tlc:
year with
a leather club
a documentary by Randy A. Riddle
Politics
The Tarheel Leather Club was founded during the last part of the Reagan-Bush years that saw a remarkable amount of political involvement by Gays and Lesbians all over the country who were heading-off attacks by conservatives on AIDS education and treatment programs, the "morality" of the "Queer" lifestyle, and even Gay art and artists. The period left a prominent mark on the Tarheel Leather Club; shortly after the group was founded, North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms ran for re-election on the heels of his attacks on the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe.
TLC
decided to help a local group, NC Senate Vote 90, that was distributing
voter information within the Gay and Lesbian community. The club
organized a "Beat Jesse" campaign, selling tee-shirts (which featured
a paddle on which a whip formed the words "Beat Jesse") and organizing
fundraisers in an effort that saw involvement from Leather clubs and organizations
all around the country, the first time that a club had spearheaded such
a national effort.
During the year that the documentary was produced, the members of TLC were heavily involved with the national March on Washington, organized by the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered communities as a follow-up to a 1987 March. Janet B. served as a representative of the Southeast to the March committee and both her and Kevin participated in lobbying and organizing events during the March. Janet also participated in a one-day Leather/SM/Fetish Contingent meeting, consisting of workshops, speeches, and a vendor space, that was held during the March weekend for members of the Leather/SM/Fetish community who were attending the larger event.
Political
statements were also made by TLC members on a very personal level.
In the documentary, we see member Gil F. obtain a body piercing, commemorating
his first-time participation in a Gay political event and as an affirmation
of his commitment to the club and the Leather/SM community. Stuart,
who performed the piercing, told me that "piercing is a ritual, its a
rite of passage
or at least should be". Gil noted that getting
the piercing was a "very emotional commitment" on his part and called
the March on Washington "almost like a graduation exercise
a significant
statement that there are many people in our minority, that it's a very
diverse minority, that there are all kinds of ways of being a gay person
in America at the end of the twentieth century".