While the signifince of mothers our liv is impossible to ny, Mother's Day for gays n stir up a range of emotns.
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MOTHER’S DAY FOR GAYS
* mother gay culture *
Fai typilly don’t live together anymore, but ballroom’s mment to helpg at-risk gay, trans and genr-nonnformg youth has stayed the same. ”Jon “Ambh” Nja met his ballroom mother, Akayla Nja, while attendg vogug class hosted by the Dallas-based nonprof Uned Black Ellument, which supports Black gay and bisexual young men. From 1720s London to RuPl’s Drag Race, gays have been “motherg” for much longer than you thk.
When the song dropped earlier this month, one fan tweeted that s “mother” le was “enough to send my gay heart to overdrive”. When GAY TIMES’ entertament edor Sam Damshenas asked Sarah Michelle Gellar about her passnate LGBTQ+ fanbase at a January lnch event for her new seri Wolf Pack, she psed to ask him: “Can someone please expla ‘mother’ to me?” Gellar has sce fully embraced this term of enqueerment by updatg her Instagram b to simply read “Mother”.
In fact, the term, “has been a key ncept gay muni for s, if not centuri,” says Pl Baker, Profsor of English Language at Lanster Universy and thor of Fabulosa!: The Story of Polari, Bra’s Secret Gay Language. Baker pots out that Margaret Clap, a “formidable” 18th-century cishet woman whom we would probably now refer to as an “ally”, was beg lled “Mother” by gay men 1720s London. “She ran a ffee hoe that served as a base for men who had sex wh men – or ‘molli’ 18th-century parlance,” Baker tells GAY TIMES.
GAY MEN AND THEIR MOTHERS: IS THERE A SPECIAL CLOSENS?
However, Baker not that the past, “mother” has also been ed as a marker of rpect for olr gay men. “It’s pecially applied to an olr gay man who has seen everythg and been through all, and so subsequently has a lot of hard-won wisdom to impart and n provi emotnal support to younger members [of the social group],” he adds.
“Valerie is worried that Stefan’s mother won’t like her when she meets her, but turns out that Stefan’s ‘mother’ is actually an olr, very mp gay man.” The film’s “mother” is played by Fons Ramakers, a veteran Dutch actor who was actually heterosexual real life.