The Clouted Court: a Primer

[JSPADES]

is the response of a handful of Leatherfolk to the conspicuous lack of an organised LGBTQ leather community within the central and southwestern areas of Georgia; this, despite the fact that there are a number of LGBTQ Leatherfolk in this region who might be served well by such an organisation. It is the intent of a group such as this, to reach out to these people, in the hopes of bringing them together to serve our community, as volunteers for supporting charitable LGBTQ-focused causes; as representatives of the Leather community; as brothers or sisters in support of one another within the Leather continuum.

One might very well wonder just why having an organisation like The Clouted Court might be considered necessary, or even desirable, when folks seem to have gotten along just fine all this time without one. The short answer is that this is a misperception: we haven't gotten along just fine all this time. We (as a Leather community) haven't been getting along at all, because an organised Leather community has been relatively non-existent here, with the exception of perhaps a handful of rather small personal groups of friends. As an influence in the LGBTQ community, we haven't had the luxury of being a coherent group with the ability to produce visible, appreciable efforts in supporting LGBTQ causes.

We want to present a welcoming, non-confrontational attitude to everyone in the LGBTQ community who might be even the least bit genuinely curious about Leather/BDSM/kink; we also want to provide an educational function here within the LGBTQ community, so that fewer people in our community-at-large go uninformed about the fundamentals of Leather/BDSM/kink.

Our organisation's mission statement is threefold. Within our area of service (the central and southwestern regions of Georgia):

1) To provide a supportive and nurturing environment for Leatherfolk and Leather enthusiasts to facilitate social and idea exchange;

2) To provide LGBTQ community support in the form of charity fundraising, non-profit volunteer work, and assistance with other non-profit LGBTQ organizational event handling & execution;

3) To serve the LGBTQ community—and the community-at-large—as an educational nexus on behalf of the Leather community.