Last minute information about our speakers

Keynote speakers.

Leather Leadership Conference attracts some of the best visionaries in the leather/BDSM/kink and fetish lifestyle.

Due to unforeseen circumstances, our originally scheduled speaker - Guy Baldwin - will not be able open the conference due to illness. We wish Guy a speedy recovery and will miss him at the conference.

We are very pleased to announce that noted author Race Bannon will now provide opening remarks

Race Bannon has been part of our scene for 34 years and his accomplishments include founder and former President of Daedalus Publishing Company, Project Coordinator for The DSM Project, co-founder of the Kink Aware Professionals referral directory, advice columnist, freelance writer, internet radio talk show host, author of the bestselling Learning The Ropes: A Basic Guide to Safe and Fun S/M Lovemaking, and board member of numerous clubs and organizations.

Race resides in San Francisco with his partners Mike Pierce and Jim Knight.

Our Saturday speaker is Michael Thorn, Editor-in-Chief of the Instigator Magazine, the "next generation of global men's fetish."

On the magazine's website, he is decribed as "a dirty fucker and relentless crusader for your right to be different. Able to burn a candle at 3 ends and still have his fist elbow-deep in yours."

Instigator Magazine is often regarded as one of the most vocal and important voices of men's fetish today.

Our closing speaker on Sunday is Patrick Califia.

Author, therapist, stubborn fuck, and activist Patrick Califia has been a leather community rabble rouser since the late '70s.

Prior to his gender transition in the mid-1990s, he (then she) founded Samois, the first leatherdyke organization. He's been involved in S/M organizations in many cities and spoken at universities, conferences, and bookstores in the U.S. and abroad.

His fiction (Macho Sluts, Melting Point, Hard Men, Boy in the Middle,etc.) inspires new heights of hot radical sex while his non-fiction (Public Sex, Speaking Sex to Power, Sex Changes: The Politics of Transgenderism, etc.) critiques sex-based oppression and calls for social justice for sex and gender minorities.

He currently lives in the Bay Area where he has a private practice as a therapist, a superlative tattooed sassy-boy named Jakob, an ancient beautious tortoiseshell cat dominatrix, and an unfinished sequel to his vampire novel, Mortal Companion. Like many tops, his painful efforts to heal from co-dependence are far from over. He'd like to see a place at the table for everyone, provided people bring their own hot, covered dish and handcuffs.