As others spent their Thanksgiving holiday with blood relatives at the dinner table, this particular gathering was dubbed \u201cLeather Thanksgiving\u201d \u2014 a celebration of chosen family, cobbled together from various corners of L.A.\u2019s queer nightlife. For Lopez and his friends, that sense of belonging is only growing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis chain was gifted to me from a friend,\u201d Lopez said as he adjusted the silver around his neck. \u201cChains with a lock represent that you have a dom and the other person has the key. I\u2019m still waiting for the lock,\u201d he added jokingly, glancing at his boyfriend.<\/p>\n
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Leather enthusiasts pre-game ahead of the release party for the film, \u201cEncuerados,\u201d on November 28th at the Hotel Indigo in Downtown Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
(Yair Lopez \/ For De Los)<\/p>\n
It was a big day for Lopez. Earlier he showcased three of his photos as part of a leather art gallery and attended a screening of \u201cEncuerados,\u201d a short documentary he appeared in<\/a>, which shadowed a group of Latino men carving out space in L.A.\u2019s leather community. An \u201cEncuerados\u201d afterparty would soon follow.<\/p>\n For Lopez and his friends, leather is less about fetish and more about kinship, safety and visibility, in a city where queer Latino spaces remain scarce.<\/p>\n Lopez has become a visible force in L.A.\u2019s leather underground scene, building community through both his art and the spaces he helps create. He has self-published his work through photos and zines; he also founded Contramundo, a Latino leather night<\/a> at the Bullet Bar in North Hollywood. His community work even led to a third-place finish in the 2023 Mr. L.A. Leather competition.<\/p>\n He started shooting a decade ago, moving from street scenes and hikes to L.A.\u2019s queer nightlife. That work eventually led him to the Eagle, where he found a muse and a community he didn\u2019t know he needed.<\/p>\n \u201cI grew up in a pretty religious Mexican household in the San Fernando Valley. I was made to feel ashamed of who I was, even my own body, so finding this felt so needed,\u201d he recalled.<\/p>\n Located in Silver Lake, the Eagle is a legacy leather bar that has anchored L.A.\u2019s kink scene for decades. It is also one of the few remaining spaces for this corner of queer nightlife. And while Lopez did feel seen through the leather community, there was still a piece missing.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is no surprise that a lot of gay spaces are predominantly white, so finding gay brown community is hard. But that changed when I started meeting other like-minded Latinos in leather,\u201d Lopez said.<\/p>\n