American journalist and writer Mark Thompson was BOTD in 1952. Born in Monterey, California, he studied journalism at San Francisco State University, where he became active in gay politics and joined the Radical Faeries. In 1975, he became chief editor of the Advocate magazine, writing about the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the work of activist groups ACT-UP and interviewing gay celebrities Harvey Milk and David Hockney. In his first book Gay Spirit: Myth and Meaning, published in 1987, he explored the possibilities for gay men to develop spirituality outside the confines of organised religion, arguing that gay people had a “magical, deep, mysterious quality”. A companion volume, Gay Soul: Finding the Heart of Gay Spirit and Nature, followed in 1994. The last in the trilogy, 1997’s Gay Body, chronicled his early shame about his sexuality, the concept of gay men developing a “shadow self” in response to societal homophobia, and his sexual liberation via BDSM sex and pagan ceremonies. His other works include Leather Folk, a culture study of Los Angeles’ BDSM and leather communities; The Fire in Moonlight, an oral history of the Radical Faeries movement; and Long Road to Freedom, a history of the gay liberation movement drawn from Advocate archives. Thompson was a co-founder of Black Leather Wings, an affiliate spiritual group for gay leathermen. He had a 32-year relationship with Episcopal priest Malcolm Boys, marrying in 2014 and remaining together until Boyd’s death in 2015. Thompson died of an AIDS-related illness in 2016, aged 63.