Call her Mother: how a term with queer origins entered the internet lexicon

Just because "mother" is an idea that babies can understand doesn't mean it's simple. The word is also a slang term that has been bestowed upon the biggest names in show business, from Beyoncé to Zendaya.

- SOLCYRE BURGA

Social media users often use it as a synonym for icon and legend, but it has a specific meaning in the world it comes from: New York City's Black and Latino ballroom scene. Many credit Crystal LaBeija, a Black, transgender woman and drag queen angered by colorism and racism in drag pageants in the late '60s, as the creator of the first ballroom "house," with a kinship structure that became a signature of that world. "You have mothers, gay mothers, gay fathers, gay siblings, gay uncles, etc. There are actual lineages that you can track, and these are in lieu of biological families who have often disowned kids," says Ricky Tucker, author of And the Category Is...: Inside New York's Vogue, House, and Ballroom Community.