Mark Thompson (August 19, 1952 – August 23, 2016) was an American journalist and author. He was a senior editor for '' The Advocate'' and the author of several books about LGBT culture. He received the Pioneer Award from the

Lambda Literary Foundation The Lambda Literary Foundation (also known as Lambda Literary) is an American LGBTQ literary organization whose mission is to nurture and advocate for LGBTQ writers, elevating the impact of their words to create community, preserve their legaci ...

in 2008.

Early life

Mark Thompson was born on the

Monterey Peninsula The Monterey Peninsula anchors the northern portion on the Central Coast of California and comprises the cities of Monterey, Carmel, and Pacific Grove, and the resort and community of Pebble Beach. History Monterey Monterey was founded in ...

in California. He graduated from

San Francisco State University San Francisco State University (commonly referred to as San Francisco State, SF State and SFSU) is a public research university in San Francisco. As part of the 23-campus California State University system, the university offers 118 different b ...

, where he studied journalism. While in college, he became a gay activist and joined the Radical Faeries. He was also the co-founder of the Gay Students Coalition with Professor

John Paul De Cecco John Paul De Cecco (April 18, 1925 – November 2, 2017) was an American academic. He was a professor of psychology at San Francisco State University, the editor-in-chief of the ''Journal of Homosexuality'' from 1975 to 2009, and a "pioneer of sex ...

as the faculty advisor, and started a gay newspaper on campus.

Career

Thompson became a journalist for ''The Advocate'', the main LGBT magazine in the United States, in 1975. For two decades, he wrote many articles about gay activism and the responses to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. He also conducted many interviews, including gay British painter

David Hockney David Hockney (born 9 July 1937) is an English painter, draftsman, printmaker, stage designer, and photographer. As an important contributor to the pop art movement of the 1960s, he is considered one of the most influential British artists o ...

and gay politician

Harvey Milk Harvey Bernard Milk (May 22, 1930 – November 27, 1978) was an American politician and the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California, as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Milk was born and raised in ...

. Thompson was the author of four books about gay culture, including a history of ''The Advocate''. He also wrote his memoir. Additionally, he was an amateur photographer, and he exhibited his photography of Harry Hay and others in San Francisco. Thompson was the recipient of the Pioneer Award from the

in 2008.

Personal life and death

Thompson was married to Malcolm Boyd, an Episcopal priest who was 30 years older than him and predeceased him. They met in 1984 and married in 2013. They lived in

Silver Lake Silver is a chemical element with the symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical ...

, a neighborhood of

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the wo ...

. Boyd's role as spiritual leader inspired Thompson to explore his own spirituality. Mark, in the course of writing books on queer spirituality, began to see and believe that gay people had a "magical, deep, mysterious quality". This viewpoint, along with the emotional support of his husband, invigorated his sense of self esteem and the belief that given the choice he would "never have chosen to be any other way" than gay. It was Thompson's hope that his work would serve to help other queer people with their spiritual struggles. Thompson joined the Radical Faeries while in college. He was a cofounder of

Black Leather Wings Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white have o ...

, an organization for spiritual gay leather folk, a mostly pagan group affiliated with the Radical Faeries. Thompson had HIV/AIDS. In an oral history interview with the Lavender Effect, Thompson described himself as "serial monogamous" at the time he contracted the virus, but admitted to having several boyfriends in a short period of time. He contracted the virus from one of them in 1979 or 1980. Many of his lovers died of the disease, as did his own brother, Kirk. Thompson states that his brother died in his arms in 1987, months before the first effective AIDS medications were released to the public. Thompson died on August 23, 2016, in Palm Springs, California, where he moved after his husband's death. His cause of death was undetermined, but it was believed he fell or fainted due to illness or side effects from his medication.

Tribute

Thompson was honored in 2017 along with other notables, named on bronze bootprints, as part of

San Francisco South of Market Leather History Alley The San Francisco South of Market Leather History Alley consists of four works of art along the Ringold Street alley, at 8th Street, in San Francisco's SOMA district honoring leather culture; it opened in 2017. Artworks Collectively titled ''Le ...

Notable works

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References

External links

Mark Thompson and Malcolm Boyd oral history interview
with The Lavender Effect {{DEFAULTSORT:Thompson, Mark 1952 births 2016 deaths People from Monterey County, California People from Los Angeles Writers from Palm Springs, California San Francisco State University alumni Journalists from California American gay writers Radical Faeries members People with HIV/AIDS LGBT people from California American LGBT journalists