the club’s original website. <a>
Under Maria’s leadership, the Sirens organized motorcycle rides throughout Albuquerque and northern New Mexico, including trips to Madrid, Coronado Ruins, the Pecos Wilderness, Paliza Campground, Roosevelt Park, and the Jemez Mountains. Their primary gathering place was the Route 66 Diner on Central Avenue. The club’s principal annual event was its Summer Solstice Run, documented from at least 1994 through 2000. Maria later recalled that the Sirens held the event in the Jemez area for twelve years and that one gathering attracted approximately 400 women. The events combined motorcycling, camping, entertainment, workshops, outdoor recreation, and women-centered community building.
The Sirens also connected New Mexico’s lesbian motorcycle culture with its LGBTQ+, Leather, and AIDS-service communities. The club rode at the front of the Albuquerque Pride Parade, giving women motorcyclists and Leatherwomen a highly visible place in the public celebration. Sirens members participated in AIDS Quilt activities and provided security for the 1996 New Mexico Leather contest. Their relationships with women’s bookstores in Albuquerque and Santa Fe and with sister clubs in New York, Atlanta, Michigan, and Australia extended the club’s connections beyond conventional motorcycle culture. <b>
Maria’s advocacy continued long after the Sirens’ most active period. In 2013, she addressed Albuquerque’s Ad Hoc Police Oversight Task Force and called for greater diversity in its membership. In 2014, the United States Attorney for New Mexico publicly recognized Maria and her wife, Nyira Gitana, among the community advocates participating in Albuquerque police-reform discussions. Maria later remained involved in the federal police-reform case, submitting public correspondence that entered the court record in 2020. <c> <d> <e>
Maria also appears in the institutional history of Tewa Women United as an early supporter who attended gatherings during the organization’s formative years. Her published reflection emphasized collective inclusion, balance, and the strength of women’s community. <f>
Maria died in Santa Fe on August 3, 2022. The available public death notice contains no biographical account of her work, leaving much of her history preserved primarily through the Sirens’ archives, interviews, photographs, and the communities she helped build. <g>
Sources: scholarworks.utep.edu/dissertations/AAI3358876/ <a>, GROUPS <b>, cabq.gov/council/documents/police-oversight-task-force-documents/POTF%20Report_Final%20013114.pdf <c>, justice.gov/usao-nm/pr/remarks-us-attorney-damon-p-martinez-occasion-his-investiture-45th-us-attorney-district <d>, courtlistener.com/docket/4313132/united-states-v-city-of-albuquerque/ <e>, tewawomenunited.org/our-story <f>, legacy.com/us/obituaries/name/maria-bautista-obituary?id=36201697 <g>, sirens.org web.archive.org (1998-2001) <h>, facebook.com/maria.bautista.5099 <i>.
Cindy Bookout
Communities: Leather, Lesbian/Queer, LGBTQ+, HIV/AIDS Education
Associations: Ms Oklahoma Leather, International Ms Leather (IMsL), Sandia Leather, New Mexico Leather Weekend, New Mexico NEWSLEATHER
Period: ~1993–present; active in New Mexico by 1995 through at least the late 1990s
Cindy Bookout is a Leather titleholder, community organizer, HIV/AIDS educator, and longtime queer activist whose work connected the Oklahoma, New Mexico, and national Leather communities. She became the inaugural Ms Oklahoma Leather in 1993. While in Oklahoma, Cindy was certified through the Oklahoma Department of Health as an HIV counselor, tester, and educator. She also judged the Mr Oklahoma Leather contest and reportedly received a 1993 Volunteer of the Year award from the Oklahoma Gay and Lesbian Awards.
Cindy entered International Ms Leather in 1994 as Ms Oklahoma Leather and finished as first runner-up. The original winner, Anne “Spencer” Bergstedt, resigned in September 1994. Cindy then assumed the title and completed the remainder of the title year, reigning until July 1995. Contemporary reporting described Cindy as having “picked up the torch” following Bergstedt’s resignation. At that time, Cindy was identified as living in Omaha, Nebraska. <a> <b>
Cindy became involved in the New Mexico Leather community during or shortly after her IMsL title year. In March 1995, she emceed the Friday-night jock show during the second Mr. and Ms. New Mexico Leather weekend at The Ranch in Albuquerque. Oral-history accounts indicate that she subsequently moved to New Mexico at Leslie Anderson’s recommendation and became involved with Sandia Leather. <c>
Cindy also contributed to New Mexico NEWSLEATHER, the locally produced newsletter published by Diva Marie and Leslie Anderson from September 1995 through May 1996. Her presence in the newsletter and in a 1997 New Mexico Leather community photograph places her among the women who helped sustain Albuquerque’s Leather community during the transition following Sandia Leathermen/Leatherwomen’s most active period. Contemporary reporting also mentions “Cindy Bookout’s big wedding” in Albuquerque following the March 1997 New Mexico Leather contest weekend. <d> <e>
Her national involvement continued after her title year. Cindy served as an associate producer of International Ms Leather in 1997 and received the 1996 Pantheon of Leather Readers’ Choice Award for Women. Her unusual route to the title was remembered affectionately in Leather reporting, where she was occasionally described as “IMsL 1994½.” <h> <i>
Cindy later settled in California’s desert region. She has continued building queer community through the Queer Salon at the Joshua Tree Music Festival and has participated in programs documenting Palm Springs–area Leather women’s history. In 2025, she appeared in the historical panel Leather Women: Celebrating Our Sexuality. <f> <g>.
Cindy’s importance to New Mexico is not simply that a national titleholder briefly lived here. She brought experience in Leather titleholding, HIV/AIDS education, and queer organizing into Albuquerque during an important transitional period. Her participation in New Mexico Leather Weekend, Sandia Leather, and New Mexico NEWSLEATHER connected the local community with broader networks of Leather women across the country.
Sources: theleatherjournal.com/news/author/802-daverhodes <a>, archive.org/stream/BAR_19941110/BAR_19941110_djvu.txt <b>, Bay Area Reporter, Volume 25, Number 13, 30 March 1995 <c>, New Mexico NEWSLEATHER archive <d>, Bay Area Reporter, Volume 27, Number 13, 27 March 1997 <e>, PANEL DISCUSSION: Leather Women Celebrating Our Sexuality - October 30, 2025 - Hotel Zoso <f>, Unbridled Spirit: Celebrating 35 Years of Leather in Palm Springs presents Leather Women: Celebrating our Sexuality - circafestival.org/event/unbridled-spirit-celebrating-35-years-of-leather-in-palm-springs-presents-leather-women-celebrating-our-sexuality <g>, black-rose.com/cuiru/archive/3-6/imsl.html <h>, theleatherjournal.com/component/k2/pantheon-of-leather-awards-all-time-recipients? <i>.
"Named the IMsL '94 winners (l to r): Cindy Bookout, 1st runner-up, IMsL Anne C.S. Bergstedt, and Beth Elliot, 2nd runner-up last Saturday afternoon march 19 at Club Townsend" Bay Area Reporter, Volume 24, Number 12, 24 March 1994
Cindy Bookout, 2025, Unbridled Spirit: Celebrating 35 Years of Leather in Palm Springs presents Leather Women: Celebrating our Sexuality, October 30, 2025,
Zoom + Hotel Zozo Palm Springs (Hybrid)
Jaie Davis (Uncle Jaie, Jaie Steel)
Communities: Leather, Kink, Black/African American, Gay, Drag, Imperial Court, LGBTQ+
Associations: Albuquerque boys of Leather, Corazón Leather, ONYX Lone Star, Imperial Sovereign Court of New Mexico, Albuquerque Social Club
Period: 2010s?–2024
Jaie Davis, affectionately known throughout Albuquerque as Uncle Jaie, was a Leather community member, mentor, event producer, titleholder, drag performer, Court participant, and generous host. An African American man whose community involvement extended across several overlapping parts of Albuquerque’s LGBTQ+ world, Jaie was particularly remembered for welcoming people, helping newcomers find their place, and offering his home and personal support to others.
Near the end of his life, Jaie was asked what he most wanted to be remembered for. His answer was: “Mentorship.” That answer provides the clearest interpretation of his community life. Jaie participated in organizations and produced events, but his most important contribution may have occurred through relationships that left little formal documentation: opening his home, encouraging others, sharing what he knew, and helping people develop confidence and community connections.
Jaie was a member of the Albuquerque boys of Leather, commonly known as AboL. The organization provided fellowship, service, and a distinct place for people who identified with the boy role within Leather. Surviving photographs place Jaie among AboL members and friends by at least 2017, including at Sidewinders Ranch and Los Ranchos Pride activities. As AboL declined in participation, Jaie became one of the last people attempting to preserve it. He took responsibility during the organization’s final period and retained its materials and organizational identity in the hope that it might someday be restored. Although he was unable to accomplish that restoration before his death, his effort demonstrates an important form of community stewardship: he refused to allow an organization’s history and possibilities to disappear simply because its active membership had reduced. See more about AboL on the GROUPS page.
In 2022, Jaie became Mr. Corazón Leather, sharing that contest year with Mr. Corazón Leather boy Chris. The title placed Jaie within the lineage of the New Mexico contest created by Andy Walden-Montoya to represent a community extending beyond traditional Leather identities into the broader kink world. His title is recorded in both the New Mexico Leather title heritage and the surviving Corazón record. <b> <c> Jaie’s selection was appropriate to Corazón’s evolving character. He was recognizably part of Leather, but his community relationships crossed organizational and cultural boundaries. He connected Leather with drag, the Imperial Court, bar communities, kink participants, and people who might not otherwise have entered through a traditional Leather organization.
Jaie pursued membership in ONYX Men of Color, an organization created to educate, empower, and provide fellowship for gay and bisexual men of color interested in Leather.
He became a member of the ONYX Lone Star Chapter, taking the ONYX name Lestat Onyx. He joined other Albuquerque-based Lone Star members who were working toward the eventual establishment of an independent New Mexico chapter. <a> Jaie died before ONYX High Desert received its final chapter approval on November 13, 2024. Photographs and posters from ONYX Gear Nights document Jaie participating in wax-play demonstrations.
Following the pandemic, Jaie was the first producer of the monthly Leather & Kink Night at the Albuquerque Social Club. The event began in February 2022 and was held on the third Friday of each month. It combined a dance-night environment with demonstrations, vendors, pup activities, and other Leather and kink programming. <d> Although not of Jaie's doing, this event’s name and scheduling created unintended conflicts. Sidewinders was already hosting an event with the same name on the first Saturday, while ONYX Gear Night was then held on the third Saturday—immediately after the Social Club event. Jaie did help restore regular Leather and kink visibility at Social Club after the isolation and disruption of COVID-19. He created another public point of entry into the community, particularly for younger participants and people more connected to dancing, drag, nightlife, and kink than to traditional Leather organizations.
After Jaie’s death, another person briefly continued the event; however, the Social Club subsequently changed its format, and the event eventually disappeared before being revived later under different leadership. Its instability following Jaie’s death illustrates how closely its original continuity depended upon his personal style, motivation, and hard work.
Jaie was also involved with the Imperial Sovereign Court of New Mexico. In 2023, he campaigned for Emperor XXX, holding fundraising events at Sidewinders and elsewhere. He was not elected Emperor, but the campaign demonstrated his willingness to seek a larger service and leadership role within the Court system. Public announcements from that period describe events supporting “Candidate Jaie Davis” and “Uncle Jaie Steel.” Following his death, the Court memorialized him for his warmth, love, and dedication to the community. <e>
Jaie occasionally performed in drag. His presentation was polished and transformational rather than comic or deliberately exaggerated. He could construct a sophisticated feminine appearance that demonstrated considerable attention to costuming, makeup, bearing, and detail. This part of his life connected him with Albuquerque’s drag and Court communities while Leather remained the stronger center of his identity. He also presented and supported themed entertainment at Social Club. One documented example was the 2023 UwU—Kawaii Anime Show, presented by Uncle Jaie Steel as a fundraiser for the Imperial Sovereign Court of New Mexico. This illustrates the breadth of his activity: he did not limit his service work to narrowly defined Leather events.
Friends consistently described Jaie as generous. Public appeals during his illness characterized him as someone who was continually fundraising for others and giving to his community. A remembrance from a local photographer recalled approaching Jaie nervously with a photograph; Jaie responded with the warmth and encouragement for which he was known. His home also became an informal community space. He opened it to people who needed welcome, support, companionship, or a temporary place of belonging. That work is difficult to represent through organizational records, but it is central to understanding why he was called “Uncle Jaie.” The name reflected more than age or familiarity. It described the familial position he occupied for many people.
During the final period of his life, Jaie was partnered with Jax. Jaie developed cancer and died in April 2024. Members of Albuquerque’s LGBTQ+, Leather, kink, Court, drag, and entertainment communities rallied around him during his illness. Fundraisers and public appeals emphasized the contrast between the many times Jaie had helped others and the moment when he needed the community’s help.
Jaie’s importance lies in the connections among his activities. He helped sustain the Albuquerque boys of Leather during tough times. He held a Corazón Leather title, produced a recurring Leather and kink event, joined ONYX Lone Star, participated in the Imperial Court, performed in drag, supported fundraisers, and repeatedly opened his home to others. No single accomplishment fully captures his contribution.
He also represents an increasingly interconnected period in Albuquerque’s alternative-community history. Earlier leaders were often identified principally with one motorcycle club, Leather organization, bar, or title system. Jaie moved among several overlapping communities without treating their boundaries as absolute. His work reflected an environment in which Leather, kink, drag, Court culture, nightlife, race, and LGBTQ+ service were becoming more visibly intertwined.
This made Jaie a bridge figure. He carried elements of Leather tradition and mentorship into a newer alternative community that was less organizationally rigid, more diverse in its practices, and often entered through bars, events, social media, and personal relationships rather than through prolonged club membership.
Sources: GROUPS <a>, nmleatherleague.com/new-mexico-leather-title-heritage/ <b>, myleatherlife.com/contest/coraz%C3%B3n-leather <c>, EVENTS <d>, instagram.com/iscnmorg/ <e>, facebook.com/abqmpower/ <f>.
Albuquerque boys of Leather 2017 picture at Carraro's and Joe's on Vassar SE in Albuquerque. Jaie Davis is in the back row, right end next to Julian Addams Wolf.
Albuquerque boys of Leather and friends at Sidewinders Ranch for Leather Daddys "Bad Santa" event on Dec 2nd, 2017. Jaie Davis is in back row, third from the left, between Andy Walden-Montoya and Bear Mike.
Corazon Leather Contest 2023, Albuquerque Social Club. Jaie Davis' step-down year, on stage with 2023 winners and Jayson DaBoi and others.
Jaie Davis with partner Jax and Onyx brother Medusa Onyx working on images for a wax play poster for Onyx Gear Night, 25Feb2023.
Jaie Davis (left) with other Onyx brothers for October 2023 event. Albuquerque, NM.
MPower Albuquerque, 21Apr2024, With heavy hearts, we announce the passing of Uncle Jaie, Mr. Red Ribbon 2020. Jaie was not only a remarkable titleholder but also a cherished member of our community. His passionate advocacy for HIV prevention and care leaves an indelible mark. He will be deeply missed. <f>
Today, the Board of Directors met and conversed virtually to discuss a request that came to the Board President. After consulting our governing documents, which offer no explicit guidance on the matter at this time (which we acknowledge and will work to rectify in the near future), we have enthusiastically and unanimously approved the following proclamation from Emperor XXVIII Reyes Rico Stone. "Uncle Jaie Steele has been a long standing member of ISCNM and various other community organizations, giving of his time and talents for the good of others. His ongoing efforts to unite our community through service and noble deeds should be recognized. Let it be known throughout all the realms, that on this day, April 17, 2024, Uncle Jaie Steele has received the honorary title of His Most Royal Imperial Sovereign Highness, Emperor XXVIII And A Half. He will be granted all the rights and privileges of said title, including induction into the Enchanted College of Monarchs."Please continue to send your well wishes to Uncle Jaie and his loved ones during this time.
From the Heart, Through the Court, For the CommunityTeddy Michael, Board PresidentISCNM <e>
To our beloved New Mexico community and beyond,
Many throughout New Mexico and the ICS either went to bed last night or awoke this morning to the news of the transition from this life to the next of our friend, brother, and community member Jaie Davis aka Uncle Jaie Steele. While Jaie's physical presence, especially his warm smile, will be missed by us all, it is our most sincere hope that we can take comfort that his legacy and spirit will remain with us forever. His passion for giving back to others, not only as a member of the Imperial Sovereign Court of New Mexico but through various other community organizations, groups and charitable causes, and his desire to uplift our communities through noble deeds made Jaie a beloved leader within our realm and the ICS.Please continue to share your photos, stories and warm thoughts about Jaie. Send your love, prayers, and well wishes to his partners, family, and friends. Thank you for the outpouring of well wishes and condolences while our organization, community, and more grieve the loss of our beloved. May Jaie's memory forever be a blessing and a comfort to all those his light has touched.
From the Heart, Through the Court, For the CommunityISCNM Board of Directors for Reign XXX <e>
Lori Ellison
Communities: Leather, Kink/BDSM, LGBTQ+
Associations: Black Leather Weekend, HPL Productions of Colorado, Ms. New Mexico Leather, International Ms Leather, Sandia Women’s Dinner, Mama’s Family
Period: ~2003–2006+
Lori Ellison, then of Rio Rancho, became an important national representative of New Mexico’s Leather community during the transitional period following the closure of Sandia Leathermen/Leatherwomen. At Black Leather Weekend in Albuquerque on October 17–18, 2003, Lori won the title designated 2004 Ms. New Mexico Leather, alongside Major Gardner as Mr. New Mexico Leather. Black Leather Weekend and the titles were then being produced by HPL Productions of Colorado, which subsequently sponsored Lori’s entry into International Ms Leather.
On July 17, 2004, Lori competed against four other contestants at Club Joy in Omaha, Nebraska, and became the nineteenth person to hold the International Ms Leather title. She also received the contestants’ Sisterhood Award. Her memorable contest fantasy used a watermelon in an inexpensive but highly effective fisting presentation that received an enthusiastic audience response. This performance became one of the details most frequently preserved in contemporary reporting about her victory.
From The Leather Journal:
"Lori Ellison also won the Sisterhood Award voted on by the contestants. The fantasy performed by Lori Ellison was as erotic as the come and involved a watermelon. Cost of set? Less than $3, value of fantasy? Priceless. The audience cheered raucously as she fisted the melon with one hand, then with both. It was wild."
Lori’s local activity included helping her partner, Jamie, organize some activities associated with the Sandia Women’s Dinner, an inclusive Albuquerque social gathering for women of varied sexual identities and orientations. During and after her international title year, Lori also appeared as an educator and presenter outside New Mexico. At her 2005 IMsL step-aside, she delivered what one report described as a brief and eloquent speech and received her official title portrait from artist and leatherman Ray Castro. In 2006, she was among the presenters at Leather Camp II in Wichita, Kansas.
Lori received the 2006 Pantheon of Leather Rocky Mountain Regional Award, recognizing her service and influence within the region. She was also inducted into Mama Sandy Reinhardt’s extended Leather family as Mama’s Redheaded Stepchild #699. Her documented public activity appears to have been concentrated in the period from approximately 2003 through 2006, although additional interviews or personal records may reveal later involvement.
Sources: Leslie Anderson (interviews), Jayson DaBoi Johnson (interviews), theleatherjournal.com/news/2006, theleatherjournal.com/component/k2/pantheon-of-leather-awards-all-time-recipients, theleatherjournal.com/news?start=1048, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Ms._Leather, leathercolumn.blogspot.com/2005/08/international-ms-leatherms-bootblack.html, Black Leather Weekend 2003 program, mamas-family.org/family_speaks.html.
Michael and Dr. Renato Estacio-Burdick
Communities: LGBTQ+, Leather, kink, drag, burlesque, performing arts, education, and community service
Associations: Sidewinders Ranch, Sidewinders Bar & Grill/S4200, Southwest Arts Group, Black Cat Cabaret, and NM Black Cat Cultural Enterprises, Mama's Family
Period: ~2014–present jointly
Michael and Dr. Renato Estacio-Burdick have sustained and expanded important LGBTQ+, Leather, kink, and performing-arts infrastructure in Albuquerque. As owners of Sidewinders, they helped transform a longstanding gay bar into a broadly inclusive community venue used by performers, nonprofit organizations, Leather and kink groups, fundraisers, and people seeking an accepting social space.
The couple took over Sidewinders Ranch at its former location at 8900 Central Avenue SE during the mid-2010s. Although it remained an LGBTQ+ bar, they increasingly opened it to a wider range of communities and artistic forms. What began as the Southwest Arts Group developed into Sidewinders Cabaret and eventually Black Cat Caberet. At Sidewinders, they converted the bar’s dance floor into a cabaret space and supported drag, burlesque, comedy, belly dancing, singing, theater, and other forms of performance. A 2015 showcase consisted predominantly of drag, while the following year’s program had become substantially more varied. By 2021, Michael and Renato reportedly had worked with more than 200 local performers. <a>
Sidewinders also became an important gathering place for Albuquerque’s Leather and kink communities. It hosted Gear Nights, group meetings, social activities, charity events, performance-based Leather programs, and the Albuquerque Leather Daddys’ Southwest Leather Fair. The Leather Daddys used the venue for some of their largest annual programs, including performances, demonstrations, auctions, vendors, games, and short-lived Leather Bear and Leather Cub titles. Their events brought national Leather figures to Albuquerque and raised thousands of dollars for organizations including Casa Q and Southwest Cares. Both were also in Mama's Family. Renato is “Mama’s Desert Divo” and Michael “Mama’s Drink Slinger.” <i> They took a group photo with Mama and other Mama's family members at Sidewinders in the back bar on November 4th, 2017. Photographs from 2019 document Michael and Renato with Albuquerque Leather Daddys members and Casa Q representatives at a charitable presentation following the Southwest Leather Fair. <b>
This support was consequential because Sidewinders was not merely renting a room to isolated organizations. Michael and Renato allowed different parts of Albuquerque’s alternative communities to inhabit the venue repeatedly and visibly. LGBTQ+ nightlife, Leather, kink, drag, burlesque, charitable service, and the performing arts overlapped there in ways that helped people and organizations encounter one another.
In 2019, however, it was clear they had to move Sidewinders from the original building. Michael and Renato obtained the former Martini Grill space at 4200 Central Avenue SE. This location offered an opportunity to continue Sidewinders while developing its restaurant, cabaret, and community functions. The new Sidewinders was scheduled to open on March 20, 2020. Albuquerque’s pandemic shutdown began four days earlier.
Faced with a completed relocation and a venue that could not legally operate as a bar, Michael and Renato used personal savings to install a kitchen so Sidewinders could qualify as a restaurant and offer takeout. They created ghost-kitchen and delivery operations to keep the business functioning. Michael later explained that the income was just sufficient to keep the business afloat. A regular group of approximately 20 to 30 customers ordered at least weekly, providing both financial and community support during the shutdown.
The recovery lasted well beyond the formal end of pandemic restrictions. In 2024 Michael reported that Sidewinders was finally reaching the point at which its bills could be paid on time and that the venue was again regularly full or nearly full on weekends. <c> Their decision to continue was historically important. Albuquerque had already lost many of its identifiable LGBTQ+ nightlife venues. Their work preserved not only a business but also one of the city’s remaining physical places where LGBTQ+, Leather, kink, performance, and community organizations could gather publicly. Michael’s principal role has often been less publicly visible than Renato’s: operating the venue, carrying its financial and logistical responsibilities, and keeping the physical infrastructure functioning while Renato concentrated more heavily on artistic and nonprofit development. That behind-the-scenes work was essential to the survival of the institutions they created together.
Even while trying to preserve Sidewinders during the pandemic, Michael and Renato undertook a second ambitious project. NM Black Cat Cultural Enterprises was established as a nonprofit organization intended to advance LGBTQ+ causes through community organization, education, social welfare, cultural activity, and artistic development. In fall 2020, they took over the former Aux Dog Theatre near Nob Hill and began developing the Black Cat Cultural Center. <j> The center officially opened in May 2021. Its intended constituency extended beyond LGBTQ+ residents to artists, international residents, gender-nonconforming people, students, and others who did not feel comfortable in conventional community institutions. Its facilities included:
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a performance and rehearsal space;
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an education center with books, computers, desks, and study areas;
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a thrift store intended to support the center financially;
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vending opportunities for local artists;
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space for painters, actors, poets, musicians, comedians, dancers, and sculptors;
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proposed instruction in life skills, business, culture, and music;
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proposed GED tutoring and student-loan assistance; and
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accessibility modifications for performers with disabilities.
The organization received support from community donors, performers, nonprofit sponsors, and foundations. The stage was modified to accommodate performers with disabilities and to function more flexibly as a black-box or theater-in-the-round space. Early programming included resident playwrights, original theater, classes, rehearsals, and performances. Michael and Renato also invested substantial personal resources in the facility and its survival. Although Black Cat did not ultimately develop into the fully self-sustaining community institution originally envisioned, its later reduction in activity does not erase the scale of the attempt or the people and organizations it served. <d>
Renato served as Black Cat’s executive and artistic director from November 2020 through November 2025. His artistic work substantially expanded the couple’s cross-community reach. He performs drag as Renée Toya-Bouvier and has worked as a singer, host, conductor, musical director, vocal coach, theatrical director, educator, and producer. His public biography credits Black Cat Cabaret with approximately 250 entertainers and hundreds of annual events. He also served on the New Mexico Music Commission from 2014 through 2019; founded a vocal resident-arts program at the African American Performing Arts Center; helped establish a district of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions; and directed or conducted educational, civic, theatrical, and musical productions. <e> Pride & Equality recognized Renato as a 2019 Models of Hope Community Honoree, citing more than 25 years of LGBTQ+ service and his work supporting artists, community events, nonprofit organizations, drag, cabaret, music, and civic engagement. Leather community member Pat Ballie had received this award in 2007.<f>
In recent years, Renato has devoted increasing attention to opera and stage direction in Europe. His documented performances include roles in Gianni Schicchi and Rigoletto in the Netherlands; Die Fledermaus and Orphée aux Enfers at the Berlin Opera Festival; Don Giovanni in Trieste; and Carmen with Festival Opera Bastide in France. His 2026 plans include work as a stage-directing fellow with the Institute for Performing Arts International in Bavaria. This international work represents a later extension of the artistic and educational activity that was already central to his community service in New Mexico. <g> <h>
Together, Michael and Renato’s most important historical contribution is the creation and preservation of physical places where communities could exist. They accepted substantial financial and personal risk, preserved Sidewinders through relocation and pandemic closure, supported hundreds of performers, gave Leather and kink organizations a recurring public home, and attempted to establish a larger cultural and educational center for people underserved by conventional institutions. Their work demonstrates how operating a venue can become community service when the venue is deliberately opened, sustained, and adapted for the benefit of communities far broader than its ownership.
Sources: abq.news/2021/06/black-cat-community-center-serves-outsiders/ <a>, GROUPS <b>, abq.news/2024/06/were-here-were-queer-youre-used-to-it/ <c>, abq.news/2021/06/black-cat-community-center-serves-outsiders/ <d>, renatoestacio.com/about-me-1 <e>, myprideonline.com/moh-past-winners.html <f>, operabase.com/renato-estacio-a2140271/en <g>, operabase.com/productions/carmen-377742/fi <h>, mamas-family.org/boys_girls.html <i>, facebook.com/NMBlackCat <j>.
Renato & Michael owners of Sidewinders Ranch in 2015.
Mama's Family group photo with Mama and other Mama's family members at Sidewinders Ranch in the back bar on November 4th, 2017.
Lesbian Extraordinaire, LE, L.E. LeGirl
Communities: Leather, Leather girls, Bootblack, LGBTQ+
Associations: girls of Leather: Albuquerque Metro (gLAM), American Brotherhood, High Shine: 15 Years of International Ms Bootblack
Period: since 1995; New Mexico activity documented 2006–2008 and 2016
LE, also known as L.E. LeGirl and Lesbian Extraordinaire, is a Leatherwoman, educator, community organizer, and American Leatherwoman 2015. Her Leather journey began in 1995 and has included organization-building, teaching, fundraising, historical preservation, titleholder service, and judging Leather contests.
While living in Albuquerque, LE co-founded girls of Leather: Albuquerque Metro (gLAM) with Diane Wolf in October 2006. gLAM was New Mexico’s first organization specifically for Leather girls and provided community for female-identified submissive Leather people. The group emerged alongside the formation of the New Mexico Leather League and participated in the broader Albuquerque Leather community, including support for some of Amber Garland’s Leather Life educational gatherings. See gLAM on the GROUPS page.
After leaving New Mexico, LE became active in the San Francisco Bay Area Leather community and was documented living in Oakland by 2013. Her work increasingly included bootblacking, education, national events, and preservation of Leather history.
LE and Albuquerque bootblack Jayson DaBoi Johnson helped originate the proposal that became High Shine: 15 Years of International Ms Bootblack. The documentary preserves the experiences and contributions of female-identified International Ms Bootblack titleholders. LE led extensive fundraising for the project, organizing Leather & Lace parties across the country to help finance interviews and production. The completed documentary debuted at CineKink in New York in 2015. <a>
LE won the national title of American Leatherwoman 2015 at American Brotherhood Weekend. Her 2015 title family also included American Leatherman Dan Ronneberg and American Leatherboy Boy Pup Max. At their 2016 step-down, the three were recognized for representing their titles with “energy, dignity, and honor.” American Brotherhood—2015 Title Family, The Leather Journal
In October 2016, LE, "Mama’s Portuguese Princess," returned to Albuquerque as a featured presenter and keynote speaker at the New Mexico Leather League’s Leather Fiesta, appearing with Tyler Fong. Her keynote, “To Be or Not To Be,” examined Leather identity and the choices involved in living authentically within Leather culture. <c> <d>
LE’s place in New Mexico history connects two stages of her work: helping create a specialized community space for Leather girls in Albuquerque and later returning as a nationally recognized titleholder, educator, and advocate for Leather history. Her collaboration with Jayson DaBoi also gives New Mexico an important connection to the preservation of International Ms Bootblack history.
Sources: theleatherjournal.com/news-2/the-making-of-the-documentary-high-shine-15-years-of-international-ms-bootblack <a>, americanbrotherhood.com/2015-title-family <b>, nmleatherleague.com/past-events/ <c>, leatherati.com/tagged/le-legirl <d>.
LE (Lesbian Extraordinaire), Leather Woman and co-founder of gLAM (girls of Leather: Albuquerque Metro).
LE, American Leatherwoman 2015
"LE walked into a dungeon the summer of 1995 and has been exploring and growing ever since. For years, she would make things happen from behind the curtain serving at various capacities on several event planning committees. In 2011, LE began the mega-project of coordinating the IMsBB 15th Annual Celebration seeding the High Shine documentary and creating the IMsBB Challenge Coin tradition. LE is a three time Pantheon of Leather nominee. She is “Mama’s Portuguese Princess” and has been honored to serve as American Leatherwoman 2015.LE continues to charm her way into people’s hearts. Whether she is volunteering, performing, judging, teaching, or speaking, she always enjoys serving her community. <b>
Matie Fricker
Communities: Sex-positive, queer and LGBTQ+, feminist, BDSM and kink, sexuality education, reproductive health and alternative communities
Associations: Self Serve Sexuality Resource Center / Self Serve Toys, Pornotopia, Show & Tell Sex, KUNM, Guild Cinema
Period: 2006–present
Matie Fricker is a sexuality educator, business owner, community organizer, and advocate whose work has connected New Mexico’s queer, feminist, BDSM, kink, reproductive-health, and broader alternative communities. She is best known as the co-founder and longtime owner of Self Serve Sexuality Resource Center, but her contribution extends beyond retail into education, community referrals, media, public advocacy, and the creation of spaces in which sexuality can be discussed without shame.
Before moving to New Mexico, Matie worked in sexuality-related retail and became interested in using business as an instrument of social change. While studying public service in Boston, she worked at a sex shop and observed both the transformative possibilities and the harmful practices found within the adult industry. She later described seeing customers become more confident, vulnerable, and empowered as they gained accurate information about sexuality and their bodies.
Matie and sex therapist and educator Molly Adler moved to Albuquerque in 2006 after researching communities in which an education-based feminist sex shop might be needed. They opened Self Serve in January 2007. Rather than reproducing the secretive, male-oriented environment associated with many conventional adult stores, they created a bright, inclusive sexuality resource center that combined body-safe products, books, safer-sex supplies, workshops, referrals, and individualized education. <a> <b>
Self Serve operated as both a business and a community institution from its inception. Early classes included subjects such as introductory flogging, women’s self-defense, communication, relationships, sexual techniques, and safer exploration. Matie personally taught classes on fisting, strap-on play, pleasure, and other aspects of sexuality, while Self Serve hosted educators representing numerous specialties. Its programming brought sexuality education into an accessible public setting rather than restricting it to clinical offices, private organizations, or established kink groups.
Matie has taught at colleges and universities across the United States and has provided sexuality education for medical and mental-health professionals. Her approach emphasizes trauma-informed, pleasure-based education and challenges the tendency to treat sexual difficulties exclusively as pathology. In 2023, she and Molly Adler taught an approved continuing-education course for therapists entitled “Treating Sexual Dysfunction with Fun and Accessible Solutions.” The training addressed common sexual concerns, strengths-based approaches, the PLISSIT model, and sexual-wellness tools. <c>
Self Serve has also been an important bridge between the University of New Mexico and Albuquerque’s alternative communities. They regularly provided educational programs at UNM, including sexuality and HIV/AIDS education, and has offered student discounts. The Daily Lobo has repeatedly featured Matie, Self Serve, and their work, introducing students to inclusive sexuality education, safer products, BDSM subjects, alternative relationships, and community resources. A 2024 profile described Self Serve’s regular UNM outreach, body-inclusive merchandise, emergency-contraception program, and mutual-aid support. <b>
This relationship became more than occasional newspaper coverage. Former Daily Lobo sexuality columnist and Self Serve educator Hunter Riley later co-hosted the 2017 podcast Show & Tell Sex with Matie. Produced by Self Serve in collaboration with KUNM, the program provided a public forum for subjects that were often excluded from conventional media. Its episodes addressed masturbation, masculinity, sexuality, relationships, and white supremacy within sexuality education. <d>
Matie and Molly Adler also created Pornotopia in 2007, an annual erotic-film festival presented independent adult films intended to offer more diverse, body-positive, queer, educational, and realistic representations of sexuality than those commonly found in commercial pornography. Matie argued that people needed to see desirable bodies that resembled their own and that adult media could be discussed publicly rather than surrounded by secrecy and shame. <e> Pornotopia subsequently became the center of a significant dispute over zoning and sexual expression. In 2008, The City of Albuquerque cited the Guild Cinema for operating as an improperly zoned adult-amusement establishment after it hosted the festival. Matie and Molly publicly challenged the city’s approach, worked with community supporters, organized a letter-writing campaign, and attempted to present an alternative event involving speakers, burlesque, performance, and free-speech advocacy. That event was eventually canceled after organizers and performers became concerned about threatened enforcement. <f> <g>
The legal case was formally pursued by the Guild Cinema with representation from the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico. On September 12, 2013, the New Mexico Supreme Court reversed the Guild’s conviction, ruling that occasionally showing adult films did not transform the theater into an adult-amusement establishment. The court resolved the case through interpretation of the zoning ordinance rather than deciding the broader First Amendment claims. Although Matie was not the plaintiff or attorney, the festival she and Molly created—and their refusal to confine it to hidden or conventionally “adult” spaces—produced an important public confrontation over the place of sexual expression in Albuquerque. <h>
Self Serve’s role has also included directing people toward community and social-service resources. Matie has described referrals to women-of-color organizations, the Transgender Resource Center of New Mexico, youth organizations, and the Rape Crisis Center of New Mexico. The expanded Self Serve Classroom hosted visiting educators, erotic-poetry readings, free classes for survivors of sexual assault, and community fundraisers. In 2019, a fundraiser held there for Brave Hearts, an LGBTQ prisoner organization, raised $1,785. <i>
By 2024, Self Serve also operated a community-funded emergency-contraception program, offered discounts to abortion providers and sex workers, and donated a portion of Tuesday profits to Albuquerque mutual-aid efforts. These are institutional programs rather than Matie’s work alone, but they reflect the social-change model she helped establish and sustain. Self Serve has also been recognized within the national development of feminist and queer-centered sexuality retail. Lynn Comella’s book Vibrator Nation places Self Serve among a generation of businesses that combined accurate sexual information with recognition of women, queer people, and gender-nonconforming people as sexual agents rather than merely consumers. <j>
Matie received the 2008 Tough Cookie Award from the National Association of Women Business Owners. Self Serve received Albuquerque Pride’s Outstanding Retail Store Award and was repeatedly selected as Albuquerque’s best sexuality-oriented store by the Weekly Alibi. These recognitions reflect both her entrepreneurship and the unusual community role the business came to occupy. <k>
Matie Fricker is notable because she helped move sexuality education from the margins into ordinary public life. Her work connected people who might never enter a formal BDSM organization or LGBTQ+ group with accurate information, alternative communities, and permission to explore their identities. Through Self Serve, teaching, media, Pornotopia, public advocacy, and community support, she helped make sexuality more discussable—and alternative sexualities more visible—across Albuquerque and New Mexico.
Sources: alibi.com/news/service-with-a-smile/ <a>, dailylobo.com/article/2024/02/self-serve-but-not-froyo <b>, sextherapynm.ce-go.com/treating-sexual-dysfunction-with-fun-and-accessible-solutions-3-hour-ce <c>, podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/show-tell-sex/id1243041155 <d>, kunm.org/local-news/2013-10-28/pornography-film-festival-is-back-in-action <e>, dailylobo.com/article/2010/10/zoning_issues_pause_porn_fest <f>, dailylobo.com/article/2010/11/porn_show_organizers_even_censored_too_risky <g>, aclu-nm.org/news/aclu-nm-case-overturns-guild-cinema-conviction-pornotopia-case/ <h>, southwestcontemporary.com/have-a-drink-with-matie-fricker-self-serve-sexuality/ <i>, assets-us-01.kc-usercontent.com/f7ca9afb-82c2-002a-a423-84e111d5b498/61cd4d33-a13b-4e73-9d62-8f258f027e55/978-0-8223-6866-3_601.pdf <j>, kunm.org/people/matie-fricker <k>.
Matie Fricker (left) and Molly Adler (Photo by Tina Larkin), from Weekly Alibi. Service With A Smile - Sex, The Self Serve Way, by Christie Chisholm, 03May2007. <a>
Self Serve Toys and Self Serve Sexuality Resource Center, 112 Morningside Dr NE, Albuquerque.
Guild Cinema: Independent Movie Theater in Albuquerque, 3405 Central Ave NE.
Matie Fricker, from KUNM Podcast "Show and Tell Sex" <k>
Ruben Gallegos
Communities: Leather, LGBTQ
Associations: NM Rise & Shine Bear, Rio Grande LEather, Albuquerque Leather Daddys, NM Leather Wolves, International Mr Leather, Leather Order of Honor and Service.
Period: ~2001-present
Ruben Gallegos is a New Mexican Leather community organizer, titleholder, mentor, and traditional artist. Known within the community as Daddy Ruben, he helped establish two important Albuquerque Leather organizations and remained active in local Leather, bear, title, education, performance, Pride, and charitable activities for nearly two decades.
Ruben was one of the founders of the New Mexico Leather Wolves, formed in June 2002 with Wes Grey Wolf and scott smith. The Wolves began as an informal network promoting consensual male-to-male leather and BDSM activity and subsequently became a more structured leathermen’s fraternity. Ruben served as the organization’s president during approximately 2006–2007.
In October 2004, Ruben became Mr. Rio Grande Leather 2004, serving alongside Julian Wolf, Ms. Rio Grande Leather 2004. These were the earliest documented titleholders in the Rio Grande Leather series, which followed New Mexico’s earlier Mr./Ms. New Mexico Leather titles. Ruben reportedly represented Rio Grande Leather at International Mr. Leather 2005 in Chicago. He subsequently received the Mama’s Family name “Mr Rio Grand.” He was also named NM Rise and Shine Bear 2006, reflecting his participation in New Mexico’s overlapping Leather and bear communities.
After leaving the Leather Wolves, Ruben and his partner, Alpha boy Rex—Rex Swanda, became principal founders and owners of Albuquerque Leather Daddys. Established in 2011, the Leather Daddys operated as a group of friends rather than a bylaw-driven organization. They produced monthly Gear Nights, Leather Curious educational programs, munches, play parties, Pride floats, contests, staged fantasies, charitable fundraisers, and the Southwest Leather Fair. The group raised money for local organizations including Casa Q and Southwest Care and remained active until the pandemic, formally ending in 2021. Ruben and Rex were known for large leather community gatherings in their home on Broadway NE, a home featured in the movie "Lonely are the Brave" staring Kirk Douglas.
Ruben and Rex also provided hospitality and informal mentorship to Leather community members and visitors. Ruben participated in staged leather fantasies, appeared at Leather Daddys events and Pride celebrations, and helped connect visiting national Leather personalities with Albuquerque’s community. He was recognized as a member of Amber Garland’s Leather Order of Honor and Service.
In 2010, Dave Rhodes, editor of The Leather Journal publicly thanked Daddy Ruben and Alpha Boy Rex for transporting him to and housing him during Rio Grande Leather, emphasizing the personal hospitality surrounding the event.
"Daddy Ruben and Alpha Boy Rex - Thank you for getting me to and housing me at Rio Grande Leather. I love the Sunday afternoon wind downs. Again, it's meeting the people off stage and away from things that make these events special."
Outside the Leather community, Ruben is a nationally recognized New Mexican santero whose work includes retablos, miniature religious paintings, painted storytellers, and eggshell art. His work draws upon his Hispanic and Taos Pueblo heritage and New Mexico’s devotional-art traditions. He participated in the 2023 Smithsonian Folklife Festival, and his artwork is represented in museum collections and exhibitions. He appears in a display at the Albuquerque Museum.
Ruben also appears within queer New Mexican art history. He was one of the Leather-community figures associated with Delmas Howe’s painting The Martyred Angel, along with Rex Swanda and artist David Zaintz. His life therefore connects several parts of New Mexico’s history that are often documented separately: traditional Hispanic and Indigenous-influenced art, gay culture, bear culture, Leather titles, BDSM relationships, community mentorship, public performance, and charitable service.
Ruben’s career as a traditional New Mexican santero gives him an unusual place in this history. He was born in Santa Cruz, New Mexico, with Hispanic heritage through his father and Taos Pueblo heritage through his mother. He studied art at New Mexico Highlands University and began pursuing devotional art professionally in the late 1980s.
Sources: The Leather Journal, including 2010, 2018, and 2020 coverage; New Mexico Leather Wolves archived websites; Albuquerque Leather Daddys archived website and Facebook page; Rio Grande Leather materials; Amber Garland and community interviews; Smithsonian Folklife Festival; Tradición Revista artist profile; Ruben Gallegos and Rex Swanda interviews or personal collections.
Sir Magnum with Ruben Gallegos when he was patched in Albuquerque Leather Daddys. Leather Curious series by Albuquerque Leather Daddys, 2017.
Amber Garland (Amber/Spiderlily)
Communities: Leatherdyke, Leather, BDSM and kink, lesbian and women’s communities, womyn’s-land communities, LGBTQ+
Associations: Leather Sister, Leather Life, Leather Order of Honor and Service, Alternative Erotic Lifestyles (AEL), New Mexico Leather League (NMLL), MaST, Rio Grande Leather, New Mexico Black Leather Weekend, Wicked Womyn Conference
Period: Active in Leather since 1973; New Mexico activity ~1975–1991, 2002–present
Amber Garland, also known in some Leather settings as Amber/Spiderlily, is a leatherdyke, educator, organizer, artist, and elder whose history connects New Mexico’s lesbian-feminist and womyn’s-land cultures with its later pansexual Leather and BDSM communities. Her contribution differs from that of people whose influence came primarily through titleholding or formal organizational office. Amber’s work grew from small women-created networks, independent education, personal ethics, and the recognition of service across community boundaries.
According to Amber’s oral history, she came out as a leatherdyke in 1973 while living in Maine. At the time, the most visible public Leather image was overwhelmingly male. She was attracted not simply to clothing or sexual practice, but to the intensity, integrity, and deliberate engagement with psychologically dangerous or socially forbidden territory that she heard Leather people describe. She was also involved with the Maine Gay Task Force before moving to New Mexico approximately two years later. <a>
In New Mexico during the 1970s and 1980s, Amber participated primarily in lesbian, feminist, and womyn’s-land communities rather than the men’s motorcycle and Leather organizations then developing in Albuquerque and Santa Fe. She describes Northern New Mexico womyn’s lands as collectives or intentional communities in which women attempted to create culture outside dominant male institutions. Participants shared inexpensive land, bartered labor, practiced nontraditional trades, raised children, cared for one another, and experimented with gender presentation and relationship roles. Many identified as lesbian, while others were bisexual, heterosexual, androgynous, or used other language available at the time. <a>
This womyn’s-land culture was often anti-hierarchical, anti-military, and skeptical of practices that appeared to reproduce patriarchal authority. Amber recalls that women exploring SM sometimes struggled to reconcile their desires with their feminist politics. Leather and BDSM activity occurred largely through friendship networks, private gatherings, and informal play rather than public organizations. Amber co-founded a tiny group called Leather Sister, consisting initially of two women and deliberately having no officers, rules, or formal structure. <a>
Amber’s oral history also describes an important ethical evolution within these networks. Early play could be intertwined with heavy drinking and drug use. After becoming sober, she came to regard abstaining from intoxicants during play as essential to integrity and safety. She credits small circles of sober leatherdykes during the late 1970s and early 1980s with helping develop and transmit stronger expectations concerning clear judgment, consent, safety, and responsibility. <a>
Amber moved to the Seattle area around 1991. There she encountered a larger and more organized womyn’s BDSM community, shared dungeon and play spaces, and groups with different structures using the same facilities. She identifies Alina Gabash as an important influence and recalls learning that BDSM could be understood as community, education, ritual, and psychological exploration rather than always being centered upon sex.
Artistic cutting became one of Amber’s best-documented educational subjects. The program for New Mexico Black Leather Weekend 2003 identifies her as “Amber/Spiderlily,” describes her as having been an out leatherdyke for thirty years, and states that she studied artistic cutting during a twelve-year period in Seattle. The program scheduled Amber to teach “Cutting” on October 18, 2003, and noted that she had recently presented at Seattle’s Wicked Womyn Conference. <b>
The Leather Journal separately described Wicked Womyn 2003 as a women’s SM conference attended by approximately 350–500 people. Together, these records establish Amber as an educator working within both women-centered BDSM spaces and Albuquerque’s increasingly pansexual Leather community. <c>
Upon returning to New Mexico in 2002, Amber found that the locally visible community had changed. The earlier leatherdyke and womyn’s-land networks had diminished, while Albuquerque’s organized BDSM environment had become more pansexual. Amber did not build her influence through long-term office in a single organization. Instead, she taught, presented, and participated across groups and events, including AEL, NMLL, MaST, Rio Grande Leather, and New Mexico Black Leather Weekend.
Amber created Leather Life, a series of small Albuquerque weekend gatherings devoted to discussion, workshops, and the lived meaning of Leather. Held approximately twice a year from about 2004 through 2014, the gatherings generally drew between ten and thirty participants, including visitors from elsewhere in the United States and Canada. Leather Life was educational and relational rather than primarily a play party. Its programs examined Leather identity, ethics, protocol, relationships, consent, service, and difficult questions within power exchange. <a>
Local groups supporting or participating in various Leather Life gatherings included AEL, NMLL, the New Mexico Leather Wolves, girls of Leather: Albuquerque Metro, and New Mexico: The Next Generation. Presenters included Pat Baillie, Chuck Higgins, Stan Alexander, and other local and visiting educators. <d>
Amber also established the Leather Order of Honor and Service to recognize people who embodied the values of Honor, Honesty, Love, and Service. She presented recipients with a patch and additional patches they could use to honor others. The Order was therefore not a conventional membership organization controlled by its founder. Amber intended recognition to move outward through the community, allowing each recipient to continue the act of honoring service without seeking her permission.
Documented recipients include Stan Alexander, Kathryn Alexander, Leslie Anderson, Mauro Walden-Montoya, Ruben Gallegos, Rex Swanda, and Diane Wolf. <a> <d> Leather Order of Honor and Service is also recognized in this history under GROUPS.
Amber's philosophy combined protocol and a strong code of honor with resistance to rigid or punitive community hierarchy. She has argued that wrongdoing should not automatically result in permanent excommunication when ignorance, repair, education, or changed behavior may offer a better response. This position reflects a recurring theme in her work: Leather requires integrity precisely because it engages power, risk, vulnerability, and shadow, but integrity also requires judgment, proportionality, and room for restoration.
Amber’s influence extends beyond Leather education. A womyn’s arts publication describes her as “an elder, weaver, dyke, teacher, and tree-hugger” and features her woven tapestry “Feed One Another,” depicting people and foods from places affected by war, colonization, and political upheaval. That work reflects the broader feminist, mutual-aid, and justice-oriented culture from which her Leather practice developed. <e>
Amber received a Rio Grande Leather Community Service Award in 2008 for her work and dedication to the community. On October 19, 2024, Corazón Leather presented her with the inaugural Steve Wearden Lifetime Achievement Award, recognizing the time and energy she had given to New Mexico Leather culture. The relationship between these two honors is especially meaningful: Steve Wearden presented the earlier Rio Grande Leather recognition, and the later award bearing his name again honored Amber’s service.
Amber continued teaching at these events:
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Kinktoberfest 2025
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“Avoiding Crossed Wires: Roles and the Flow of Power” — an interactive examination of terminology, assumptions, roles, archetypes, and how power actually flows within relationships.
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“FemDom History & Futures” — a discussion of the diverse history of FemDoms and their intersections with Leather and kink communities. <f>
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NM Leather & Kink Fair, April 11, 2026
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“Artistic Cutting” — covering cutting as bonding, sensuality, SM play, ceremony, artistic expression, and power exchange. It included ethics, safety, placement, techniques, aftercare, a demonstration, and optional closely mentored practice. <g>
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Amber is notable because she preserves a strand of New Mexico Leather history that formal club and title records can easily miss. Her history demonstrates that Leather in New Mexico did not develop only through gay men’s motorcycle clubs, bars, contests, and incorporated organizations. It also developed through leatherdykes, womyn’s lands, private play networks, recovery communities, feminist argument, informal teaching, small gatherings, and people willing to carry ideas across communities that did not always understand or welcome one another.
Sources: Interview with Amber (24 Dec 2024) <a>, New Mexico Black Leather Weekend 2003 program at nm-real.org/_files/ugd/1586e8_dc7a11fb93334264a13d788678c3c1d4.pdf <b>, theleatherjournal.com/news/2003 <c>, GROUPS <d>, writersadventure.com/feed-one-another/ <e>, Kinktoberfest 2025 program guide at nm-real.org/_files/ugd/1586e8_e9ac4e5b9c5f4fff9fb94fed211cbb3e.pdf <f>, nm-real.org/post/amber-educator-announcement-new-mexico-leather-kink-fair-10-11-apr-2026 <g>.
Feed One Another, Tapestry, Amber Garland, 14″ x 28″ woven tapestry showing figures in traditional dress with traditional foods from places experiencing crisis, war, colonization and political upheavals. <e>
Sir George (Saltzman)
Communities: Leather, BDSM, Master/submissive, LGBTQ+
Associations: Albuquerque Leather Daddys (dog-tag affiliation), Albuquerque boys of Leather, Arizona Leather Bears and Cubs, Mama’s Family, Leather Archives & Museum, National Coalition for Sexual Freedom
Titles: Southwest LeatherSIR 2012–2013, International LeatherSIR 2013–2014
Period: c. 1995–present; documented New Mexico association, 2012–c. 2015
Sir George (George Saltzman), is a BDSM practitioner, Master, contest judge, and international Leather titleholder. Formerly based in Phoenix, Arizona, he later lived in Pittsburgh and, by 2026, in Rockford, Illinois.
Saltzman’s BDSM experience began around 1995, when he was approximately twenty-one and serving in the United States Air Force in Arkansas. An older and experienced mentor introduced him to a broad range of BDSM practices. Saltzman entered this relationship without an understanding of Leather culture, organizations, or titleholding. His practical BDSM education therefore preceded his identification with the organized Leather community. One of his mentor’s central lessons was that someone giving an experience should understand what it feels like to receive it. <f>
After leaving the Air Force, marrying his first husband, and later losing him, Saltzman sought community in Arizona. He began attending Phoenix Leather and Levi spaces and entered the Mr. Phoenix Leather contest, finishing as runner-up. After local encouragement, he subsequently entered the Southwest LeatherSIR contest, which emphasized BDSM ability and player experience. During the inaugural Leather in the Desert Weekend in Phoenix, March 1–4, 2012, Saltzman won Southwest LeatherSIR 2012, while Bamm Bamm won Southwest Leatherboy 2012. The newly formed Albuquerque boys of Leather presented their colors publicly for the first time during that weekend. <b>
When no new LeatherSIR contestant entered the 2013 Southwest contest, Saltzman agreed to carry the regional title for a second term. He did so only after establishing that any new contestant would take precedence. During the same contest, his partner Michael won Southwest Leatherboy. On Labor Day weekend in 2013, Saltzman represented the Southwest region at the International LeatherSIR, Leatherboy and Community Bootblack contest in Dallas, where he won International LeatherSIR 2013. He completed his international title year in September 2014. <c> <g>
Saltzman’s connection to New Mexico developed through his regional title partnership with Bamm Bamm and their relationships with the Albuquerque boys of Leather and Albuquerque Leather Daddys. He recalled that Bamm Bamm regarded their titles as representing the entire Southwest and intentionally reached beyond Phoenix to communities that regional titleholders did not always visit. George and Bamm Bamm traveled to Albuquerque and performed their contest fantasy at Sidewinders during a community program that appears to have been the April 14, 2012 Under Cover of Darkness production. The event, presented by Albuquerque Leather Daddys during Spring Pandemonium Leather Weekend, publicly introduced Albuquerque boys of Leather to the local community. <e> <f>
Saltzman estimates that he visited Albuquerque approximately five times between 2012 and 2014 or 2015. He developed friendships with Rex Swanda and Ruben Gallegos, stayed in their home, attended Albuquerque Leather Daddys and Albuquerque boys of Leather activities, and visited Albuquerque Social Club once with members of the boys’ organization. Albuquerque also held a celebration after Bamm Bamm won International Leatherboy 2012 and George placed fourth in that year’s International LeatherSIR contest. <f>
During Saltzman’s International LeatherSIR title year, Albuquerque Leather Daddys hosted a Gear Night and fundraiser for him at Sidewinders on February 1, 2014. George recalled that the Daddys printed a professional contest photograph and sold copies that he autographed to help finance his title travel. The visit also included a cookout at the home of Rex and Ruben. The Daddys presented George with the organization’s dog tag as a sign of inclusion. <a> <e> <f>
George’s New Mexico importance is therefore best understood as that of a regional emissary and community connector, rather than a resident or local organizational leader. Through repeated visits, performances, fundraising, personal friendships, and collaboration with Albuquerque organizations, he brought the Southwest and international Leather title systems into closer contact with New Mexico. At the same time, Albuquerque community members supported his regional and international work and became part of the network he represented while traveling.
A 2014 profile identified Saltzman as a member of the Arizona Leather Bears and Cubs, Leather Archives & Museum, National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, and Albuquerque Leather Daddys. It also credited him with participating in fundraisers and demonstrations. He subsequently judged numerous contests, including International Mr. and Ms. Olympus Leather, Drummer North America, and International LeatherSIR and Leatherboy. Mama’s Family recognized him as Mama’s Black Magic when Sandy Reinhart (Mama) personally inducted him at a formal dinner where they were both present, saying, "Here's your pin. You're in Mama's Family now!" and proceeded to pin George and then Bamm Bamm. Later, Mama forgot George was already in the family and asked him to join (a second time). He chose the family name Mama’s Leather Hades based upon his interest in attending a Broadway play, Hadestown. Around 2021 or 2022, Master Mike Zuhl formally covered Saltzman as a Master, recognizing his skill, trustworthiness, integrity, and accumulated experience. <a> <d> <f>
Sources: theleatherjournal.com/news/870-international-mr-and-ms-olympus-leather-2014-judges-named <a>; theleatherjournal.com/news/southwest-leather-sir-george-saltzman-leatherboy-bamm-bamm <b>; theleatherjournal.com/news/international-leather-sir-leatherboy-and-community-bootblack-2013-results-from-dallas-texas <c>; mamas-family.org/boys_girls.html <d>; Albuquerque Leather Daddys event records and February 1, 2014 Sidewinders Gear Night announcement <e>; George Saltzman interview by Bear Mike August 20, 2026, New Mexico Alternative Communities History Project; theleatherjournal.com/news/leather-sir-leatherboy-community-bootblack-2014-winners <g>.
Jayson DaBoi Johnson
Communities: Leather, LGBTQ
Associations: International Ms. Bootblack, Corazon Leather, MaST, ABQ Eagle, Southwest Bootblack Contest, NM Fantasy, Mr New Mexico Leather.
Period: ~1996-present
Jayson DaBoi Johnson is an Albuquerque bootblack, educator, titleholder, contest producer, and longtime Leather community volunteer. Although now somewhat retired from regular bootblack work, Jayson remains an important link between New Mexico’s historic bootblack tradition and its contemporary Leather and kink communities.
Jayson was mentored in bootblacking by Leslie Anderson, Albuquerque’s resident bootblack from approximately 1996 until Leslie moved to Chicago in 2005. Jayson subsequently became a prominent working bootblack in Albuquerque, serving as the Official Bootblack of the Albuquerque Eagle and operating bootblack stands at Leather and kink events in New Mexico and throughout the Southwest. Jayson has taught leather care and bootblacking classes and mentored other bootblacks, including Rowan. Jayson’s work has included boots, vests, chaps, corsets, and other leather garments. <d> Jayson was the 1997 Ms. New Mexico Fantasy title winner.
Jayson won Ms. Rio Grande Leather 2010 at the contest held in 2009. They subsequently competed at International Ms Leather and International Ms Bootblack and were selected International Ms Bootblack 2010, representing Albuquerque and the Rio Grande Leather title. Two bootblacks competed for the international title that year. <c>
Jayson understood bootblacking as more than leather maintenance. Their title philosophy described boots as a person’s foundation for walking through Leather life and proposed that everyone should have access to a strong and well-cared-for foundation. Bootblacking also created an intimate service space in which skills, history, conversation, and community relationships could be shared.
Jayson remained active in regional bootblack culture following their title year. They regularly worked at the Southwest Leather Conference, served as head judge of the Southwest Bootblack Contest in 2014, moderated bootblack discussions, restored donated boots for fundraising, and supported other bootblacks and titleholders. In a 2014 interview, Southwest Bootblack 2009 slave tabitha arie described Jayson as a “phenomenal bootblack” whose passion and energy influenced others working beside them. <b>
Jayson also helped preserve the history of women and gender-diverse bootblacks. Following the twenty-fifth anniversary of International Ms Leather, Jayson and L.E. LeGirl proposed a documentary recording the experiences and contributions of International Ms Bootblack titleholders. In late 2011, Jayson approached filmmaker and archivist Christina Court about the project. Their efforts developed into the documentary High Shine: 15 Years of International Ms Bootblack, which premiered at CineKink in New York in 2015. The production gathered interviews with former titleholders and recovered historical recordings stored on VHS, mini-discs, and other aging media. <e>
In 2023, Andrew “Andy” Walden-Montoya transferred ownership and production of the Corazón Leather Contest to Jayson. Jayson moved the contest into a new stage of its development, initially producing it at the Albuquerque Social Club. They removed gender designations from the awarded titles and placed greater emphasis on service extending across different parts of New Mexico’s Leather, kink, BDSM, and alternative communities. Under Jayson’s production, the contest awarded titles to Lash Onyx and Stellar in 2023, Candy and Tatra in 2024, and Phoenix Arisen in 2025. The 2025 contest expanded into a daylong event at the Black Cat Cultural Center incorporating classes, a Carter/Johnson Library annex, the title contest, and a play party. <f>
Jayson’s legacy combines hands-on service, teaching, international title representation, historical preservation, mentoring, and community leadership. Their career illustrates how the bootblack stand can function simultaneously as a workplace, classroom, gathering place, spiritual space, and point of connection between generations.
Sources: nmleatherleague.com/instructor/jayson-daboi/ <a>, theleatherjournal.com/news/imsbb-2014-contestant-slave-tabitha-arie <b>, nmleatherleague.com/new-mexico-leather-title-heritage/ <c>, nm-real.org/nm-leather-history-artisans/ <d> The Leather Journal 22Mar2015 theleatherjournal.com/news/tag/High%20Shine-%2015%20Years%20of%20International%20Ms%20Bootblack/ <e>, corazonleathernm.com/ <f>
Ceremony where Jayson DaBoi Johnson was acknowledge and honored as being an "Official ABQ Eagle Bootblack" with patches and stickers. Sidewinders S4200 cabaret, 4 June 2022.
Jayson DaBoi Johnson, erotic bootblacking, for Lash Onyx, 2022, Albuquerque Social Club.
Corazon Leather Contest 2023, Jayson DaBoi Johnson on stage with his two title holders for this event, past titleholders, and others helping with the event, Albuquerque Social Club.
Sir Magnum / Magnum Masters
Communities: Leather, Kink/BDSM, LGBTQ+, Men of Color
Associations: FetishMenSanDiego, Butchmanns Experience, Albuquerque Leather Daddys, Corazón Leather, New Mexico Leather League, ONYX.
Period: ~2013/2015–present; active in New Mexico since ~2016
Sir Magnum, also known as Magnum Masters, became active in Albuquerque’s Leather community after moving from San Diego around 2016. In San Diego, he was associated with FetishMenSanDiego (FMSD), the gay men’s Leather, kink, and fetish community founded by Papa Tony Lindsey. Magnum was mentored or “covered” by Papa Tony and brought experience in Leather culture, education, and community organizing to New Mexico. In January 2015, before moving to Albuquerque, Magnum worked with Butchmanns Arizona to bring the Butchmanns Experience, an intensive exploration of Leather identity, heart, and spirit, to San Diego for the first time. <a>
A FMSD announcement for "Magnum's Bon Voyage Dinner DiMille's, Tuesday August 2, 2016" described Magnum as a highly involved member, "When we needed a solid leader, he stepped right up. He has created and co-created many of our best, most-prestigious events." It also announced that he was moving to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to be with family. <g>
After arriving in Albuquerque, Magnum became involved with the Albuquerque Leather Daddys, then the city’s principal organization for gay and bisexual Leathermen. He was patched into the organization by cofounder Ruben Gallegos and participated in its socials, Pride appearances, educational programs, Leather fairs, fantasies, and community-service activities. Magnum also helped establish a munch associated with the Leather Daddys, providing a more informal entry point for people interested in meeting the community. The primary location for this munch was Carraro's and Joe's Place, on Vassar SE near Central which is now closed. At this location on Nov 13th, 2018, Magnum capped Ty the Gentleman. During this time Magnum became a member of Mama Sandy Reinhardt’s Leather family under the name Mama’s Strong Black Bull. <b>
In 2018, Magnum and boy Christian won the Mr. Corazón Leather titles at the Sheraton Albuquerque Airport Hotel during a New Mexico Leather League event. The two remained the reigning titleholders through the interruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and formally passed their titles to Uncle Jaie and boy Chris during Spring Pandemonium in April 2022.
Education became an important part of Magnum’s contribution to New Mexico. In 2019, he organized Masters Academy BDSM: New Mexico, a multi-month educational program held at the New Mexico Clubhouse on Hawkins Street. The academy was intended to provide participants with broad and structured exposure to BDSM skills, safety, relationships, protocols, and community culture, culminating in a graduation. The project continued the educational emphasis Magnum had previously demonstrated through FetishMenSanDiego and the Butchmanns Experience.
Magnum later served as president of New Mexico Leather League, helping oversee its pansexual educational, social, dungeon, and conference activities. <c> He was also involved with ONYX, the national organization for Leather people of color. In 2020, The Leather Journal identified Magnum as one of four ONYX members in Albuquerque participating in a virtual CLAW cigar social. <d> In 2021, he joined Bear Marvin, Bear Mike, and Pup Spike in hosting an ONYX-sponsored, first-Saturday Albuquerque munch that welcomed members of the wider Leather and kink community. <e>
Magnum’s history illustrates the transfer of Leather knowledge between regional communities. He brought experience and mentorship from San Diego, became a titleholder and educator in Albuquerque, and helped connect the Leather Daddys, New Mexico Leather League, Corazón Leather, ONYX, and the broader pansexual kink community.
Sources: theleatherjournal.com/news/content/26-club-news <a>, mamas-family.org/boys_girls.html <b>, theleatherjournal.com/hump-day/dave-rhodes-hump-day-may-16-2022 <c>, theleatherjournal.com/hump-day/dave-rhodes-hump-day-november-4-2020 <d>, theleatherjournal.com/hump-day/dave-rhodes-hump-day-april-28-2021 <e>, local interactions by Bear Mike <f>, fetishmensandiego.org/Leather-History/San%20Diego/2016/2016-07-25%20Magnums%20Bon%20Voyage%20Dinner%20DiMilles%20Tuesday%20August%202/index.htm <g>.
Sir Magnum with Ruben Gallegos when he was patched in Albuquerque Leather Daddys. Leather Curious series by Albuquerque Leather Daddys, 2017.
Sir Magnum being capped by Papa Tony at SanDiegoFetishMen event.
Sir Magnum capping Ty The Gentleman in a ceremony at Carraro's & Joes Place, Daddys Munch, 13 Nov 2018.
Diva Marie
Communities: Leather, BDSM, kink, women’s Leather, professional domination, pansexual
Associations: Alternative Erotic Lifestyles (AEL), Sandia Leathermen/Leatherwomen, New Mexico NEWSLEATHER, WEST–Women Exploring SM Themes, Weekly Alibi Fetish Events, Crushed Velvet Rope, Ms. New Mexico Leather, International Ms. Leather
Period: Late circa 1989/1990–2004 (in NM)
Diva Marie was an Albuquerque Leather and BDSM organizer, educator, professional Dominant, writer, publisher, titleholder, and event producer whose work extended across several parts of New Mexico’s alternative communities. Particularly active during the 1990s and early 2000s, she helped establish enduring organizations, expanded women’s participation in Leather leadership, created educational and social spaces, and introduced BDSM and fetish culture to broader Albuquerque audiences.
Diva began exploring BDSM in the late 1980s and became a professional Dominant in Albuquerque around 1993. Her professional work included telephone domination and live sessions, followed by participation in an independent professional-domination business. She continued doing professional work through much of the 1990s and sometimes worked while traveling. She later described teaching classes on beginning roleplay, negotiation, age play, gender play, and the use of music in scenes at gatherings around the country.
In 1991 or 1992, Diva, Jenny, Melissa, and several other early participants established Alternative Erotic Lifestyles (AEL). In Diva’s recollection, the organization was “born in our living room” after she and others wanted play parties that were social, enjoyable, and less rigidly controlled than some existing private gatherings. Early AEL events combined potluck meals, conversation, education, and BDSM play in private homes. Alcohol was not permitted, and the organization emphasized safe, sane, and consensual practices. AEL became one of Albuquerque’s longest-running pansexual BDSM organizations and continued long after Diva moved away. The current history identifies 1991 as its founding year, while Diva recalled 1992; an August 1992 AEL newsletter confirms that the organization was active by then. <a>
Diva also became active in Sandia Leathermen and Sandia Leatherwomen. Diva became the first woman to serve as president of the combined Sandia Leather organization and also served as secretary. This was a significant development within a club that had begun primarily in gay male Leather culture but increasingly incorporated women into its membership, leadership, contests, education, fundraising, Pride activities, and public representation.
Together with Leslie Anderson, Diva published and edited New Mexico NEWSLEATHER, a locally produced newsletter reporting on Leather organizations, titleholders, events, personalities, education, and community issues. Five issues were published from September 1995 through May 1996. Diva made photocopies for community distribution, while she and Leslie assembled contributions from local and national Leather figures. The newsletter was intended to appear every two months, but its publication ended as the editors became increasingly busy and Internet communication began displacing small print newsletters. Complete copies of the five known issues are preserved by the Leather Archives & Museum and in this history project. <b> See the MEDIA page to read the NEWSLEATHER.
Diva also used the early Internet to communicate with Leather and BDSM audiences beyond New Mexico. Her late-1990s website, Diva Marie’s Domain, combined professional information, community links, published fiction, and extended commentary. She maintained links to New Mexico organizations, a community calendar, and information about an Albuquerque women’s BDSM discussion group. <h>
Her essay “Growing Pains,” written from her experience as president of Sandia Leather, provides a particularly valuable contemporary interpretation of New Mexico’s expanding community. Diva argued that the formation of additional organizations should not automatically be understood as destructive division. It could instead demonstrate that the community had become sufficiently large and diverse to support specialization, different leadership, and multiple points of entry. Her writing encouraged established organizations to regard disagreement and new groups as part of community development rather than as threats to institutional control. <g>
Other writings reveal the educational dimension of her professional work. In “You Do What?” Diva described telephone domination and personal sessions as involving listening, reassurance, and normalization as much as fantasy. “How to Write to a Dominatrix” offered extensive advice about honesty, compatibility, boundaries, respectful communication, and treating dominant women as complete people rather than instruments for fulfilling a submissive’s fantasies. <g>
Diva won the Ms. New Mexico Leather 1997 title alongside Mr. New Mexico Leather Dennis Dunnum. She represented New Mexico at International Ms. Leather later that year and finished as second runner-up, placing third overall. <c> <d> Her title activity was part of a broader period of travel and national engagement. Diva and Leslie Anderson traveled together for approximately five years, attending gatherings in cities including Atlanta, Portland, and New Orleans. Their intention was not simply to appear as titleholders, but to meet people, exchange information, represent New Mexico, and strengthen connections with the wider Leather community. Dennis Dunnum, Mr. New Mexico Leather 1997, became Diva’s “title husband” and remained an important friend and source of shared historical material.
Diva also wrote about BDSM and sexuality. Her essay “SM as Philosophy” appeared in Some Women, edited by Laura Antoniou and published by Masquerade Books in 1994. Her story “Simple Gifts” appeared in Herotica 6: A New Collection of Women’s Erotica, edited by Marcy Sheiner and published in 1999. The latter is independently confirmed in the volume’s table of contents. <e>
With discussions about formation starting in 1998, and more robust operations from fall 1999 through spring 2000, Diva organized WEST—Women Exploring SM Themes, initially called the Leather New Mexico Women’s Discussion Group. Meetings were held in her home and provided women—including transgender women—with a place to discuss SM, bondage, fetish interests, relationships, and community resources. WEST sought to normalize consensual SM interests while helping participants distinguish BDSM from abuse. Its materials included an “SM and Abuse Policy Statement” and contact information for local and national organizations. Although WEST lasted less than a year because of changes in Diva’s personal circumstances, it represented an early attempt to create an explicitly women-centered and trans-inclusive BDSM space in Albuquerque.
After stepping back from some Leather activity around 1999, Diva became involved with Albuquerque’s Goth, music, and fetish scenes. Beginning around 2001, she worked with the Weekly Alibi to produce a series of large fetish-oriented events, frequently at the Launchpad in downtown Albuquerque. The events appeared under different names and were advertised carefully because of concern about conservative opposition and official scrutiny. Even with limited advertising, attendance sometimes filled the venue.
Diva produced these events with her live performance troupe, Crushed Velvet Rope, combining fetish performance, BDSM imagery, music, and public entertainment. These activities helped carry BDSM beyond private play parties and formal Leather contests into Albuquerque’s broader nightlife and alternative arts culture. The later Alibi Fetish Balls continued evolving under other producers, but Diva’s early events were an important part of establishing that bridge. <f>
Diva moved to Colorado in 2004 after her husband obtained work in Denver. She was less consistently active during her fourteen years there, although she continued attending some major events. At the final Whip It! Ball at Denver’s Rock Island in 2006, she operated a wax-play booth and presented a bone-saw scene. She later relocated to Texas.
Diva Marie’s historical importance lies in the range of roles she occupied during a formative period. She helped create a pansexual BDSM organization, became the first woman to lead Sandia Leather, co-published one of New Mexico’s earliest Leather newsletters, created a women’s discussion space, represented New Mexico nationally, taught BDSM subjects around the country, published writing, and brought fetish performance into Albuquerque’s public alternative culture. Together, these activities made her one of the important connectors among Albuquerque’s women’s Leather, pansexual BDSM, professional-domination, titleholder, publishing, music, and nightlife communities. She was a community architect, commentator, educator, publisher, and early digital connector whose surviving writings help interpret the evolution of New Mexico Leather and BDSM—not merely documenting her participation in it.
Sources: GROUPS <a>, MEDIA <b>, black-rose.com/cuiru/archive/3-6/imsl.html <c>, nmleatherleague.com/new-mexico-leather-title-heritage/ <d>, abebooks.com/signed-first-edition/HEROTICA-6-New-Collection-Womens-Erotica/13260864739/bd <e>, EVENTS <f>, web.archive.org/web/199812020657 40/http://nmol.com/users/diva/writing.htm#assboy <g>, web.archive.org/web/19990128074742/http://www.nmol.com/users/diva/DM .htm <h>.
Ms New Mexico Leather 1997 Diva Marie and Mr New Mexico Leather Dennis Dunnum, Sandia Leather, Albuquerque, NM
Sandia Leathermen, Dennis Dunnum (Mr NM Leather 1997 and Diva Marie (Ms NM Leather 1997) at Sandia Leathermen's 1998 contest.
Richard (Dick) Marleau (1933-1996)
Communities: Leather, Levi, Gay, Motorcycle Clubs
Associations: Hijos del Sol, Motorcyclemen of New Mexico, Rocky Mountaineers Motorcycle Club, A.C.L.O.A., Albuquerque Social Club, Albuquerque Civic Light Opera Association (ACLOA)
Period: Before 1967–1996; principal New Mexico activity 1971/1972–1996
Richard or “Dick” Marleau was an early organizer of Albuquerque’s gay Leather and Levi community. He co-founded Hijos del Sol in July 1978, participated in the creation and early activity of the Motorcyclemen of New Mexico, and was a founding member and longtime board member of the Albuquerque Social Club. Based on the surviving record, Dick may be the earliest presently identified individual to bring direct experience from the established California motorcycle-club and Chicago Leather cultures into organized Leather activity in New Mexico.
Dick was born in Los Angeles on July 22, 1933, the only child of Clyde and Mabel Marleau. His family home was in Corona, California, and he later lived in Laguna Beach. He served in the United States Navy. Photographs preserved by his friend Richard Van Steenburg show him with a motorcycle in California before 1967, indicating that his association with motorcycle and Leather culture began well before his arrival in New Mexico.
Community recollections initially identified Dick as a member of the Satyrs Motorcycle Club of Los Angeles. Subsequent inquiry with the Satyrs found no record of him as a patched member. The most accurate description is therefore that Dick participated in the Los Angeles gay motorcycle-club environment and likely rode or socialized with members of the Satyrs, but his formal membership has not been established.
Dick subsequently moved to Chicago, where he worked in furniture sales at the downtown Marshall Field & Company store, now Macy’s on State Street. There he met Richard Van Steenburg, who worked in the store’s men’s department. They became lifelong friends. Dick also met Mike Pierson through their Marshall Field employment, and Dick and Mike became lovers.
Dick and Mike moved from Chicago to Albuquerque around 1971 or 1972. The contemporary obituary states that Dick became an Albuquerque resident in 1971, while Richard Van Steenburg remembers the couple leaving Chicago in 1972. Richard began visiting them in Albuquerque in 1974 and moved to the city himself in 1981. He and Dick later lived together as friends from approximately 1984 through 1988. Richard ultimately served as executor of Dick’s estate.
In July 1978, Dick and Tom Harris established Hijos del Sol, or “Children of the Sun.” Hijos del Sol was an early men’s Levi and Leather organization centered on camping, social gatherings, travel, and participation in the regional gay motorcycle-club network. Although commonly described as a motorcycle club, ownership of a motorcycle was apparently not required. The organization developed formal officers and levels of membership and maintained relationships with groups in neighboring states.
Hijos del Sol met at venues including Foxes and the Albuquerque Social Club. It later operated in association with Common Bond, an important early Albuquerque gay and lesbian organization. The club’s recurring Balloon Run, held during the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta, brought visitors and members together for outdoor activity, hospitality, and Leather fellowship. Documented runs include Balloon Run VI in 1983 through Balloon Run IX in 1986, although the numbering indicates that the tradition began with the organization’s founding period. Contemporary directories continued listing Hijos del Sol through at least 1992.
Dick was also an associate member of the Rocky Mountaineers Motorcycle Club of Colorado and attended its Golden Fleece Runs. These relationships connected Albuquerque to the older gay motorcycle-club system of the western United States. Pins, advertisements, photographs, and club materials show Hijos del Sol exchanging hospitality and friendship with organizations including the Tucson Knight Owls and participating in events held by other regional clubs.
In 1981, another group of New Mexico riders incorporated the Motorcyclemen of New Mexico, commonly called MMNM or the M&Ms. Dick became involved in the organization’s early development and eventually shifted his principal participation from Hijos del Sol to MMNM. The two organizations overlapped for several years but remained separate groups. Dick’s movement between them helped transfer relationships and club traditions from Albuquerque’s first identified Levi/Leather organization into the motorcycle club that became central to the city’s Leather activity during the 1980s and 1990s. Leslie Anderson knew Dick through MMNM and became an associate member in the organization.
Dick also helped establish the Albuquerque Social Club, which became one of the principal institutional homes of Albuquerque’s LGBTQ+ community. He served on its board for many years. The Social Club functioned not merely as a bar but as a meeting place for community organizations, fundraising, entertainment, and social support. Both Hijos del Sol and MMNM used it as a gathering place, making Dick’s involvement in the club particularly important to the developing Leather community.
After arriving in Albuquerque, Dick also became active in the Albuquerque Civic Light Opera Association (ACLOA), the community musical-theatre organization now known as Musical Theatre Southwest. ACLOA adopted that name in 1972, around the same time Dick moved to Albuquerque from Chicago. His participation demonstrates that his community involvement extended beyond Leather and motorcycle organizations into Albuquerque’s broader cultural life.
Dick was diagnosed with or became seriously ill from HIV/AIDS by approximately 1989. Despite declining health, photographs and recollections document his continued connection with friends and community into the mid-1990s. He also remained active in fundraising for AIDS-related charities. This work joined his earlier organizational leadership with the urgent service needs created by the epidemic.
Dick died in Albuquerque on November 2, 1996, at age 63. His obituary requested memorial contributions to New Mexico AIDS Services or the New Mexico Breast Cancer Coalition. Cremation followed his death. Richard Van Steenburg managed Dick’s affairs and preserved some of his personal Leather history, including an early California photograph and his club vest. Richard later donated the vest to the Leather Archives & Museum in Chicago, returning an artifact from Dick’s New Mexico life to the city where the two men had first met.
Dick Marleau appears to be one of the foundational individuals in New Mexico’s organized Leather history. His importance does not rest upon a title or a single event. He carried experience from California’s gay motorcycle culture and Chicago’s Leather environment into Albuquerque at a time when the city had little formal Leather infrastructure.
Through Hijos del Sol, Dick helped establish New Mexico’s earliest presently documented men’s Levi/Leather organization. Through the Motorcyclemen of New Mexico, he helped connect that beginning to a more durable motorcycle-club tradition. Through the Albuquerque Social Club, he helped provide the physical and organizational setting in which Leather people and other LGBTQ+ residents could gather, build institutions, and respond collectively to the AIDS epidemic.
The surviving record may eventually reveal Leather activity in New Mexico predating Dick’s arrival. Until such evidence is found, however, Dick is the strongest identifiable link between the established postwar gay motorcycle-club movement and the organized Leather culture that emerged in Albuquerque during the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Sources: Richard Van Steenburg interview (30Dec2024), Casey Newkirk interview (14Jun24), Leslie Anderson interviews (14June24, ...), Dennis Dunnum interviews (12Jun24, ...), Dick Marleau obituary, November 10, 1996, Hijos del Sol advertisement listing, photographs, pins, and run materials, Leather Archives & Museum research and inspection of Marleau's vest, GROUPS, EVENTS, email exchange with Saytrs M/C about Marleau.
Dick Marleau, co-founder of Hijos del Sol and Motorcyclemen of NM, taken in California, before 1967. <e>
"At the MNM Installation of Officers for 1990, standing: Frank, Richard (Saiser), Walt, Pat, and Paul. Unable to stand: Larry, Dick (Marleau), and Bill. We chose not to print the photo of the entire group because the flash made everybody look like zombies. (at least, we're pretty sure it was the flash)." From MMNM Newsletter, Issue Number 29, Dec-Mar 1990.
Dick Marleau's vest, Leather Archives & Museum research (17Oct24).
Bear Marvin, Lash Onyx
Communities: Leather, Kink, BDSM, Bear, LGBTQ+, BIPOC
Associations: Onyx Men of Color, Onyx Lone Star, Onyx High Desert, Domum Corium Cordis, Albuquerque Leather Daddys, the 15 Association, Mama’s Family
Period: 1990–present; New Mexico Leather leadership ~2018–present
Bear Marvin, also known as Lash Onyx, is a New Mexico Leather titleholder, organizer, educator, and advocate for BIPOC participation in Leather and BDSM communities. He is a co-founder and past president of Onyx High Desert, co-head of Domum Corium Cordis—House of Leather Heart, New Mexico Leather Bear 2019, Corazón Leather 2023, and a recipient of the Onyx Mufasa’s Lion Strength Award.
Marvin’s community service predates his organized New Mexico Leather involvement. While serving in the United States Navy, he volunteered in HIV/AIDS awareness and education. He also participated in the 1993 March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay, and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation. These experiences occurred when military service, open LGBTQ+ identity, and HIV/AIDS advocacy could carry significant personal and professional consequences. They provided an early foundation for his later emphasis on visibility, inclusion, health, and service. <a> <i>
After becoming active in Albuquerque’s Leather community, Marvin participated with the Albuquerque Leather Daddys and in events including Leather Fiesta. In November 2018, he won the New Mexico Leather Bear 2019 title in a contest produced by the Leather Daddys. One of his first title-year activities raised $370 and three boxes of food for Southwest CARE Center, which provides HIV and LGBTQ+ health services in Albuquerque. He later judged the 2020 New Mexico Leather Bear and Cub contest. <g> <h> <i>
In 2018, Marvin and his husband, Bear Mike, established Domum Corium Cordis, Latin for House of Leather Heart. They serve as co-heads of the Leather family house, which is organized around the principles of family, integrity, and altruism. The house has produced educational resources, community events, recorded dungeon-monitor training, and programs addressing BDSM skills, inclusion, conflict, and Leather history. Its back patch was added to the Leather Quilt in 2025. <b>
Because New Mexico did not yet have an Onyx chapter, Marvin initially joined Onyx Lone Star in Dallas, Texas and adopted the name Lash Onyx. Beginning in 2019, Marvin and Bear Mike worked with other Albuquerque-area members to establish a sustained Onyx presence in New Mexico. Their activities included socials, munches, men’s play parties, educational programs, Gear Nights, and the February 2020 Onyx Black & White Fetish Ball at Sidewinders Ranch. The inaugural ball raised money for the Transgender Resource Center of New Mexico. <i>
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Marvin helped maintain community connections through virtual Onyx bar nights, educational programs, and CLAW Virtual. When in-person activity resumed, the Albuquerque Onyx group established recurring munches and Gear Nights at Sidewinders S4200 and ABQ Eagle. These gatherings combined social interaction with education, demonstrations, sexual expression, and visibility for men of color within a local scene where BIPOC people had not always seen themselves represented in organizational leadership.
After approximately three years of development, Onyx High Desert was approved by the Onyx National Council on November 13, 2024, becoming the national organization’s eleventh chapter. Colors were provided to Onyx High Desert at Midwest Atlantic Leather (MAL) on 11 Jan 2025 by Onyx National Council and founder Mufasa Ali. It subsequently became an independent nonprofit organization. Marvin served as a co-founder and president during its formative period and is now identified as a past president. In April 2025, the chapter’s first male-identifying play party drew approximately 85 participants. <i>
In October 2023, Marvin received the gender-neutral Corazón Leather title. The contest emphasized service across different parts of the community rather than representation of a single gender or identity. His New Mexico Leather Bear and Corazón titles place him within both the gay men’s bear and broader pansexual Leather traditions of New Mexico. <i>
Marvin has become a frequent panelist and educator on BIPOC experience, participation, and leadership in Leather. At South Plains Leatherfest 2026, he and Euphonious Onyx presented Navigating Community as BIPOC, addressing the challenges people of color encounter while entering, participating in, and assuming leadership within Leather and BDSM organizations. <c>
He has also participated in Mufasa Ali’s LeatherU educational programming at International Mr. Leather. During IML 2026, Marvin presented Better BDSM with Passion, a program examining how emotional and interpersonal connection can produce more intentional and memorable BDSM encounters. His teaching draws upon his identity as a switch and his experience with impact, sensation, rope, and power exchange. <d>
Marvin and Bear Mike have taught together at local and national events. Their programs include Better BDSM with Passion, Born Kinky—Discovering Kink, Improving Community Inclusion, electroplay, Kinky Naked Yoga, and other topics. Marvin’s educational work combines practical BDSM experience with discussion of identity, trust, intimacy, inclusion, and the different ways people construct a Leather journey.
At Onyx’s Blackout 30 anniversary gathering in Chicago in October 2025, Marvin received the Mufasa’s Lion Strength Award, described by The Leather Journal as Onyx’s highest honor. The recognition placed him among several nationally significant Onyx and Leather figures honored during the organization’s thirtieth anniversary. <e>
Marvin’s national travel has informed his local work. He has participated in Onyx Blackout, International Mr. Leather, Folsom Street Fair, Up Your Alley, Southwest Leather Conference, Austin Kink Weekend, South Plains Leatherfest, CLAW and CLAW Virtual, the 15 Association’s Bootcamp, and Chicago Hellfire Club events. Rather than treating these solely as destinations, Marvin has used them to study how different organizations create brotherhood, play, education, and BIPOC visibility, bringing those experiences back to New Mexico. <i>
Bear Marvin and Bear Mike were married in Albuquerque on July 18, 2020. Their ceremony brought together local and online participants from Onyx, Albuquerque Leather Daddys, Leather houses, artists, and several generations of community friends. <f>
Bear Marvin’s principal contribution to community has been helping establish durable BIPOC Leather representation in New Mexico. His work transformed a small group of Albuquerque members affiliated with a Texas chapter into Onyx High Desert, a recognized national chapter with recurring events, education, play spaces, and nonprofit structure. His titles, HIV/AIDS service, educational work, and national relationships support that larger contribution: creating places where men of color can participate visibly, develop leadership, and understand themselves as part of New Mexico’s Leather history.
Sources: clawinfo.org/skills-handouts?download=21:sensual-rope <a>, leatherquilt.com/panels/domum-corium-cordis <b>, southplainsleatherfest.com/docs/2026%20docs/SPLF%202026%20Ed%20Grid.pdf <c>, internationalmrleather.com/events/leatheru-session-1--1-better-bdsm <d>, theleatherjournal.com/hump-day/dave-rhodes-hump-day-november-27-2025 <e>, theleatherjournal.com/hump-day/dave-rhodes-hump-day-july-29-2020 <f>, interviews, theleatherjournal.com/hump-day/dave-rhodes-hump-day-november-7-2018 <g>, theleatherjournal.com/hump-day/dave-rhodes-hump-day-january-9-2019 <h>, Interviews with Bear Marvin <i>.
Bear Marvin running for Leather Bear title run by Albuquerque Leather Daddys, with emcee, Mauro Walden-Montoya, 3 Nov 2018.
Lash Onyx, founding president of Onyx High Desert, receives chapter colors from Onyx National Council and founder Mufasa Ali, at Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill, Washington DC, at Midwest Atlantic Leather (MAL) on Janurary 11, 2025.
Bear Marvin / Lash Onyx, is a panellist at International Leather (IML) 24 May 2025, People of Color Leather Caucus.
Tyler McCormick
Communities: Leather, Gay, Transgender, Disability, Master/slave, LGBTQ+
Associations: New Mexico LeatherWolves, New Mexico Leather League, Rio Grande Leather, New Mexico AIDS Services, International Mr. Leather, Corazón Leather
Period: ~2000s–present; principal New Mexico involvement during the 2000s and early 2010s
Tyler McCormick is a gay transgender Leather man, educator, community organizer, and international titleholder. During his years in Albuquerque, Tyler participated in several parts of New Mexico’s Leather community. He was a member and officer of the New Mexico Leather Wolves, serving as vice president during 2006–2007; New Mexico corporate records also listed him as one of the organization’s directors. Tyler and his partner, Steve Wearden, participated together in local organizations, educational activities, title events, and gatherings associated with the New Mexico Leather League. Tyler’s community service also intersected with his professional work as a case manager for New Mexico AIDS Services.
Tyler received the 2010 Mr. Rio Grande Leather title at the contest held in 2009, alongside Ms. Rio Grande Leather Jayson DaBoi Johnson. They became the final Rio Grande Leather title class before the contest ceased operations. Representing Rio Grande Leather and New Mexico, Tyler competed at the 32nd International Mr. Leather contest in Chicago on May 30, 2010. He won the title from a field of 52 contestants, becoming the first openly transgender man, the first wheelchair user, and the first person representing New Mexico to win International Mr. Leather. As of 2026, Tyler remains New Mexico’s only IML winner. <a> <b>
Tyler’s victory challenged assumptions about masculinity, physical ability, and who could represent the international gay men’s Leather community. Although frequently described in the press primarily through his transgender and disability identities, Tyler explained that the core of his identity was that of a gay Leather man. He advocated against unnecessary divisions within queer and Leather communities and emphasized Leather as a culture grounded in heart, spirit, honor, integrity, trust, and respect. <c> Tyler experienced significant discrimination and personal impact breaking barriers in the Leather community through this title win.
Tyler continued to support New Mexico after winning IML. He returned to Albuquerque as one of the judges for the inaugural Corazón Leather Contest in 2015, helping connect the new title system with the state’s earlier Rio Grande Leather history. Nationally, he served as a judge for International Mr. Leather in 2011 and continued appearing as an educator, speaker, judge, and advocate. He was often seen volunteering at IML. Tyler and Steve later left Albuquerque for St. Louis.
During his New Mexico years, Tyler and his husband and Master, Steve Wearden, shared a long-term Master/slave relationship. Together they participated in local organizations, education, title events, and the production of Rio Grande Leather. Steve died while receiving hospice care on August 27, 2023. A community memorial was subsequently held in Albuquerque at Soft Corners Studio Center, operated by Sera Miles, owner of People Exchanging Power. The gathering reflected Steve and Tyler’s enduring connection to New Mexico’s Leather and alternative communities after they had moved away.
Sources: advocate.com/news/daily-news/2010/06/01/trans-wheelchair-user-wins-iml-2010 <a>, chicago.gopride.com/news/article.cfm/articleid/11046100 <b>, gaycities.com/articles/12707/iml-2010-winner-tyler-mccormick-talks-trans-acceptance-in-the-leather-world/ <c>
Bear Mike, Poppa Savant Onyx
Communities: Leather, Kink, Education, Historical
Associations: Domum Corium Cordis (House of Leather Heart), Kinktoberfest, NM-REAL, Inc., NM Leather & Kink Fair, Low Sensory Leather Social, 15 Association, Chicago Hellfire Club, Used & Abused Swap, SLaP! (Social Learn and Play), national educator (Tools for Resolving Internal Community Conflict, Dungeon Monitoring Training from Different Perspectives...), History of NM Alternative Communities, Albuquerque boys of Leather, Albuquerque Leather Daddys, Onyx Men of Color, CLAW, CLAW_Virtual, Women of Drummer, House of Shangrila.
Period: ~2015–present
Bear Mike, also known as DaddyBearMike and Poppa Savant Onyx, is a New Mexico Leather organizer, educator, event producer, historian, and community advocate. His work has connected Albuquerque’s gay men’s Leather organizations with the broader pansexual BDSM community, national Leather organizations, event producers, educators, artists, and historical institutions.
Mike became active in Albuquerque’s organized Leather community in 2016. He was a member of the Albuquerque boys of Leather and later became a fully patched member of the Albuquerque Leather Daddys (ALD). Within the Leather Daddys, he served on organizing committees and helped develop and operate social and educational events. Bear Mike was the principle designer and builder of the ALD's 2018 Pride float entry, assisted by Adrian Thompson. These experiences connected him with an earlier generation of Albuquerque and national Leather participants while introducing him to the practical work involved in sustaining volunteer organizations. These early engagements led Bear Mike to realize much of the history of the community was not being preserved or passed forward for many reasons. As early as 2016 he started collecting artifacts from the community.
Mike and his husband, Bear Marvin, also known as Lash Onyx, established Domum Corium Cordis, or House of Leather Heart, in 2018. The Leather family house is organized around the principles of family, integrity, and altruism. Mike and Marvin serve as co-heads of house, maintaining relationships with other Leather houses, clubs, organizations, and individuals around the country. In 2025, the house’s back patch was added to the Leather Quilt. <a> Their interest in national Leather community led them to attend many pansexual, gay, and women's events across the country. During this time Mike's service to the community was recognized through induction into Mama’s Family as Mama’s Alpha Tech. Marvin was singled out by Mama at Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco, instructing him to enter a photograph of Mama's family members, as she pointed to him and said, "He's my next victim."
Mike supports Deaf Leather Fraternity gatherings, particularly their run in Albuquerque, and efforts intended to make local events more accessible to Deaf and hard-of-hearing participants. His connection originates through learning some sign language from his deaf former girlfriend in Albuquerque.
Bear Mike’s connection with artists working in New Mexico’s alternative communities began through Ruben Gallegos and later expanded through his friendship with Delmas Howe. Delmas, who lived in Truth or Consequences, explored gay men, Leather, spirituality, and Southwestern imagery throughout several major bodies of work. Mike and Marvin became friends with Delmas, who later asked Mike to document his art and life on video. Their collaboration resulted in three substantial public videos and an additional short feature focused on Delmas’s relationship with the Leather community.
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85th Birthday Retrospective Talk - https://youtu.be/T-LRglbCfJ4
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Autobiographical Mural Description - https://youtu.be/CJi8n7Lx8XA
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GoNaked Magazine Interview - https://youtu.be/YR8Jj016WfE
Meeting Bear Mike & Bear Marvin's friend, Pup Spike at the 85th Retrospective inspired Delmas to create one of his last paintings depicting the duality of a pup and the man behind the pup.
As Poppa Savant Onyx, Mike helped establish an Onyx Men of Color presence in New Mexico. Before a New Mexico chapter existed, he became associated with Onyx Lone Star in Dallas, Texas where he obtained four Associate of the Year Awards. Mike and Lash Onyx organized Albuquerque activities including Onyx socials, men’s play parties, educational gatherings, Gear Nights, and the February 2020 Onyx Black & White Fetish Ball at Sidewinders Ranch. This event and several years of continued organizing contributed to the eventual formation of Onyx High Desert in New Mexico in late 2024. <j> <h>
During the COVID-19 pandemic, they helped maintain community connections through virtual gatherings for CLAW_Virtual and Onyx Lone Star, including educational programs. Mike took over Albuquerque Men's Naked Yoga event when former leader, Doc Hohmen, moved out of town in late 2018. When the pandemic struck, the event moved to Zoom growing a following of at least 400 men and regular attendance by men across the world. Mike combined BDSM and Yoga into a class and periodic "Kinky Naked Yoga" sessions at events across the country. Bear Mike designed the ABQ Eagle identity and logo around 2019 for the Leather and kink presence established at Sidewinders Bar & Grill, later Sidewinders S4200. <f> Although Albuquerque did not have a separately operated Eagle bar, the branding helped identify a recurring Leather environment within an existing LGBTQ+ venue and connected Albuquerque symbolically with the wider network of Eagle Leather bars.
Bears Mike & Marvin developed a sustained working relationship with CLAW in alignment with the great energy it had provided through the pandemic with CLAW_Virtual and later into restored in-person gatherings. They assisted the founder and the organization at other national gatherings, including the Folsom Street Fair, and has supported CLAW through personal hospitality, volunteer work, education, and organizational consultation.
Bear Mike and Bear Marvin were married in Albuquerque on July 18, 2020, in a ceremony officiated by House of Shangri-La (Phoenix) officiant Boy Scotty, and attended locally and online by members of several generations and branches of the Leather community. The participants included representatives of Onyx, Albuquerque Leather Daddys, Leather houses, artists, and longtime community friends—an illustration of the national network that their work has helped bring into conversation with New Mexico.
His frequent travels to other leather events and organizations led to associate membership in the 15 Association and the Chicago Hellfire Club drawn by the camaraderie and brotherhood he encountered in those spaces. His service in includes staffing the Dore Alley and Folsom Street Fair 15 Association demo/tasting stations on 10th St. in San Francisco. He also enjoys attending Esprit de Corps by Discipline Corps, in Dallas. Bear Mike was honored to be selected as the male judge during Women of Drummer Contest Weekend 2022, Camp Ramblewood by its director Toni Soloni, after assisting Toni in a regional Women of Drummer event in Albuquerque.
Bear Mike is a founder and vice president of New Mexico Respect Ethics Acceptance in Leather, Inc., known as NM-REAL. This nonprofit supports education, community events, safer gathering spaces, charitable activity, rights advocacy, scholarship, volunteerism, and cooperation among New Mexico’s Leather and alternative-lifestyle communities. <i>
Through Domum Corium Cordis and NM-REAL, Mike has created or produced several Albuquerque events. He is the principal producer of Kinktoberfest, an educational, social, vendor, and play weekend developed in cooperation with NM-REAL, SpectrumABQ, Purgatory Dungeon, Onyx High Desert, Four Corners Collective Kink, and other organizations. The inaugural Kinktoberfest was held in 2025. Its vendor area became the beginning of the New Mexico Leather & Kink Fair, conceived as an accessible public interface where people could encounter Leather artisans, vendors, organizations, education, and community resources. <d> <e> <h>
Mike also created the Low Sensory Leather Social, an earlier, quieter, conversation-oriented gathering with sober-aware options for people who find conventional bars, nightclubs, and large events difficult or inaccessible. Its design expanded the meaning of accessibility beyond physical access to include sensory environment, time of day, volume, and social expectations.
Other projects include SLaP!—Social, Learn and Play, a monthly combination of social time, parallel educational classes, entertainment, and BDSM play produced collaboratively by NM-REAL, SpectrumABQ, and Purgatory Dungeon. Mike also developed Used & Abused, an original concept from Michko and with her collaboration - a kinky sale, swap, and social intended to bring community together and recirculate Leather clothing, equipment, toys, and community materials.
As an educator, Bear Mike has presented locally and nationally, frequently teaching with Bear Marvin. Their subjects include community conflict, organizational inclusion, dungeon monitoring, electroplay, sensation and impact play, sexuality, Leather identity, and New Mexico Leather history. Mike’s programs on "Tools for Reducing Internal Community Conflict" and "Dungeon Monitor Training from Different Perspectives," are taught live and are also freely available as recorded programs. His educational work emphasizes the less-visible skills necessary to maintain community: communication, conflict resolution, consent, volunteer management, event safety, accessibility, and cooperation between groups. Much of this work is available on Fetlife at LeatherHeart. <k>
Gathering information from his past historical work since 2016, Bear Mike undertook formalizing History of New Mexico Leather and Alternative Communities, located here, in 2024, including additional interviews, collecting organizational papers, newsletters, event programs, websites, archived webpages, physical artifacts, and research at the Leather Archives & Museum. The project documents both prominent organizations and short-lived groups, venues, events, artists, titleholders, educators, and community connectors whose contributions might otherwise disappear. The project was publicly recognized by The Leather Journal in 2025. <b> This effort has resulted in multiple artifacts and sets of information provided to Leather Archives & Museum, The Carter Johnson Library, and The Leather Quilt Project. For instance, Dave Crawford's Motorcyclemen of NM patch is now cared for and displayed with the Leather Quilt.
Bear Mike has contributed about 20 bylined news reports and community-history articles to The Leather Journal since 2020, covering New Mexico Leather events, Onyx, Deaf Leather Fraternity, Women of Drummer, Leather Leadership Conference, Chicago Hellfire Club, artists, community members, and historical preservation.
Bear Mike’s primary approach for contribution has been the development of connective infrastructure. His work joins older gay men’s Leather traditions, Onyx and people-of-color-centered Leather, pansexual BDSM spaces, education, accessibility, event production, historical preservation, and public engagement. Rather than creating a single isolated organization, he has repeatedly developed projects in collaboration with existing groups. His historical work adds another dimension to that service by preserving the experiences of earlier New Mexico participants while they can still tell their own stories.
Sources: leatherquilt.com/panels/domum-corium-cordis <a>, theleatherjournal.com/news/dave-rhodes-humpday-july-16-2025 <b>, theleatherjournal.com/hump-day/dave-rhodes-hump-day-july-29-2020 <c>, Bear Mike's archives, kinktoberfest.com <d>, nmleatherkinkfair.com <e>, abqeagle.com <f>, nm-real.org/leather-history-1 <g>, EVENTS <h>, nm-real.org <i>, onyxlonestar.com <j>, fetlife.com/LeatherHeart <k>.
"Bear Marvin and Bear Mike wed in Albuquerque" Article in The Leather Journal, Hump Day, July 29, 2025. <c>
Sera Miles / Sarah E. Azizi
Communities: BDSM and kink, Leather, queer/LGBTQ+, polyamory, sex-worker and sex-worker-rights communities, arts and literary communities
Associations: People Exchanging Power (PEP), New Mexico FetLifers (NMFL), Evolution of the Revolution (EvoRevo), Sex Workers Outreach Project–New Mexico (SWOP-NM), Soft Corners Studio Center
Period: 2002–present
Sera Miles, currently also known as Sarah E. Azizi, is an Albuquerque business owner, community organizer, educator, activist, writer, and venue operator. Her work has connected several different forms of community infrastructure: employment within an alternative-community business, kink education and social events, large conferences, sex-worker-rights advocacy, and physical spaces where people can gather with privacy and a sense of safety. <f>
In September 2002, Sera acquired the business portion of People Exchanging Power (PEP) from its founder, Nancy Ava Miller. PEP had developed as both a network of community organizations and a commercial telephone call-center business. The acquisition bifurcated those functions: Nancy remained associated with the community organizations and chapters that had operated in several cities across the United States, while Sera concentrated on the Albuquerque-based telephone business. <a> <b> <j>
Under Sera, PEP provided telephone fantasy and conversation services centered on kink, fetish, BDSM, sexuality, and personal connection. The business had an economic effect beyond Sera herself. It provided employment for people from alternative communities, including some whose identities, occupations, schedules, or life circumstances could make conventional employment difficult. Its offices also periodically served as a private gathering place and safe space for community activities. Sera has described the work as an opportunity to help callers release stress, feel safe, and experience less shame about their desires. She continued to be identified publicly as PEP’s chief executive in later biographies and interviews. <c>
In November 2008, Sera founded New Mexico FetLifers (NMFL) as the FetLife social-networking platform was beginning its rapid growth. By November 2009, she had assembled NMFL’s first board of directors. Early board members included Brittany Vick (secretary) and Saint St james (treasurer), also known as Eldest Saint; Kim Wright joined the leadership team in 2010. New Mexico FetLifers became a registered New Mexico domestic nonprofit corporation on February 3, 2011. <b> <d>
NMFL operated until September 2014 and produced nearly 100 activities during its approximately five-and-a-half-year life. These included workshops, play parties, socials, conferences, and its recurring Providing Education with Respect and Vision (PERV) programs. NMFL developed relationships extending beyond the BDSM community into New Mexico’s queer, transgender, drag, Leather, HIV-prevention, and other alternative communities. Its programming generally emphasized education and social connection rather than only intense BDSM play. NMFL also provided a weekly community event announcements on its Fetlife page. This helped people discover activities beyond those produced by NMFL itself and positioned the organization as a connector among otherwise separate groups, venues, educators, and event producers. <e> <f>
When NMFL ended, its organizers removed the organization’s content from FetLife. Sera explained that they could not be assured the accumulated material would not later be acquired, controlled, or used by others in ways that misrepresented the organization or its history. In her words, it was “removed to protect what we had created.” Consequently, much of NMFL’s original online record no longer survives. <b> <f>
NMFL’s largest undertaking under Sara's guidance was Evolution of the Revolution (EvoRevo). Three conferences were held at the Hard Rock Casino—now Isleta Resort & Casino—south of Albuquerque:
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EvoRevo 1 — September 17–18, 2010
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EvoRevo 2 — September 16–17, 2011
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EvoRevo 3 — September 14–16, 2012
EvoRevo was intended as a high-quality, upscale educational and social conference with nationally recognized presenters. Guests included John Baku (Fetlife Founder), Jay Wiseman, Mama Vi Johnson, boy Robi, Guy Baldwin, Deborah Hoffman-Wade, Dr. Clockwork, Max Rulz, Simon Blaise, Danielle DV8, and others. The conferences combined classes, vendors, cocktail gatherings, community discussions, and dungeon play. In 2011, the Carter-Johnson Leather Library participated in EvoRevo, reportedly representing the farthest west the collection had traveled at that time.
The organizers had originally envisioned EvoRevo continuing for approximately five or six years, provided its level of quality could be maintained. Although the event had strong support from an individual working at the Hard Rock, the Isleta Casino board did not wish to continue its relationship with EvoRevo. The conference therefore needed a new venue. Suitable event space capable of supporting the desired facilities, accommodations, privacy, and production quality proved difficult to obtain. Rather than continue with a diminished event, the organizers ended EvoRevo after its third conference. <f>
Sera was also involved in organizing an independent New Mexico chapter of the Sex Workers Outreach Project (SWOP), that eventually was connected with the national organization as SWOP-NM, serving as one of its co-directors. The organization was part of the national sex-worker-rights and anti-violence movement. From 2009 through 2015, Sera organized Albuquerque’s annual observance of the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers, also known as Red Umbrella Day. Held each December 17, the observance included a procession with red umbrellas followed by a candlelight vigil and the reading of names of sex workers who had been killed. The Albuquerque observances specifically remembered the victims of the West Mesa murders and drew attention to physical, psychological, institutional, and state-sponsored violence against sex workers. According to Sera’s interview, Amber Garland was among those who spoke during an observance. <f> <k>
SWOP-NM also supported discussions, education, community activities, and advocacy involving sex-worker safety, stigma, relationships, disclosure, decriminalization, and the distinction between consensual sex work, survival sex, and trafficking. Sera continued speaking publicly about these issues after the chapter’s principal organizing period, including opposition to measures she believed would remove safety resources and force sex workers into more dangerous working conditions. Published biographies identify her as a SWOP-NM co-founder and document her organization of the annual vigils from 2009 through 2015. <g> <k>
More recently, Sera has continued her tradition of creating physical community space through the Soft Corners Studio Center in Albuquerque’s Nob Hill neighborhood. Branded as an “event venue, art gallery, and third space,” Soft Corners offers flexible and private space for meetings, celebrations, classes, art shows, readings, clubs, memorials, workshops, community events, and other gatherings. Soft Corners expressly welcomes queer and Leather communities alongside artists, writers, academics, spiritual groups, private clubs, and medical or therapeutic professionals. Its emphasis upon privacy, intimacy, ambience, accessibility, and customizable use allows the space to serve communities and activities that may not fit comfortably within conventional public venues. Alternative-community classes, planning sessions, social gatherings, and memorials—including the memorial for Steve Wearden—have been held there. <h> Sera also continues to offer educational programs addressing BDSM, kink, polyamory, asexual and aromantic identities, power dynamics, community conflict, toxic behavior, microaggressions, negotiation, and sexuality. She presented at the 2025 Southwest Master Slave Confernce (SWMsC). Her PERV—Providing Education with Respect and Vision introductory workshop continues an educational identity first made prominent through NM FetLifers. <i>
Across these different projects, Sera’s contribution has involved more than producing individual events. PEP created employment and connection; NMFL built a broad social and educational network; EvoRevo demonstrated the quality and ambition possible for a New Mexico kink conference; SWOP-NM connected sex-worker rights with memorial, advocacy, and community care; and Soft Corners continues the work of providing adaptable physical space. Together, these efforts represent more than two decades of creating infrastructure through which alternative-community people could work, learn, organize, gather, and feel less isolated.
Sources: VENUES <a>, GROUPS <b>, dgomag.com/kinky-activism-how-new-mexico-sex-worker-sera-miles-is-fighting-to-legitimize-the-industry/ on February 14, 2019 <c>, enterprise.sos.nm.gov/search/business <d>, EVENTS <e>, Interviews with Sera Miles <f>, selfservebody.com/including-mine-yours-by-sera-miles/ October 5. 2021 <g>, softcornersabq.com <h>, softcornersabq.com/workshops <i>, pepconn.com (peplove.com) <j>, nmswop.wordpress.com <k>.
Nancy Ava Miller
Communities: BDSM, kink, sex-positive, professional domination, erotic telephone services, hypnosis
Associations: People Exchanging Power (PEP), early Black Rose organizing, Author, FetLifers, Evolution of the Revolution, Alternative Erotic Lifestyles
Period: 1986–present
Nancy Ava Miller, M.Ed., CHt, is an educator, writer, professional sexual-services entrepreneur, hypnotherapist, and community organizer whose work helped establish Albuquerque as an early center of organized pansexual BDSM activity. In 1986, she founded People Exchanging Power (PEP) in Albuquerque, creating an organization that combined education, support, social interaction, BDSM play, professional services, and national networking at a time when most people interested in sadomasochism had few public ways to find one another.
Nancy’s involvement followed her exposure to established BDSM organizing elsewhere in the country. After attending meetings of The Eulenspiegel Society in New York, she brought elements of that educational and support-group model back to New Mexico. She convened the first People Exchanging Power program 16 Oct 1986 in Albuquerque, renting space, advertising the meeting, and inviting people interested in dominance, submission, bondage, discipline, sadism, masochism, fetishism, and related forms of sexual expression.
PEP was notable for its broadly pansexual character. Contemporary reporting in Drummer documented that PEP was temporarily denied use of Albuquerque’s Common Bond gay and lesbian community center partly because of objections to its largely heterosexual membership. This situation illustrates the boundaries Nancy was crossing: PEP brought heterosexual, bisexual, gay, lesbian, transgender, gender-nonconforming, professional, and privately practicing participants into the same emerging BDSM network. <a>
Nancy did not limit the idea to Albuquerque. She traveled extensively, establishing or encouraging PEP support groups and educational forums in cities across the United States. Surviving lists differ somewhat, but document activity in locations including Washington, D.C., Phoenix, Tucson, Denver, St. Louis, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Buffalo, Houston, Nashville, Ohio, and Oklahoma. A later Leather Archives & Museum program aptly described her as a kind of “Johnny Appleseed of S&M”—someone who carried an organizing model from city to city before the Internet made it easy for sexually marginalized people to locate one another. <c>
Her influence on the Washington, D.C., community was especially consequential. In June 1987, Nancy reproduced the Albuquerque educational-forum model in the Washington area. Her personal account of discovering and accepting her interest in S&M became the first educational presentation of the organization that later developed into Black Rose. After establishing the initial structure, she moved on to create other PEP groups, while Washington organizers continued the organization under the Black Rose name. Black Rose ultimately became one of the country’s most influential pansexual BDSM educational organizations and event producers. <d>
Albuquerque remained PEP’s headquarters and Nancy’s home base. PEP organized meetings, seminars, conferences, social gatherings, and play parties in New Mexico. Its programs gave people an opportunity to learn publicly about subjects that had previously been confined to private experimentation, pornography, scattered books, or small friendship networks. The organization’s Fifth Annual Fetish Conference and Sex Industry Seminars, held in Albuquerque from December 4–7, 1998, welcomed people across gender identities, sexual orientations, relationship configurations, levels of experience, and participation in the sex industry.
Interviews conducted for this history demonstrate PEP’s importance as an entry point. Kathryn Alexander recalled that she and Stan Alexander had been exploring privately before learning that PEP was holding an event. When they arrived, the visible Leather and BDSM activity nearly caused them to retreat, but they entered, met other participants, and began building connections. Those contacts eventually led them from PEP to AEL, Sandia Leather, titleholder activity, education, and decades of New Mexico community leadership. PEP was therefore not simply another party—it functioned as the first public doorway through which some important later organizers entered the community. <e>
Nancy’s teaching extended beyond PEP’s explicitly sexual programs. She earned a master’s degree in 1981 with emphases that included English education, creative writing, group dynamics, and group communication. She had previously taught Transcendental Meditation and later completed approximately 350 hours of hypnotherapy training. Her work has included public-school teaching, adult creative-writing instruction, counseling, support-group facilitation, writing, photography, lectures, meditation, and hypnosis. <g>
Nancy also transformed PEP into a commercial enterprise. Beginning in approximately 1988—although some later business materials used 1990 as the establishment date—she developed a telephone fantasy and phone-sex company specializing in power exchange, fetishism, domination, submission, and BDSM. The operation later expanded onto the Internet in 1996. Women around the United States worked through the company, providing telephone domination and erotic fantasy services before sexting, cam platforms, and online subscription services existed.
The Albuquerque office also became an important professional entry point for women in the local community. Diva Marie worked for Nancy from approximately 1992 through 1994, initially performing telephone domination and later conducting in-person sessions. Sky Fiske similarly recalled becoming a professional Dominant through PEP in 1998. These accounts show that Nancy provided training, employment, experience, and a professional setting in which women could develop confidence and identities as Dominants.
In June 2005, Nancy, Melissa Larntz, and Sarah Azizi presented “Revealed Writing: Tapping Your Inner Scribe” for Southwest Writers in Albuquerque. The program used relaxation, meditation, hypnosis, and a writing exercise to help participants access creativity and overcome barriers such as writer’s block. <i>
Nancy documented much of that history in Pervert: Notes from the Sexual Underground, published in hardcover and paperback editions around 2009–2010. The approximately 325-page book combines memoir, social history, anthology, photography, and accounts of the sex industry and emerging BDSM organizations. It documents the emotional intensity, personal relationships, sexual discoveries, businesses, gatherings, clubs, and support networks that shaped organized BDSM during the 1980s and 1990s.
The book’s historical value goes well beyond autobiography. It contains more than one hundred photographs of early people, gatherings, venues, dungeons, and events, preserving parts of the sexual underground that otherwise received little conventional media coverage. Her history has since become the subject of presentations and an exhibit at the Leather Archives & Museum. In 2025, the museum described PEP as a national network of kink support groups and telephone lines operated by women and opened a gallery exhibit dedicated to its history. <j>
Her later New Mexico appearances reconnected that broader educational experience with BDSM history. A PEP anniversary was incorporated into Evolution of the Revolution 2 in 2011, including a gathering at Nancy’s mountain home. At Evolution of the Revolution 3 in 2012, Nancy participated with national elders and educators in sharing stories about the community’s development. She returned as an AEL speaker in 2024, providing contemporary participants with firsthand access to a history that began nearly four decades earlier.
By 2013, the Daily Lobo described PEP as a local phone-sex company with more than twenty female employees working from its Albuquerque office. The accompanying photograph showed Nancy with her semi-autobiographical book, Pervert. <f> In 2016, control of the commercial PEP operation passed from Nancy Ava Miller to Sera Miles (Azizi).
Nancy has continued teaching and discussing BDSM history, communication, erotic hypnosis, and personal transformation. Her work has included recent programs at the Leather Archives & Museum and a keynote and hypnosis class at Oklahoma Leatherfest. She remains a New Mexico resident and continues to appear in the local community; in July 2026, she attended the Rio Rancho Munch’s Christmas in July gathering.
Nancy Ava Miller’s historical importance lies in her ability to connect forms of activity that were usually separated. She created support groups where isolated people could discover community. She connected Albuquerque with emerging BDSM organizations around the country. She established a sex-positive business that employed and trained women. She organized conferences, seminars, parties, and professional-development opportunities. She carried knowledge into New Mexico and carried a New Mexico organizational model back out across the nation.
Most importantly, PEP made BDSM discoverable before online social networks existed. Some people encountered PEP as education, some as employment, some as sexual fantasy, some as a play space, and some as their first contact with an organized community. The later accomplishments of individuals who first entered the community through PEP extended Nancy’s influence far beyond her own direct work.
Sources: Conversations & Interviews with Nancy <a>, VENUES <b>, thevisualist.org/2024/10/bdsm-history-memories-notes-from-the-sexual-underground-bdsm-history-memories-notes-from-the-sexual-underground/ <c>, scribd.com/document/94611592/A-Brief-History-of-the-Black-Rose-of-Washington-DC <d>, Kathryn Alexander Interview 25Aug2024 <e>, dailylobo.com/multimedia/091713_phonesex_web_am <f>, sites.google.com/site/okleatherfest/2026-oklahoma-leatherfest/nancy-ava-miller <g>, abebooks.com/9781436394543/Pervert-Notes-Sexual-Underground-Miller-1436394546/plp <h>, southwestwriters.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/SageJun05.pdf <i>, thevisualist.org/2025/09/bdsm-history-memories-notes-from-the-sexual-underground-exhibit-and-talk/ <j>
"Nancy Ava Miller browses through her semi-autobiographical book “Pervert” at People Exchanging Power Sunday. Miller is the founder of PEP, a local phone-sex company." Daily Lobo, "9/17_phonesex" by Arsenii Morin,
September 16, 2013. <f>
Nancy Ava Miller with Hustler publisher Larry Flint in 2019. Flint passed away in 2021.
Pat Sanchez
Communities: Leather, Gay, Motorcycle Clubs
Associations: Motorcyclemen of New Mexico, Rocky Mountaineers Motorcycle Club, New Mexico Drummer, Southwest Drummer, International Mr. Drummer, New Mexico AIDS Services
Period: 1984–1995
Pat Sanchez was a New Mexico Leatherman, motorcycle-club officer, titleholder, contest producer, judge, and AIDS fundraiser. During approximately eleven years of documented Leather activity, he held repeated leadership positions in the Motorcyclemen of New Mexico, won Mr. Southwest Drummer 1991, competed for the International Mr. Drummer title, established New Mexico’s Drummer feeder contest, and became nationally recognized within the Leather community.
Pat first attended a Motorcyclemen of New Mexico dinner in November 1984. He was soon accepted into the organization and elected secretary. Over the following decade, he held an office every year, serving four terms as road captain, three terms as president, and at least one term as treasurer. A contemporary remembrance described him as one of the organization’s best treasurers. He also participated in the club’s motorcycle rides, social gatherings, charitable work, and annual Hot Air run held during the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. <e> <f>
Pat was closely associated for a time with fellow Motorcyclemen member Walt Lang. Dominick Zurlo recalls meeting Walt and Pat through the Motorcyclemen during the early years of Albuquerque’s organized Leather community. The Motorcyclemen’s principal gathering place was the Albuquerque Social Club, although members also frequented Cuffs and other gay and Leather-oriented venues.
In 1991, Pat represented the Motorcyclemen in the Southwest Drummer contest in Phoenix. Contemporary title records identify him as Mr. Motorcyclemen of New Mexico and confirm that he became Mr. Southwest Drummer 1991. He subsequently competed at the national Mr. Drummer contest in San Francisco. Although he did not win the international title, his participation made him one of the earliest New Mexico Leathermen to advance into a major national Leather contest system. <g>
After his Southwest victory, Pat helped establish a New Mexico Drummer and Drummerboy contest within the Motorcyclemen of New Mexico. This gave local contestants a structured pathway into the Southwest regional competition rather than requiring them to enter the regional contest independently. The resulting title lineage included Chuck Floyd and Allen Gates in 1992, Steve Benoit and James Danforth in 1993, and Dominick Zurlo in 1994. James Danforth subsequently won Southwest Drummerboy, while Dominick placed second at Southwest Drummer in 1994.
Pat remained directly involved in producing and promoting the contests. He was the listed contact for the April 15–16, 1994 New Mexico Drummer weekend and appeared in its Drummer magazine advertisement. He also co-produced the 1994 Southwest Regional Drummer contest and served as a judge at International Mr. Leather 1994. His appearances as a contestant, producer, organizer, visitor, and judge carried New Mexico’s comparatively young Leather community into a wider national network.
His influence extended beyond men’s titles. Leslie Anderson remembers sitting with Pat in the dual bootblack stand at The Ranch in 1994 and discussing the increasing participation of women in Leather. Pat predicted that a corresponding system of Ms. Leather titles would develop. New Mexico’s first Ms. New Mexico Leather title was awarded the following year, and New Mexico women soon became highly successful in national and international contests. The conversation suggests that Pat recognized the direction in which Leather culture was changing and supported a broader title structure before it was fully established locally.
Pat also maintained ties with the Rocky Mountaineers Motorcycle Club in Colorado as an associate member. The relationship reflected the regular exchanges among Motorcyclemen of New Mexico and clubs in Colorado, Arizona, Texas, and elsewhere. These clubs visited one another’s runs, contests, and anniversary events, creating a regional Leather network in which Albuquerque was an active participant rather than an isolated community.
AIDS service was central to Pat’s public Leather activity. He consistently encouraged fundraising for New Mexico AIDS Services and used his visibility at Leather contests across the country to advocate for organizations responding to AIDS. A contemporary remembrance characterized his appeals as passionate and articulate. This work connected the fundraising traditions of the motorcycle clubs with the urgent care needs created by the epidemic. <d>
In 1994, Pat received The Leather Journal’s Rocky Mountain Regional Award, recognizing his broader contribution to Leather in the region. The publication later remembered him as Mr. Southwest Drummer 1991 and a multi-office holder within the Motorcyclemen of New Mexico. <h>
Outside the Leather community, Pat worked as a salesperson for the Stanley door company and lived near the Rio Grande in Belen, approximately thirty miles south of Albuquerque. He was also a father. His son, Steven, spent the final three weeks of Pat’s life helping care for him. Pat’s life partner, Michael Coker, was with him when he died at home during the night of July 20–21, 1995. He was 42 years old. A Motorcyclemen memorial and Catholic Mass were held later that month.
Community oral history identifies Pat as one of the many New Mexico Leather people lost to HIV/AIDS. His death removed one of the Motorcyclemen’s most active leaders during a period when the organization was already confronting aging membership and changes in Albuquerque’s social environment. Although the club continued for a few more years, participants remember Pat’s loss as one factor in its declining energy.
Pat Sanchez was a transitional figure in New Mexico Leather history. He entered through the traditional gay men’s motorcycle-club system, became a regional Drummer titleholder, and then transformed his individual opportunity into a local feeder contest for others. He helped connect Albuquerque to national Leather contests, regional motorcycle clubs, and AIDS organizations while anticipating the growing inclusion of women in Leather title culture.
His legacy is therefore larger than his 1991 title. Pat helped move New Mexico Leather from an informal network centered on motorcycle rides and bars toward a more visible structure of contests, regional representation, fundraising, and community leadership. His death in 1995 also embodies the profound loss of leadership and institutional memory caused by the AIDS epidemic.
Sources: Drummer Magazine, Issue 150 - Page 64 <a>, Leslie Anderson (interviews) <b>, Casey Newkirk (interviews 14Jun24, +conversations) <c>, David Crawford (interview 5Jan24) <d>, archive.org/stream/BAR_19950810/BAR_19950810_djvu.txt <e>, nm-real.org/nm-leather-history-groups <f>, theleatherjournal.com/news/leather-titles-in-1991 <g>, theleatherjournal.com/news/1995 <h>.
Dr. PJ Sedillo
Communities: LGBTQ+, Pride, Leather, civil rights, education, and historical preservation
Associations: Albuquerque Pride, Albuquerque Public Schools, and New Mexico Highlands University
Period: ~1989–present
Dr. PJ Sedillo served as president or co-president of Albuquerque Pride for 21 years, helping establish it as an independent nonprofit and expand its public reach. He promoted consistent Leather representation within the Pride Parade, helped secure nondiscrimination protections for APS employees, and successfully pursued spousal benefits for his same-sex marriage. His continuing work preserves Albuquerque’s LGBTQ+ history through writing, interviews, and public education. Note that PJ's Individual listing here is shorter than others because his his complete listing is on the MEDIA page.
JD Smith
Communities: Leather, Kink, Leathersmith, LGBTQ+
Associations: GearWerks, Sidewinders Ranch/ABQ Eagle, Leather Fiesta, Corazón Leather, Albuquerque Leather Daddys
Period: 2001–present
JD Smith is a New Mexico leathersmith, vendor, educator, and owner of GearWerks, a Leather and kink business he established in 2001. Originally from San Francisco and also associated with Palm Springs before coming to New Mexico, JD brought experience from California’s more established Leather culture into Albuquerque. Through his craftsmanship, vending, teaching, and long presence at community events, he has influenced the material and social culture of New Mexico Leather for more than two decades.
GearWerks produces and sells a wide range of Leather clothing, gear, accessories, and kink equipment. JD’s work has included both ready-made merchandise and customized items. The business has also produced pins, patches, and other organizational regalia for New Mexico Leather groups and the NM Gay Rodeo Association. These pieces did more than advertise organizations: they helped groups establish visible identities, recognize membership, and participate in the patch-and-pin traditions of the broader Leather community.
JD eventually operated GearWerks with Wade, who is now his husband. Public event announcements commonly identify the business as “Gearworks—JD & Wade,” reflecting Wade’s recognized place in its community-facing operation. Together they vended at Albuquerque events and maintained the business’s relationship with local Leather and kink organizations. JD and Wade attended many other community events outside of their role as leathersmith.
For many years, GearWerks maintained a small retail shop within Sidewinders Ranch at 8900 Central Avenue SE. The shop occupied different spaces inside the bar over time and remained there until Sidewinders moved from that location in 2020. This arrangement made Leather equipment directly available in one of Albuquerque’s principal LGBTQ+ and Leather gathering places. Patrons could encounter Leather clothing and gear as part of ordinary bar and community life rather than only through online shopping or occasional conventions. <a>
GearWerks vended at Leather Fiesta, Corazón Leather, Albuquerque Leather Daddys, and NM-REAL events, and other local gatherings. JD and Wade were both vendors and presenters at the inaugural Corazón Leather Contest weekend in 2015, demonstrating that their contribution included education as well as sales. The event brought together gay Leather, pansexual kink, Master/slave, bootblack, titleholder, and artisan communities from New Mexico and beyond. <b>
JD and Wade were particularly connected with the Albuquerque Leather Daddys, whose regular Gear Nights and annual Southwest Leather Fair were held at Sidewinders. GearWerks produced the organization’s back patches, translating the group’s chosen design into the physical insignia worn by its members. The Daddys’ patches became visible at bar events, Pride parades, fundraising activities, trips, and regional Leather gatherings. <c>
GearWerks also cooperated with other New Mexico craftspeople, including Michael and Cindy of Moonlight Creations. Such relationships helped support a local network of small-volume makers producing Leather clothing, implements, furniture, accessories, and customized equipment. JD’s work therefore belongs within a broader artisan culture in which craftspeople exchanged knowledge, shared vending opportunities, and helped supply a community that could not depend upon a large local commercial market.
Beyond New Mexico, JD vended regionally at Leather runs and events in Texas. He also returned to San Francisco as a vendor at the 2023 Folsom Street Fair, reconnecting his New Mexico business with the city whose Leather culture had helped shape him. Specific years and Texas events should be added after an interview or the discovery of surviving vendor lists; the indexed online record does not presently identify them reliably.
JD’s influence upon New Mexico Leather extends beyond the individual items he made or sold. Leather culture depends partly upon tangible objects: clothing, harnesses, implements, patches, pins, and other pieces through which people express identity, membership, role, and tradition. For more than twenty years, JD and GearWerks helped make those objects locally accessible.
His shop inside Sidewinders also created an unusually direct relationship between artisan, bar, and community. JD was not an outside retailer selling into New Mexico from a distance. He was a familiar member of the community, supplying people and organizations he knew and participating in many of the same events where his work was worn or used.
By bringing experience from San Francisco and California into Albuquerque, JD helped transmit elements of an older and larger Leather culture into New Mexico. He adapted that experience to a smaller regional community, where a long-lived local vendor could become craftsman, educator, supplier, collaborator, and cultural resource at the same time.
Wade (left) and JD Smith (right) at 2023 Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco, vending at a street booth.
Tony Travis
Communities: Burlesque, Queer Entertainment, Alternative Performance
Associations: Burlesque Noir, Teatro Burlesco
Period: ~2001–present
Tony Travis is the stage name of an Albuquerque dancer, choreographer, performer, artistic director, and producer whose work connects burlesque with queer entertainment and the broader alternative-performance community. After receiving a BA in Dance from the University of New Mexico in 2001, he became involved in Albuquerque’s early twenty-first-century burlesque revival and has remained active for more than two decades.
Tony performed with Burlesque Noir for approximately fifteen years and eventually assumed an artistic-director role. Burlesque Noir represented the more neo-burlesque branch of Albuquerque’s developing scene, incorporating contemporary music, theatricality, sexuality, and experimentation rather than concentrating exclusively on classical burlesque. Tony recalls that the troupe continued for approximately one year after his departure before its remaining activity developed into other productions.
Tony subsequently founded Teatro Burlesco, a mixed-gender Albuquerque troupe presenting burlesque and variety entertainment. Teatro Burlesco began around 2018 and celebrated its seventh anniversary with Burlesque La Bohème at JUNO in July 2025. The troupe has continued presenting themed programs featuring performers of different genders, styles, and performance backgrounds.
Tony describes burlesque as “a tool toward sexual freedom.” In his view, it exists along a broad performance spectrum incorporating dance, theater, music, gymnastics, comedy, sexuality, and resistance to normative culture. Its many forms include boylesque, queerlesque, nerdlesque, classical burlesque, and neo-burlesque. Performances may range from all-ages entertainment to explicitly adult productions.
Burlesque intersects with Leather and kink through sexual performance, costuming, role-playing, fantasy, audience engagement, and the conscious ownership of sexuality. Both communities may use performance to explore desires or identities that are restricted by mainstream expectations. Burlesque also overlaps with drag, cabaret, sex-worker communities, goth and alternative music, swinger entertainment, and body-positive performance.
Tony particularly identifies consent and safety as shared concerns. Burlesque productions may begin with an audience orientation explaining acceptable behavior and how to respond when a performer approaches. In some productions, audience members can welcome interaction through open body language or decline it by crossing their arms over their chest. Performers may similarly use an established distress signal if an audience interaction becomes unsafe or difficult to control. These practices parallel the negotiations, safewords, monitoring, and consent expectations found in Leather and BDSM spaces.
Like Leather and kink communities, burlesque transmits knowledge through informal peer education. Performers teach choreography, costuming, stagecraft, character development, audience management, and safety to one another. Social working sessions sometimes called “Stitch and Bitch” gatherings combine costume construction with mentoring and community conversation. This resembles the informal workshops, mentoring relationships, and shared preparation that surround Leather contests, fantasy performances, and BDSM demonstrations.
Tony’s historical importance to this project lies in his work at the boundary between mainstream entertainment and alternative sexual culture. Through Burlesque Noir and Teatro Burlesco, he has helped create public performances where diverse genders, bodies, sexualities, and performance traditions can share a stage. His description of burlesque as a means of sexual freedom helps explain why the form repeatedly intersects with Leather, kink, drag, goth, cabaret, and other communities that challenge normative expectations.
Sources: Interview 23Dec24 w/Bear Mike, facebook.com/teatroburlescoABQ, eventbrite.com/e/teatro-burlesco-7th-anniversary-burlesque-la-boheme-tickets-1363824809719.
Andy Walden-Montoya
Communities: Leather, Kink, Gay, Bear/Cub, LGBTQ+
Associations: Corazón Leather, Albuquerque Leather Daddys, Albuquerque boys of Leather, New Mexico Leather League, New Mexico Leather Bear/Cub Contest
Period in New Mexico: Approximately 2010s–2023
Andy Walden-Montoya is a Leather organizer and titleholder best known as the creator and longtime producer of the Corazón Leather Contest. Established in 2015, Corazón restored an organized New Mexico Leather title system after the final Mr. and Ms. Rio Grande Leather Contest in 2010. Andy produced the contest through its early development and several subsequent cycles before transferring it to Jayson DaBoi Johnson in 2023.
Andy shared a marriage and Daddy/boy relationship with Mauro Walden-Montoya, Mr. Mid-Atlantic Leather 1996 and a nationally experienced titleholder, educator, and contest producer. They combined their surnames as Walden-Montoya. Mauro’s experience with Mid-Atlantic Leather, Mr. Florida Leather, Rio Grande Leather, and other title systems almost certainly formed part of the environment in which Corazón developed.
Corazón began as a collaboration among Andy, the New Mexico Leather League (NMLL), the Albuquerque boys of Leather, and other members of the local Leather and kink communities. Its inaugural contest was held at the Sheraton Albuquerque Airport Hotel, October 30th to November 1st, 2015 at an NMLL's Leather Fiesta event. Tyler McCormick, International Mr. Leather 2010, served on the judging panel. <a>
Andy designed Corazón to differ from New Mexico’s earlier title systems. While Mr. and Ms. New Mexico Leather and Rio Grande Leather had followed relatively traditional gendered Leather-title structures, Corazón was intended to include the broader pansexual kink community. Its titles could be adjusted to the gender identities or preferred honorifics of the winners, and its stated foundation was service rather than conformity to a single model of Leather identity. The contest allowed up to two winners if they met a minimum score from the judges.
The current Corazón organization describes Andy’s purpose directly:
"Corazón Leather was created by Andy Walden Montoya. It was a great opportunity to bring the Leather contest back to Albuquerque. While doing so, he integrated kink into the contest so that it would embrace more of our community." <b>
That institutional description supports two historically important conclusions: Andy restored a missing New Mexico Leather institution, and he intentionally broadened its constituency. The result was titleholders representing different genders, sexual orientations, roles, and portions of New Mexico’s Leather and kink communities. See the EVENTS page for more detail about Corazón Leather.
Andy, Mama's Pup Monkey, was also active in Albuquerque’s gay men’s Leather community. He participated with the Albuquerque boys of Leather, appeared at their social events and Pride activities, and was closely associated with the Albuquerque Leather Daddys. Photographs document him on Leather Daddys Pride floats in both 2012 and 2018, at boys of Leather gatherings, community picnics, and other social events.
In 2018, Andy won the inaugural New Mexico Leather Cub title, paired with Timothy Hickle as New Mexico Leather Bear. The Bear/Cub contest was produced by the Albuquerque Leather Daddys and held at Sidewinders Ranch. During his title year, Andy participated in Pride and other Leather Daddys activities and served as a judge for the following Bear/Cub contest. Dave Rhodes, editor of The Leather Journal, was in attendance. <c> <d>
The COVID-19 pandemic interrupted Corazón in 2020 and 2021. It returned in 2022 as part of Spring Pandemonium, awarding titles to boy Chris and Uncle Jaie. In 2023, Andy transferred responsibility for the contest to Jayson DaBoi Johnson, who revised its title structure, removed gendered title designations, and placed additional emphasis upon service across different portions of the community.
Following Mauro’s passing in December 2023, Andy returned to the Pacific Northwest, where he now lives.
Andy’s principal contribution was concentrated but consequential: he created a durable institution. Corazón restored New Mexico’s Leather-title lineage after the end of Rio Grande Leather. More importantly, Andy did not simply reproduce the older system. He designed Corazón to embrace both Leather and kink, to accommodate different genders and identities, and to treat community service as something that could take different forms. His quiet, kind interpersonal style enhanced the success of his efforts.
Sources: EVENTS <a>, corazonleathernm.com <b>, theleatherjournal.com/hump-day/dave-rhodes-hump-day-june-13-2018 <c>, theleatherjournal.com/hump-day/dave-rhodes-hump-day-october-17-2018 <d>.
Andy Walden Montoya (back row right next to Mauro), at Mama's Family Gathering at Sidewinders Ranch, Albuquewrque. Mama is in the middle, black with red trim. November 2017.
Tim Hickle (left) and Andy Walden-Montoya (right), 2018 NM Leather Bear and Leather cub winners.
Andy Walden Montoya is the person kneeling to the left in this 2018 Albuquerque Pride parade float by the Albuquerque Leather Daddys. See Mauro Walden-Montoya's entry for a larger description of this picture. <c>
2018 Leather cub Andy Walden-Montoya (left) and Leather Bear Tim Hickle (right) standing in the Albuquerque Leather Daddy's 2018 Albuquerque Pride parade, showing their patches and waving to the crowd.
Mauro Walden-Montoya
Communities: Leather, Gay, Latino, HIV/AIDS, LGBTQ+
Associations: Mr. Mid-Atlantic Leather, Mr. Puerto Rico Leather/Cuero, Mr. South Florida Leather Daddy, Leather University, Leather Curious, Mr. Florida Leather, Rio Grande Leather, Albuquerque Leather Daddys, New Mexico Leather Family, The Dolls
Period: 1980s–2023; principal Leather activity 1993–2023
Mauro Walden-Montoya was an attorney, HIV/AIDS advocate, Leather titleholder, contest producer, educator, performer, and LGBTQ+ community leader whose work extended from Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico to Florida and New Mexico. He won Mr. Mid-Atlantic Leather 1996, later held titles in Puerto Rico and South Florida, produced Leather contests in Florida and New Mexico, and helped connect Albuquerque’s Leather community to a much larger national network.
Mauro was and raised in Albuquerque, graduated from Highland High School in 1976, and earned his bachelor’s degree from New Mexico State University in 1980. He subsequently moved to Washington, D.C., where he received his law degree from George Washington University in 1984. <a>
In 1986, Mauro became the first director of legal services at what is now Whitman-Walker Health. Living with HIV himself, he represented people with HIV/AIDS who faced employment discrimination, loss of benefits, housing problems, and other forms of mistreatment at a time when few legal protections existed. He also developed a network of volunteer attorneys to assist Whitman-Walker’s clients. The program he helped establish is now recognized as the country’s oldest medical-legal partnership. <b> <c>
A 1988 Washington Post profile documented Mauro’s work with people dying from AIDS and the emotional burden placed upon the attorneys assisting them. Mauro later remembered the clients he represented, the prolonged legal battles they faced, and the many funerals he attended. After approximately two years, he found the work too emotionally devastating to continue full-time, although HIV/AIDS and LGBTQ+ advocacy remained central to the rest of his life. <d>
Mauro remained active in Washington’s LGBTQ+ community after leaving Whitman-Walker. He served as president of the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club from 1990 to 1991. In 1994, he was a keynote speaker at the federal government’s World AIDS Day observance, where he was introduced by President Bill Clinton.
Mauro began attending Mid-Atlantic Leather Weekend in 1993. After moving from Washington to San Juan, Puerto Rico, he returned to the event in 1996 and entered its contest largely for the experience. He won Mr. Mid-Atlantic Leather 1996, one of the best-known and longest-running gay men’s Leather titles in the United States. Mauro later explained that the experience introduced him to a Leather culture of brotherhood, service, and community responsibility. He came to see the title as a platform through which he could support others. His victory advanced him to International Mr. Leather 1996, where he represented the Mid-Atlantic title in Chicago. <e> <f>
While living in Puerto Rico, Mauro became Mr. Puerto Rico Leather/Cuero 1998. In 1999, after relocating to Florida, he won Mr. South Florida Leather Daddy. He subsequently moved from competing into judging, education, and contest production. <g>
In Florida, Mauro served on the board of Leather University, founded the Leather Curious group at the Gay and Lesbian Community Center in Fort Lauderdale, and produced Mr. Florida Leather from 2001 through 2004. Leather Curious was particularly consistent with his approachable style: it provided people who were interested in Leather—but not yet connected to it—with an entry point into the community. Mauro also pursued photography and writing. He operated PhotoMauro Photography, worked as a freelance writer, and served as president of Lavender Writes, a gay and lesbian writers’ organization in Fort Lauderdale. These activities placed him at the intersection of Leather, LGBTQ+ cultural production, and community education. <h>
After returning to Albuquerque, Mauro became involved in the Mr. and Ms. Rio Grande Leather title system. A 2008 biographical account identifies him as coordinating that year’s Rio Grande Leather contest, while Mauro later stated that he had produced both Mr. Florida Leather and Mr. and Ms. Rio Grande Leather. The surviving record therefore places him within the production history of the New Mexico contest, although Steve Wearden and other local organizers also played major roles during its different years.
Mauro’s participation in Rio Grande Leather is historically significant because that contest maintained New Mexico’s Leather-title lineage following the end of Sandia Leather’s Mr. and Ms. New Mexico Leather system. In Albuquerque, Mauro, Mama's Desert Daddy, was closely associated with the Albuquerque Leather Daddys as a member of their organizing committee and contributed as an emcee, judge, contest organizer, host, titleholder, and community elder. His Leather identity was not limited to titles or contests; friends remember him as exceptionally generous, welcoming, and willing to assist people personally.
Mauro also became part of Albuquerque’s theatrical community through The Dolls, the city’s longstanding drag-comedy production company. He appeared with The Dolls ensemble in productions including The Gospel According to Joan. This involvement reflected both his love of performance and the considerable overlap among Albuquerque’s drag, Leather, gay-bar, and theatrical communities. <i>
Mauro married Andy Walden, with whom he shared a Daddy/boy relationship. They combined their surnames as Walden-Montoya and were together for approximately fifteen years. Andy subsequently established Corazón Leather, which restored a New Mexico Leather contest in 2015 after the end of Rio Grande Leather. Mauro's guidance may have created a personal bridge between the Rio Grande Leather system Mauro helped produce and the Corazón Leather system Andy helped establish.
Insights developed from the NM Fetlifers Community Calendar. <n>
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On January 11, 2010, a Mauro’s Going Away Party was held at the Albuquerque Social Club for “Daddy Mauro” and Andy as they prepared to leave for a warmer climate. Donations collected during the gathering benefited Equality New Mexico (EQNM).
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On July 18, 2010, Mauro taught KinkSkills: Flogging with Mauro, a two-hour, limited-enrollment class organized through the Albuquerque Educational Leather group’s mailing address.
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On April 24, 2011, Mauro and Nathaniel Augustson served as masters of ceremonies for the Warriors, Gladiators & Daddys Charity Event at EFFEX Nightclub. Sponsored by the Albuquerque Leather Daddies. Its program included performances by the Albuquerque Leather Daddys and Boys, James Reese, Boy Thomas, Julian Wolf, and Arcane, followed by music from DJ Stitch, dancing, vendors, and a raffle for a basket of Leather items.
Outside Leather, Mauro became one of Albuquerque’s most visible LGBTQ+ civic figures. He served as president of the Albuquerque LGBTQ Chamber of Commerce, sat on the boards of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains and the Wheels Museum, and acted as an LGBTQ+ liaison and tour guide for the Albuquerque Trolley Company. He also operated several businesses, including property-management companies and Madness Motors, a classic-vehicle restoration shop.
After becoming a Universal Life Church minister in 2013, Mauro officiated more than 100 same-sex weddings in New Mexico, California, Texas, and Washington. In 2021, he ran for Albuquerque City Council District 7, becoming the first openly LGBTQ+, Latino candidate living with HIV to seek a seat on the council. Although he was not elected, his campaign extended his long history of public LGBTQ+ advocacy. <j>
Mauro died from complications associated with cancer on December 18, 2023, at age 65. He was survived by Andy Walden-Montoya. <m>
Mauro’s importance rests upon an unusual combination of service, visibility, and institutional work, all with an unassuming and down-to-earth approach with others.
Before becoming a Leather titleholder, he was already performing historically significant work as one of the first attorneys dedicated to representing people with HIV/AIDS who faced discrimination. His own HIV status made that advocacy personally consequential during a period when both the disease and the people living with it were heavily stigmatized.
Within Leather, Mauro progressed from participant to national titleholder, educator, board member, group founder, judge, and contest producer. He held significant titles in three regions, produced Mr. Florida Leather, and helped coordinate Rio Grande Leather in Albuquerque. He brought experience from Washington, Puerto Rico, and Florida back to his hometown and helped connect New Mexico with the larger national Leather community.
His later civic, theatrical, business, marriage-officiation, and LGBTQ+ advocacy broadened that influence. Mauro did not primarily build a single enduring New Mexico organization in the manner of Dick Marleau, Pat Sanchez, or Steve Wearden. His contribution was different: he carried service, relationships, and Leather experience across several communities and repeatedly used his visibility to create opportunities for other people.
Sources: washingtonblade.com/2024/01/03/mauro-walden-montoya-obit/ <a>, whitman-walker.org/gtem-2026/ <b>, medical-legalpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Ensuring-People-with-Chronic-Conditions-Maintain-Access-to-Care.pdf <c>, washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1988/02/23/advocates-in-the-realm-of-sorrows/47af4e93-b56e-470a-9f16-0153931e84af/ <d>, washingtonblade.com/2019/01/17/mr-mal-where-are-they-now/ <e>, theleatherjournal.com/news/1996 <f>, theleatherjournal.com/news/1998 <g>, jackfritscher.com/PDF/Others/Townsend%20Obit%20in%20LA%26M%20LEATHER%20TIMES%20BY%20FRITSCHERissue34.pdf <h>, myemail.constantcontact.com/Get-Dolled-up-for-the-Opening-Night-Cast-Party-of-The-Gospel-According-to-Joan.html?aid=vPoUt5aEe0A&soid=1102987427074 <i>, electionstats.sos.nm.gov/candidate/10672 <j>, theleatherjournal.com/hump-day/dave-rhodes-hump-day-june-13-2018 <k>, .theleatherjournal.com/hump-day/dave-rhodes-hump-day-september-23-2020 <l>, theleatherjournal.com/hump-day/dave-rhodes-hump-day-december-29-2023 <m>, NM Fetlifers Community Calendar database developed by NM Alternative Community History Project <n>.
Albuquerque Leather Daddys celebrate Pride - By Mauro Walden-Montoya
The Albuquerque Leather Daddys are celebrating Pride Month with various events. The group held Leather Pride Gear Night at Sidewinders Bar, featuring a wet underwear contest on Saturday, June 2, (2018) raising $450 for charity with nine contestants who stripped to their undies to be wet down. The Leather Daddys participated in the Albuquerque Pride Parade on Saturday, June 9 with a float with New Mexico Leather Bear 2018 Timothy Hickle and New Mexico Leather 2018 cub Andy Walden-Montoya as well asmembers of the Albuquerque Boys of Leathert. Music from the float poured forth causing many spectators to dance, while others bent over to be spanked. It was estimated that over 25,000 watched the parade, and the Leather Daddys got cheers along the entire four miles on Route 66. <k>
Daddy Mauro Walden-Montoya honored
Daddy Mauro Walden-Montoya, a member of the Albuquerque Leather Daddys, was awarded the Lifetime Achievement award on Saturday, June 2 by the United Court of the Sandias in Albuquerque, NM. UCS, a member of the International Court system. Daddy Mauro was recognized for his long work on HIV and LGBTQ civil rights issues as well as his community service for the LGBTQ, LatinX and general communities during his now 60 year lifespan. He won Mr. Mid Atlantic Leather in 1996, and also held the titles of Mr. Leather Puerto Rico and South Florida Leather Daddy. Walden-Montoya has served on 60-plus non-profit boards (and a few for-profit boards) during his lifetime. Since graduating from law school in 1984, Walden-Montoya has raised, either individually or in concert with various organizations, over $100,000 for charity. In 2014, Mauro Montoya married boy andy walden, and they combined their last names. They currently live in Albuquerque where they are both very active in the Leather and general communities. <k>
Sir Magnum, Pup Spike, Andy Walden-Montoya, Mauro Walden-Montoya, Bear Mike, Bear Marvin/Lash Onyx at Sidewinders S4200, September 2020, emerging from the pandemic, masks down. From a TLJ article about ONYX chapter development. <l>
Kevin Watson
Communities: Leather
Associations: Sandia Leathermen/Leatherwomen, New Mexico Fantasy, International Mr. Fantasy, Mr. and Ms. New Mexico Leather
Period: ~1996–1998
Kevin Watson is a New Mexico Leather titleholder best known as International Mr. Fantasy 1996. Kevin first won Mr. New Mexico Fantasy, a title produced by Sandia Leathermen/Leatherwomen as a feeder into the International Fantasy competition. With substantial support from the organization, he represented New Mexico at the international contest in Omaha, Nebraska, where he became the second person to hold the International Mr. Fantasy title. See expanded detail here.
The Fantasy contest was one of three title programs operated by Sandia Leathermen/Leatherwomen. Mr. and Ms. New Mexico Leather were the organization’s principal titles. Mr. and Ms. New Mexico Leatherfest provided a less-formal preparatory opportunity for prospective contestants, while Mr. and Ms. New Mexico Fantasy selected performers for advancement to the international Fantasy contest. Kevin’s 1996 victory demonstrated that this feeder system accomplished exactly what it was created to do: prepare and support a New Mexico representative capable of winning internationally.
Kevin won the international title in August 1996 with a Western-themed fantasy involving a ranch owner and an unproductive ranch hand. Contemporary reporting praised the performance for its theatrical storytelling, ropework, and conclusion involving a branding iron. One account called it the strongest fantasy of the evening and reported general agreement among audience members and contestants that Kevin deserved the victory. He was the second person to hold the International Mr. Fantasy title, following inaugural titleholder J. D. Buchert in 1995. <a> <b> <c>
Sandia Leathermen/Leatherwomen provided substantial support for Kevin’s international run. Numerous members traveled with him from New Mexico to Omaha and held what became a victory celebration at the contest hotel. Their participation illustrates the organizational and financial support local Leather clubs often provided when sending titleholders to regional or international competitions.
During his international title year, Kevin made at least one documented appearance outside New Mexico. In April 1997, he appeared as the reigning International Mr. Fantasy at a fantasy contest and show held at The Saloon in Minneapolis. The event allowed contestants to compete for prize packages to International Mr. Leather and International Mr. Fantasy. <d>
Kevin subsequently won Mr. New Mexico Leather 1998 at the Sandia Leathermen-produced contest held at The Ranch in Albuquerque on March 21, 1998. The contest was presented under the theme “Heavy Metal” and drew a packed audience. His selection connected New Mexico’s local title system with his earlier international recognition and made him one of the comparatively few New Mexico titleholders who had already held an international title before winning Mr. New Mexico Leather. <e> <f>
Kevin’s significance to this history rests primarily upon his two documented titles. As International Mr. Fantasy 1996, he represented Albuquerque in a developing international contest system centered on staged Leather fantasy and erotic performance. As Mr. New Mexico Leather 1998, he became part of the principal Leather title lineage produced by Sandia Leathermen during the 1990s.
Sources: leathercolumn.blogspot.com/1996/ <a>, black-rose.com/cuiru/archive/3-1/contests.html <b>, theleatherjournal.com/news-2/content/96-living-in-leather <c>, leathercolumn.blogspot.com/1997/04/donnie-russo-in-his-own-words-part-2.html <d>, theleatherjournal.com/news/1998 <e>, EVENTS <f>.
Steve Wearden
Communities: Leather, Gay, BDSM, Master/slave
Associations: Motorcyclemen of New Mexico, Sandia Leathermen/Leatherwomen, Stampede and Pipeline, New Mexico Leather Wolves, Rio Grande Leather, Rudis Leather Society
Period: Early 1990s–2023
Steve Wearden was a Leather organizer, bar operator, contest producer, mentor, historian, and longtime community leader whose activity in Albuquerque extended across approximately three decades. He participated in several successive generations of New Mexico Leather organizations, helped preserve local control of its Leather-title system, produced the final years of Mr. and Ms. Rio Grande Leather, and served for fourteen years as the Master and eventual husband of Tyler McCormick, International Mr. Leather 2010.
Steve’s precise route to Albuquerque has not yet been documented. A 2013 obituary for his aunt Carolyn Thompson identifies Steve as the son of Betty Wearden and places members of his extended family in New Mexico. Carolyn was described as a lifelong New Mexico resident. This raises the possibility that Steve had family roots in the state, returned to New Mexico after living elsewhere, or was already a resident before entering the documented Leather community. <a>
Steve’s earliest presently documented New Mexico Leather affiliation was with the Motorcyclemen of New Mexico. He participated as an associate, a status commonly used for people who did not own or regularly ride motorcycles but were connected with the club and its community. <b> Steve subsequently became an important member of Sandia Leathermen, which had been organized around 1989–1990 as an alternative to motorcycle ownership as the basis for Leather participation. According to Leslie Anderson, Steve helped bring Leslie, Diva Marie, and Lady Willow into Sandia Leather. Their participation contributed to the establishment of Sandia Leatherwomen, formally organized in 1995 as a sister organization sharing the same leadership and finances as Sandia Leathermen.
This recruitment was historically important. Sandia Leather became unusually inclusive of women for a Leather organization of its period, and the people Steve helped bring into the organization became significant leaders and titleholders. Lady Willow became the first Ms. New Mexico Leather in 1995 and placed second at International Ms. Leather. Leslie Anderson became Ms. New Mexico Leather 1996, American Leatherwoman 1997, and the inaugural International Ms. Bootblack in 1999. Diva Marie became Ms. New Mexico Leather 1997 and Sandia Leather’s first female president.
Steve also entered the title system himself. Contemporary coverage of the 1995 New Mexico Leather competition identifies him as the first male runner-up, behind the selected Mr. New Mexico Leather, Buddy LaRue. “Wild Bill” Huff was the second male runner-up, while Leslie Anderson was among the women contestants. Although Steve did not receive the title, his participation placed him directly within the contest culture he would later help preserve and produce. <c>
Sandia Leathermen and Leatherwomen became one of the most successful organizations in New Mexico Leather history. It operated social, educational, charitable, and play events; produced Mr. and Ms. New Mexico Leather, New Mexico Leatherfest, and New Mexico Fantasy titles; and earned the Pantheon of Leather Large Club of the Year Award for 1997. Steve’s role in recruiting several of its influential women makes him part of both its organizational history and its unusually inclusive character.
During the late 1990s, Steve was associated with Stampede and Pipeline, two interconnected bars operating at 3208 San Mateo Boulevard NE in Laramie Square. Stampede presented itself as a gay men’s country-and-western bar, while Pipeline provided a more explicitly Levi, Leather, latex, boots, uniform, and bear-oriented environment through a separate entrance. The arrangement attempted to support overlapping gay cultures within the same location while maintaining a distinct Leather space. Steve’s exact legal or financial interest in the bars remains uncertain. Community recollections identify him as an owner or principal operator, while a later history of Albuquerque Mining Company describes a bartender known as Chip as coming from “his own club Stampede.” Steve and Chip may have been co-owners, investors, or operating partners.
The two bars operated from approximately late 1998 until around August 2000. Although short-lived, they represented one of Albuquerque’s clearest attempts to maintain a dedicated men’s Leather and fetish bar alongside a broader gay country-and-western venue. Their closure occurred during a period of significant transition: Sandia Leather also disbanded in April 2000, leaving the community without one of its strongest organizations or its established title producer.
Steve remained active during the rebuilding that followed. In 2003, he joined Scott Allen Scott, Major Gardner, Chuck Higgins, and James Torbet in registering variations of the Mr. and Ms. New Mexico Leather names with the New Mexico Secretary of State. This occurred amid conflict over the continued production of the titles by HPL Productions of Colorado after Sandia Leather’s dissolution. Whatever the interpersonal disagreements surrounding that episode, Steve’s involvement reflected a determination that New Mexico’s Leather titles should remain connected to and controlled by the local community. <d>
The eventual result was Mr. and Ms. Rio Grande Leather, a successor title system operated between 2004 and 2010. The contest was initially supported by several individuals and organizations, including the New Mexico Leather League, Pat Baillie, Lady Katalina, and other community members. Steve eventually assumed principal responsibility for its production.
Rio Grande Leather continued the expectation that its titleholders would represent New Mexico at International Mr. Leather or International Ms. Leather and support one another at their respective competitions. Steve also used the event to recognize community service. In 2008, for example, he presented Amber Garland with a Rio Grande Leather Community Service Award for her contributions to Leather education and community life.
Steve was also involved in the New Mexico Leather Wolves, an organization founded in 2002 to encourage men’s Leather fraternity and consensual male-to-male radical sexual expression. State corporation records identify Steve as a director and president, while organizational records list him as Members’ Whip during the 2008–2010 period. The Leather Wolves held bar nights, educational programs, social gatherings, and activities associated with Rio Grande Leather. Their presence helped carry gay men’s Leather culture through the period after Sandia Leather and the Motorcyclemen had declined.
Steve’s most nationally visible legacy developed through his relationship with Tyler McCormick. Tyler has described spending fourteen years alongside Steve as his Master. They later married. Steve provided Tyler with a Leather relationship, home, and community setting during a period in which Tyler developed as an educator, activist, judge, titleholder, and national representative.
Tyler won Mr. Rio Grande Leather 2010 and subsequently became International Mr. Leather 2010. He was the first openly transgender man and first wheelchair user to win IML. His victory was a landmark in the international Leather community, but it was accompanied by intense prejudice and resistance. Steve’s support formed part of the personal and local foundation from which Tyler undertook that difficult title year. Rio Grande Leather therefore produced not merely another regional representative but the only New Mexico resident to have won International Mr. Leather.
After Rio Grande Leather ended, Steve continued contributing as an elder, educator, and historian. On August 1, 2019, he presented a program on New Mexico Leather History at Sidewinders Ranch attended by Bear Mike. The surviving handout is now one inspiration for and source documents supporting the broader History of New Mexico Leather and Alternative Communities project by Bear Mike. Steve had personally experienced much of the period he discussed: Motorcyclemen, Sandia Leather, the 1990s title system, the Leather bars, Leather Wolves, Rio Grande Leather, and Tyler’s IML victory. His historical presentation represents an important act of intergenerational transmission rather than a retrospective assembled entirely from secondary research. <e> Steve and Tyler moved to St Louis, MO.
Steve was later associated with Rudis Leather Society and remained recognized in both local and national Leather circles. Rudis’s memorial described him as a valued member of the organization and of the local and national Leather communities. He died while receiving hospice care on the night of August 27, 2023, although the year should be confirmed from an original dated memorial or family record before publication. (Rudis memorial)
In 2024, the Corazón Leather Contest established the Steve Wearden Lifetime Achievement Award in his memory. Amber Garland received the inaugural award for her decades of service to New Mexico Leather. Naming an award for Steve recognizes the continuity of his work: he once used Rio Grande Leather to honor Amber’s community service, and the later Corazón Leather system used Steve’s name to honor that service again.
Steve Wearden was an important bridge among successive generations of New Mexico Leather. He began in the motorcycle-club era as an associate of the Motorcyclemen of New Mexico. He became part of Sandia Leather during the height of Albuquerque’s nationally recognized 1990s organization and helped bring influential women into its membership. He participated personally in the New Mexico Leather title system, attempted to sustain a dedicated Leather bar, helped reorganize community infrastructure after Sandia Leather’s dissolution, served as a leader of the Leather Wolves, and ultimately preserved the state’s title lineage through Rio Grande Leather.
His work also produced two different forms of legacy. One was institutional: organizations, bars, contests, awards, and historical records. The other was personal: bringing people into Leather, supporting their development, and building a fourteen-year relationship with Tyler McCormick. Tyler’s groundbreaking IML victory belongs to Tyler, but Steve was an important part of the local Leather structure and personal support behind it.
Steve’s 2019 history presentation adds a final dimension. After helping make New Mexico Leather history for decades, he attempted to preserve and explain it. This present history project therefore does not merely describe Steve’s legacy; it was inspired by it and also continues work that Steve himself had already begun.
Sources: frenchfunerals.com/obituaries/carolyn-thompson <a>, GROUPS <b>, Bay Area Reporter cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=BAR19950330.1.44 <c>, EVENTS <d>, nm-real.org/leather-history-1 <e>, facebook.com/rudisleather/posts/we-are-deeply-saddened-by-the-loss-of-steve-wearden-steve-passed-away-on-the-nig/666670888823702/ <f>.
Steve Wearden, "In honor of Southern Decadence NOLA. Me gettin' some beads 2004."
Julian Addams-Wolf / Jack D. Nimble
Communities: Leather, BDSM and kink, LGBTQ advocacy, goth and industrial, burlesque, cabaret, visual and performance art.
Associations: NM:TNG, Rio Grande Leather, New Mexico Leather League, Albuquerque Pride, Equality New Mexico, National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, Albuquerque boys of Leather, Albuquerque Leather Daddys, Weekly Alibi, Alibi Fetish Events, Thee Sanctuary, Pridezilla, Audacious Productions and Albuquerque Leather & Kink
Period: ~2000–present
Julian Addams-Wolf, also known as Julian Wolf and through performance identities including Julian Addams and Jack D. Nimble, is one of New Mexico’s most active cross-community connectors. Since approximately 2000, Julian has moved among Leather, kink, LGBTQ advocacy, goth and industrial nightlife, burlesque, cabaret, visual art and alternative entertainment. Their importance lies not only in the individual organizations and events they helped create, but in repeatedly bringing performers, educators, activists, titleholders and audiences from different communities into shared spaces.
In 2002–03, Julian and Jesse established New Mexico: The Next Generation, or NM:TNG, for people between approximately 18 and 35 interested in BDSM and alternative sexuality. Julian served as chair and managed the organization’s business for seven years, stepping down as they approached the group’s upper age limit. Under its early leadership, NM:TNG organized meetings, education, play parties, Pride participation and hanky-code events and assisted with Rio Grande Leather and Spring Pandemonium. By its sixth anniversary, the organization reported more than 100 members. Julian’s own account dates the co-founding to 2003, while surviving NM:TNG history dates its establishment to November 2002.
Julian became the inaugural Ms. Rio Grande Leather 2004, serving alongside Mr. Rio Grande Leather Ruben Gallegos, as title siblings. Julian subsequently assisted with the annual Rio Grande Leather conferences in several capacities. During Spring Pandemonium in March 2005, Julian led a public discussion about BDSM lifestyles, protocol, play-party etiquette and community participation.
Julian was also a charter member of the New Mexico Leather League, serving five consecutive terms on its board. According to Julian’s biography, the organization took its name from a performance that Julian wrote and co-produced with former Mr. New Mexico Pride, Tony Carson. Julian later participated with members and friends of the Albuquerque boys of Leather and Albuquerque Leather Daddys, appearing at their social gatherings and on the Leather Daddys’ 2012 Pride float. They were also recognized in Mama’s Family as Mama’s Prince Julian. In 2017, Julian helped Bear Mike establish Albuquerque Leather & Kink as a cross-community event-information network.
In 2006, Julian received the Ms. New Mexico Pride title and was identified as its first openly queer titleholder. Albuquerque Pride presented Julian with a tenth-anniversary crown in 2016 in recognition of their continuing work. Julian joined Equality New Mexico as an administrative assistant in 2008 and subsequently worked with the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, first on call and later through an elected term. They have presented classes, workshops and keynote or plenary addresses for community organizations, colleges, conferences and spiritual groups, including the University of New Mexico Feminist Symposium.
Julian’s performance work connected the leather and kink communities with Albuquerque’s goth, industrial, burlesque and cabaret scenes. As Jack D. Nimble, Julian worked with Thee Sanctuary in production, performance, stage management, decoration, writing and emceeing. Thee Sanctuary described Jack as the darker performance face of Julian Wolf and documented Julian’s participation in New Mexico’s goth and industrial scene since the beginning of the century. Julian later performed boylesque and cabaret as Julian Addams and became known as a “Monster of Ceremonies.” They emceed Pridezilla in 2016 and presented the Julian Wolf Cabaret at Pridezilla in 2019.
Julian also wrote for the Weekly Alibi and became closely involved with Alibi Fetish Events. In February 2017, Julian produced Kinky Curiosities at Sister Bar, bringing together leather demonstrations, bondage, kink, drag, burlesque, alternative visual art and vendors. Participants included Albuquerque Leather Daddys, Albuquerque boys of Leather, the 2016 Corazón titleholders, several burlesque companies and independent kink performers. Julian later produced the Carnal Carnevale Masquerade, an immersive Alibi Fetish Event combining erotic art, BDSM demonstrations, wandering performers, music, food and formal masquerade attire. The event was deliberately structured as a bridge through which people from the broader public could encounter kink and alternative communities in a curated environment. Julian also published event announcements, commentary and reviews through the Alibi.
Beyond leather and nightlife, Julian developed work as a visual artist, live painter, alternative model, writer, tarot reader and event designer. They operated Audacious Productions, including Cabaret Audacity, and produced performances that combined music, live art, burlesque, comedy and audience participation. Julian’s art has appeared at the UNM LGBTQ Resource Center, Albuquerque Press Club, Unseen Gallery, Corpus Arts and other Southwestern galleries and festivals. They participated in CURRENTS New Media in Santa Fe in 2023, whose biography describes Julian as a visual and performance artist, educator, producer and longtime consent-culture activist.
After moving to Santa Fe, Julian continued developing visual art, performances and experimental community spaces. Recent reporting associates Julian and artist Jerome Morrison with Santa Fe DIY art and performance spaces including Ghost, Cocoon and The DL. This work continues the pattern visible throughout Julian’s New Mexico history: creating a project, building connections around it, and then carrying that experience into a new artistic or community setting.
Julian’s career does not follow a conventional progression from one organization or title to another. It is better understood as a series of creative interventions. They have repeatedly entered communities, helped create events and institutions, encouraged participation and consent, and then shifted their attention toward another form of expression. This mobility made Julian an important conduit between New Mexico communities that are often documented separately but, in practice, shared many of the same people, venues and audiences.
Additional information about Julian is here.
Sources: Interactions w/Bear Mike, julianaddamswolf.com/gallery.html, alibi.com/feature/alibi-events/, currentsnewmedia.org/artist/julian-addams-wolf/, facebook.com/professionaljulian/.
Dominic Zurlo
Communities: Bear, Leather, LGBTQ+, Public Health
Associations: Bears of Mañana, Sandia Bears, Motorcyclemen of New Mexico, Sandia Leathermen/Leatherwomen, New Mexico Drummer, International Bear Expo, International Bear Rendezvous, New Mexico Fantasy, The Ranch and Cuffs
Period: ~1988–present; principal Leather and bear activity from the early 1990s
Dominick Zurlo is a New Mexico bear and Leather titleholder, organization founder, emcee, educator, and early LGBTQ+ student activist. His history illustrates the close relationship among Albuquerque’s Leather clubs, bear organizations, gay bars, title contests, country-western dancing, and public-health work during the 1990s.
Dominick moved to New Mexico in January 1987 and came out as gay the following year while attending the University of New Mexico. He became active in UNM’s Gay and Lesbian Student Union, wrote a recurring Daily Lobo column titled One Step Out, and ran unsuccessfully for student-body president as an openly gay candidate. He also participated in Albuquerque Pride activities. These early experiences in public writing and campus politics preceded the organizing, public speaking, and emcee work he later performed in the Leather and bear communities.
After turning 21, Dominick became familiar with The Ranch, which had recently opened, and its Leather bar, Cuffs. His relationship with Walt Lang introduced him to members of Sandia Leathermen and the Motorcyclemen of New Mexico. Dominick joined Motorcyclemen of New Mexico and participated in motorcycle rides, campouts, and trips around the state, including excursions to Las Cruces, Pecos, Taos, and the northern mountains. Motorcyclemen gatherings were associated particularly with the Albuquerque Social Club, while Cuffs also served as a meeting place for Leather members and invited guests.
Dominick also became a member of the Sandia Leather organization as it reconsidered its originally male-specific identity and expanded to include women and people of different genders. He later bartended periodically at both The Ranch and Cuffs. Cuffs was initially a controlled Leather space entered through club membership or invitation before becoming more publicly accessible under a Leather dress code.
In late 1992, Dominick and his partner David Guiney helped establish Bears of Mañana, one of New Mexico’s earliest organized bear groups. The name reportedly developed when participants, tired of trying to choose a name, suggested that they finish the discussion “mañana.” The informal organization had no dues, bylaws, officers, or formal titles; members contributed small amounts for postcards, photocopying, and newsletters. Its purpose was primarily social, bringing bears and admirers together for gatherings at The Ranch and activities around New Mexico.
A related organization, Sandia Bears, later provided the formal structure needed for fundraising and charitable activity. Dominick and David helped operate the organizations during their formative years before other members assumed leadership. Dominick also emceed the first two Albuquerque bear contests. His work helped establish a visible bear community in New Mexico at a time when the bear movement was itself becoming more formally organized nationally.
Dominick first entered the Mr. New Mexico Drummer contest in 1993 and returned in 1994, when he won Mr. New Mexico Drummer. The Leather Journal’s historical title reporting and the New Mexico Leather League title record both confirm his 1994 win. He advanced to the Southwest Drummer contest in Phoenix and finished second. <b>
During the same period, Dominick competed at the 1994 International Bear Expo in San Francisco and received the International Bear Cub 1994 title. The International Bear Expo, held from 1992 through 1994, was the predecessor of International Bear Rendezvous, produced beginning in 1995 by the Bears of San Francisco. Dominick later personally corrected a published historical title list to identify himself as the 1994 Cub from Albuquerque. <c> <d>
The simultaneous titles created an unusual intersection between Leather and bear contest systems. Dominick recalled that, before the Southwest Drummer contest, he was asked whether he would relinquish his bear title if selected as Southwest Drummer. He responded that he saw no reason the two identities or responsibilities could not coexist. His second-place finish nevertheless made him a regional representative of New Mexico’s Leather community while he also represented Albuquerque within the developing international bear community.
Dominick became a familiar contest judge, emcee, and performer. He emceed New Mexico Leather, bear, and fantasy events and frequently worked with his Leather daughter, Michele, known as Lady Noir. He also helped participants—including Leslie Anderson and others—gain confidence performing onstage. His continuing national visibility is demonstrated by his service as emcee of the 2012 Mr. Bluegrass Leather weekend in Kentucky. <e>
Dominick’s performances were often intentionally humorous rather than conventionally erotic. One recurring fantasy used Ernie’s “Rubber Duckie” song, a metal bathing tub, a rubber duck, and an increasingly adult collection of bath accessories. He performed versions of the number for several years, tossing signed rubber ducks into the audience; one reportedly sold at auction for approximately $200. In another production, he adapted a Boy Scout camp sketch into a Leather-camp fantasy involving knot tying and other “instruction,” with performers including Leslie Anderson and Julian Wolf improvisationally tying him up onstage. These performances broadened the prevailing idea of a Leather fantasy by using comedy, audience participation, and theatrical storytelling.
Dominick was also active in Albuquerque’s country-western dance community. He won New Mexico rodeo dance competitions, taught dance classes at The Ranch, and eventually worked more regularly at the bar. Dance instruction, bartending, contest production, and emcee work placed him in a particularly connective role: he helped newcomers acquire social skills, stage confidence, and access to several intersecting parts of gay community life.
Beginning around 1999, graduate research, international travel, employment, and education reduced Dominick’s direct participation in Leather organizations. He nevertheless continued to emcee and judge selected events. Beginning in 2007, he returned to International Bear Rendezvous as an emcee for approximately five years, reconnecting his 1994 Bear Expo title with the successor event. International Bear Rendezvous continued through 2011.
Dominick’s later professional work has concentrated on education, harm reduction, infectious-disease prevention, and public health. He earned a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from UNM in 2017; his dissertation examined effective methods for teaching the administration of naloxone nasal spray. He subsequently served in New Mexico Department of Health leadership roles involving hepatitis, harm reduction, overdose prevention, medical cannabis, and related health programs. This work continued themes present in his earlier community involvement: public education, stigma reduction, meeting people where they are, and making health information usable within marginalized communities. <f> <g>
Dominick Zurlo helped connect communities that were sometimes treated as separate: Motorcyclemen and Leather clubs, bears, bar culture, country-western dancing, title contests, comic performance, student activism, and public-health education. As a co-founder of Bears of Mañana, he helped give New Mexico’s emerging bear community an independent social identity. As Mr. New Mexico Drummer and International Bear Cub 1994, he represented New Mexico simultaneously in two developing national networks. His later work as an emcee allowed him to carry that history into another generation of bear and Leather events.
Sources: Interview (17Jul24) <a>, theleatherjournal.com/news/content/121-tlj-leather-archives <b>, queerstoryfiles.blogspot.com/2013/02/grin-and-bear-it-for-17-years.html <c>, jprince85.wixsite.com/beararchives/bosf-records <d>, theleatherjournal.com/news/author/802-daverhodes <e>, graduation.unm.edu/fall_2017/program/_doctoral.html <f>, nmlegis.gov/handouts/LHHS%20081419%20Item%205%20Harm%20reduction%20presentation.pdf <g>, UNM Daily Lobo archives.
Photograph of title winners Michael Myhand, Dominic Zurlo, Al Fritsch, Rodger Ream (left to right) onstage at the 1994 International Mr. Bear contest held at the Golden Gate Holiday Inn in San Francisco, CA. Myhand, seen wearing the title sash, was selected as the year's International Mr. Bear. Zurlo was chosen as Cub Bear, Fritsch was chosen as Polar Bear and Ream was chosen as Grizzly Bear. The winners are all holding large stuffed animal teddy bears. The photo was taken by Mister Marcus (Marcus Hernandez). From Box 1, Folder 14 of the Timothy Wong papers (2021-24).
Note: The history compilation on this page is courtesy of and Copyright 2024-2026, Domum Corium Cordis, House of Leather Heart. Have more ideas to contribute or critique of these thoughts? Additional information or corrections to the history content? Let us know. Write head@houseofleatherheart.org.
Rubric for selecting Notable Individuals on this page
For those who are interested in how we select individuals for this page and why we use this process, a description is provided here.
Generating a "Notable Individuals" listing was essential to overcome historical research limitations of the other categories such as Venue, Group, Media and Events that cannot easily focus upon one person to see their arc through community impact. Artisans as a category had this potential but was too limiting. However, with the creation of the Individuals listing came a few concerns:
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A process to decide if a candidate should or should not be on the list.
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Removing as much bias as possible in selecting individuals.
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A way to roughly rank individuals on the list for internal historical research.
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Finding individuals that belong on this page more broadly within our research, the Internet, or other historical research.
To address these concerns, a structured, AI-assisted scoring system was developed. The first 25 individuals were selected manually using the general measures described at the top of this page, and their listings were researched and written. That initial group was then used to develop and calibrate a 0–100 Positive Impact Score. A score of 70 normally qualifies a person for consideration as a Notable Individual. Certain people, such as international titleholders with a documented New Mexico connection, may qualify for special historical inclusion below 70. All candidates remain subject to a separate final fitness review. Scores are for internal research only and are not published.
Components of this scoring system are as follows for qualifying individuals that have been within New Mexico communities:
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Durable positive impact, 0–30, Significance, depth, scale, and persistence of demonstrated benefits.
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Establishment and leadership, 0–20, Founding, producing, sustaining, or leading organizations, events, venues, media, or related activity.
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Service over time, 0–20, Duration and continuity of meaningful service—not merely years of membership.
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Cross-community connectivity, 0–15, Demonstrated bridging among Leather, kink, LGBTQ+, racial, gender, artistic, health, business, or other sectors.
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Broader representation and distinction, 0–15, Regional, national, or international representation, titles, teaching, recognition, or equivalent influence.
For internal organization, scores of notable individuals were grouped this way for Positive Impact Score:
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High impact: 90–100
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Medium impact: 80–89
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Notable impact: 70–79
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Special historical inclusion: below 70, when another criterion independently warrants listing, such as having an international title.
When applying the scoring rubric, a set of rules are applied:
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Time Neutrality
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Activity is evaluated relative to the community’s size, institutions, technology, risks, and opportunities during that period.
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Founding a small organization in 1978 may be more consequential than producing a larger event today.
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Current visibility, website coverage, surviving photographs, and social-media activity earn no points by themselves.
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An individuals score should not decrease with time because they have become inactive in the community.
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Title Bias
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Titles receive points for representation and resulting service—not simply for winning.
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Geographic Neutrality
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Contributions are neither rewarded nor discounted because they occurred inside or outside New Mexico. External work receives credit in proportion to its demonstrated representation of, connection to, or positive effect upon New Mexico communities. External accomplishment without a meaningful New Mexico nexus receives only limited credit under Broader Representation and Distinction.
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Accuracy Estimates
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Scoring will depend upon availability of historical record. The scoring system includes an indicator of certainty.
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One or two points should not be overinterpreted. Most scores have an uncertainty of approximately ±2 points.
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The scoring is performed through an AI-assisted research process. The AI reviews information supplied by the historian, relevant historical documents, and independently located online sources, then applies the same rubric to each candidate. This provides greater consistency and can uncover people or evidence that might otherwise be overlooked. It does not eliminate bias or compensate fully for incomplete records. The author reviews the evidence, considers local and firsthand knowledge unavailable online, evaluates uncertainty, and makes the final inclusion and fitness determination.
After scoring, a separate fitness review determines whether the individual’s overall community service is appropriate for affirmative recognition on this page. The 0–100 Positive Impact Score measures the scale, durability, leadership, service, connectivity, and broader significance of documented beneficial contributions. It does not measure the individual’s total net effect upon the community, moral character, or fitness for recognition. A high score therefore does not guarantee inclusion. This review distinguishes ordinary human mistakes and interpersonal conflict from sustained patterns of serious harm, misuse of authority, institutional damage, or resistance to accountability. Because some relevant information may be private, poorly documented, or inappropriate to publish, the fitness determination cannot be fully automated.
This process is a research and editorial aid rather than a scientific measurement. Scores may be revised when new evidence becomes available, and inclusion on—or absence from—the page should not be interpreted as a complete judgment of a person’s life or character.
A secondary, faster process addresses the last concern. It is used to help more quickly search for people in our records and on the Internet that might be included as Notable Individuals. This process uses less effort to identify candidates that might later be scored by the more accurate rubric above.
The Rapid-Screening Process provides each person one “signal” for:
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Creation — founded or substantially built an organization, event, venue, publication, or durable activity.
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Leadership — sustained responsibility rather than ordinary membership.
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Duration or durability — extended service or something that remained influential afterward.
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Connectivity — bridged multiple community sectors.
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Broader reach — represented or connected New Mexico regionally or nationally under Geographic Neutrality.
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Distinctive historical significance — barrier-breaking, cultural preservation, crisis leadership, or an otherwise irreplaceable contribution.
A person becomes a candidate for full scoring with three ordinary signals; or one exceptional signal plus another corroborating signal. Merely appearing in multiple places would not be enough to trigger this identification. Multiple appearances of an individual online or in the records are a discovery tool, not evidence of impact.
Note: The history compilation on this page is courtesy of and Copyright 2024-2026, Domum Corium Cordis, House of Leather Heart. Have more ideas to contribute or critique of these thoughts? Additional information or corrections to the history content? Let us know. Write head@houseofleatherheart.org.