Speaking of crazy, right after you won, some bonehead says a transphobic thing that sounds like it could have been said in 2002. He’s my port in the storm right now, with all this craziness. (laughs) And I don’t have the capacity to get into something that deep with someone else. I just got out of a long relationship with a woman about a year ago. It gets very deep very fast between us, with women. I didn’t even start dating men until I met my husband. It’s a perfect example of the difference between gender and sexuality. I know several trans men who were lesbians first, who thought they must be, before they realized they were trans. And it was exploding because there were a lot of hate crimes going on. I came out as trans when I was 15 (living in the Bay area). My trans activist friends would point out that this has been a long, hard road, though. There’s been an explosion of trans awareness over the last few years. Actually, there are more and more spaces for sober people there. And there’s people who just assume you do drugs because you go to these events. I’ve seen it for years, and seen friends’ lives destroyed for periods of time. Do you see much of that? Does it concern you? I have so much shame and regret about it. I stayed in my room shooting up crystal meth and having sex. I went to IML once, more than a decade ago, but only because I was living off the remnants of my muscle boy body and I wanted to strut around in a harness. But a lot of people have that idea, that you compete for IML and put on that leather cap, and you are the domest dom in all of dom town. Unless you are running for a “Boy” title or a “Master” title, you can identify as anything you want. IML is for the big dominant guys, and Mr. He’s the first person to place in both events. Your husband, Geoff Millard, was 1 st Runner Up for Mr. And being on the east coast you can get to so many different places for events. Yeah, after IML there isn’t much of a break. Just this weekend, you were in DC for Pride, then up to Philly, and then back here for an event at The Eagle in Baltimore. I can have breakfast any time of the day. Jack Thompson: Oh yeah, they’re open 24/7. King: You spend a lot of time here, at Valentino’s Restaurant? Here is our conversation, edited for length and clarity. Over breakfast at his favorite diner in his newly adopted home city of Baltimore, Jack discussed coming out (as many things), sex, drugs, HIV - and his reaction to a transphobic social media post by a leather community leader that nearly eclipsed the drama of Jack’s win at IML. His speech at the IML competition (“You are enough.”) laid bare all of his identities and became an instant viral meme. Jack is also utterly transparent about all that he is, to a disarming degree. He’s extremely kinky, depending on what scale you use to measure such things. Jack Thompson, who just won the 2019 International Mr.