"On the Way There" timeline

Del LaGrace Volcano is born. "I was born making trouble. Not just gender trouble, but all kinds. I was five when the cops first brought me home, picked up for selling red rocks from Mars to the local human inhabitants." (Volcano) Couldn't have said it better myself!

Source - https://www.bjp-online.com/2019/06/any-answers-del-lagrace-volcano/

Photo - Del LaGrace Volcano, TWIRL, Kathy Acker, London 1999

While second wave feminism attempted to expand the issues it confronted, like reproductive rights, domesticity and sexual violence, it struck out the SM lesbians aka leatherdykes. Second wave feminists felt that SM "simulates the sexual power dynamics that allowed men to oppress women for ages." Leatherdykes felt that it "reclaim[ed] power and consent, and generally upset ideas about how women are supposed to behave."

Source: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/leather-feminism-lesbian-leatherdyke-bdsm

Photo - Leather Archives and Museum

“In 1978, with lesbian SM a recurring topic in feminist circles, a small group of women founded the first independent lesbian SM group, named Samois, in San Francisco. It was named for Samois-sur-Seine, the fictional estate of a lesbian dominatrix in the controversial 1954 French novel Story of O. In its first year, Samois published What Color Is Your Handkerchief, a booklet that explained the group’s philosophy and its fervent belief that lesbian SM was a feminist practice. Samois was a confrontational organization, and its disagreements with other feminist organizations—tracked by Warner—helped propel the discussion of SM, which pushed the practice into the national public eye.”

Source - https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/leather-feminism-lesbian-leatherdyke-bdsm

Photo - Leather Archives and Museum 2004

Samois releases "what color is your handkerchief" and other works attempting to urge feminism to become more pro-sex and sexual diversity. Banking on the phrase 'the personal is political' and how with that motto, feminism needs to "develop a politics which can be pro-sex while remaining anti-sexist.”

Source - https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/leather-feminism-lesbian-leatherdyke-bdsm

Photo- Amazon https://www.amazon.ca/Coming-Power-Writing-Graphics-Lesbian/dp/0932870287

Del LaGrace Volcano moved to the UK in the 80s and spent 26 years there photographing prides, marches, and everything about gender performativity and ambiguity in the face of the AIDS crisis, Section 28, the rising third wave of feminism and much more.

“The late 1980s and 90s were amazing times. It felt especially important to be visible in the UK. There was Section 28, the Aids epidemic, and Nelson Mandela was set free. Performing our pleasure with each other, our bodies, our genders, daily life – not just for a weekend Pride party – has always been my modus operandi.”

“Being queer back then meant being in-your-face, out, loud, proud, unapologetic. We would scale tall buildings [and make photographs on the rooftops]. We saw ourselves as shockingly sexy and subversive superheroes.”

Source - https://www.bjp-online.com/2019/06/any-answers-del-lagrace-volcano/

Photo - Lesbian Herstory Archives

The third wave of feminism emerged in the early 1990s, moving toward a more intersectional and sex positive model. This is especially important in the context of leather dykes and "subversive" sexuality after claims that SM lesbians were racist and did not think about black women's experiences.

Photo - LEATHER ARCHIVES & MUSEUM PHOTOGRAPHY COLLECTION

Del LaGrace Volcano releases "Love Bites," a photography book in collaboration "with partygoers at “queer dyke sex-performance club”, Chain Reaction." This was the work that got Del LaGrace noticed. They felt most interested in examining the ambiguity and spaces between "fixed" binary genders, as an intersex person and activist. Even though the book got a lot of pushback, they felt it opened doors "for both myself, and in the hearts and minds of lonely queers around the world, seeing those photographs and knowing it was possible to live outside heteronormative conventions."

Source - https://www.bjp-online.com/2019/06/any-answers-del-lagrace-volcano/

Photo - Amazon https://www.amazon.ca/Love-Bites-Photographs-Della-Grace/dp/0854491503/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=love+bites+della+grace&qid=1570074944&s=books&sr=1-2

To this day, BDSM in the LGBTQ+ community is still a hot button topic. A lot of people still see it as overly sexualized or misogynistic, but a lot more people are fighting to keep the community open and recognize the leather community for their contribution to feminism, advocacy and community. The leather LGBTQ+ community is simply that, it's about community. It's about safer sex, tradition, chosen family, and consent. Along with black lesbians and black trans women, leathermen and leatherdykes were some of the first to become caregivers and fundraisers and providers of affection to those affected by AIDS and HIV. Leather isn't just about kink and sex, it's a deep rooted part of the community in so many more ways. And also fun like Folsom, America's largest BDSM festival!

Source - https://www.them.us/story/kink-bdsm-leather-pride

Photo - PULPMAG, Bianca and Girl Complex of the Unruly Social Club