Durk Dehner, Co-Founder of Tom of Finland Foundation, Discovered with Nazi Regalia

The International Mr. Leather (IML) conference and competition has removed Durk Dehner, (now) former president and co-founder of the Tom of Finland Foundation (ToFF), from this year’s judging panel following photos of him in Nazi regalia popping up on the internet.

The executive director of IML, David Ronneberg, revealed surreptitiously on January 12 that he had uncovered new information about a then-unnamed judge that would have them removed from the convention’s panel of judges, driving his message home with, “Hate has no place at IML. Period, full stop.” He said that there is no grey area for hatred, “whether Nazi regalia or a fucking MAGA hat,” and thanked his audience for bringing this damning evidence to his attention.

The day before, the winner of another leather competition had posted images of Dehner in different Nazi regalia, including swastikas and a cap with the parteiadler (the lesser-known Nazi eagle symbol) on it that were deleted by Facebook shortly after posting. The poster, called Pup Diego Onyx, posted the screenshot of his deleted post on his Instagram which accused the LA leather community of keeping the images and the knowledge of Dehner’s affinity for Nazi regalia under wraps and encouraged viewers to spread the information in response.

The same day, another leather competition winner, J.L. Carter, shared the same information on Facebook; he posted the next day that Dehner had also made racist comments about Black and Latino people during a cocktail event at the Tom of Finland House. Both of these posts led to the horrific images spreading like wildfire.

Tom of Finland, while iconic within the queer and the leather communities, has drawn up criticism in recent years for similar reasons. The ToFF was founded by Dehner and the original artist, Touko Laaksonen, in 1984 in an effort to preserve Laaksonen’s large catalogue of homoerotic art—most of which feature extremely masculine white men. Some of these men, due to the nature of Laaksonen illustrating in the 40s, are pictured in Nazi military uniforms and regalia. Laaksonen pushed back against Nazi sympathizer allegations put against him in the 70s, saying that while he denounced the party and the corresponding ideologies, “they had the sexiest uniforms.”

Dehner resigned from his place at the ToFF on January 17 following the removal from the judge board at the IML. He apologized in a private Facebook post about the result of his actions on the nonprofit, saying that the rest of the foundation had no idea about the images of him in Nazi regalia and does not reflect the infamous party’s ideology. He said that he has “violated his own code of ethics” as well, despite how little that statement is worth coming from someone photographed multiple times in Nazi memorabilia.