Student Wins Leather Leadership Conference Scholarship Award.
Student Iris Olson has won the Leather Leadership Conference Scholarship Award by the Leather Leadership Conference (LLC), a nonprofit organization dedicated to strengthening the leather, BDSM, kink, and fetish communities. The scholarship is granted to students who belong to the leather, BDSM, and kink communities and are studying subjects that support the LGBTQ community and health-related topics.
Olson received the $2,000 award in March at the LLC’s annual conference in Atlanta, Ga.
Olson, a part-time student who plans to graduate in the fall, is studying health communication and promotion as well as sex, sexuality, and gender. In addition to classes, Olson works full-time as a health educator at Harbor Health Services. For their practicum, Olson served as the director of outreach for the New England Leather Alliance (NELA), a Boston-based nonprofit organization dedicated to education, advocacy, and charitable giving within the leather, BDSM, kink, and fetish communities.
“I was excited when my practicum was approved,” Olson says. “BDSM is a really important public health issue because it tends to be disregarded, and it’s so stigmatized that no one wants to discuss it.”
While working at NELA last year, Olson produced educational materials for colleges and universities, and helped assist groups that support survivors of sexual assault and people with disabilities, to ensure that people in the BDSM community who share those experiences are represented and supported by the organization. They also helped facilitate 2018 pride events in each New England state.
Leading up to the 2018 midterm elections, Olson served as an activist fellow and collaborated with Freedom for all Massachusetts on the “Yes on 3” campaign to advocate for public support of the Gender Identity Anti-Discrimination Veto Referendum, which passed and upheld a bill that prohibits discrimination based on gender identity.
Olson says that while Massachusetts residents are generally tolerant of BDSM activities, there is room for legislative improvement within the Commonwealth.
“In Massachusetts, you can’t consent to someone harming you, so that eliminates a lot of BDSM, kink, and fetish activities,” Olson says. “I would love to see that change, and I decided to become involved so that I could help a community that I really care about.”