From 1720s London to RuPl’s Drag Race, gays have been “motherg” for much longer than you thk.
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MOTHER GAY
* gay language mother *
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? 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?
A gay man who acts as a motherly figure wh their edship group" name="Dcriptn" property="og:scriptn * gay language mother *
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.
Jack Doyle, a Departmental Lecturer LGBTQ+ History at the Universy of Oxford, tells GAY TIMES that “[the term] ‘Mother’ isn’t exclive to Black Amerin Ballroom scen, but the way ’s ed those spac says a lot about how queer people across cultur and tim have built and named chosen fai”. “I thk what we’re seeg wh ‘mother’ blowg up Twter is the latt the age-old story of whe gays borrowg (and misg) queer AAVE [Ain-Amerin Vernacular English], which eventually jumps to straight people, ” he says.