Ball Culture - Houses

Houses

"Houses," also called "families," are groups composed primarily of the LGBTQ Community, the majority of which are African American or Latino, banded together under a respected "house mother" (sometimes a drag queen or a transgender person, but not always) or even a "house father."

The best known houses are New York City groups, especially those such as:

among others which were shown in the 1990 documentary film Paris Is Burning. Other houses function similarly in other states but mainly focused in major cities on the East Coast, in the Midwest and in the South (e.g., House Of Infiniti, House of Mizrahi, House of Aviance)

According to the Village Voice:

...houses are loose-knit, typically same sex, confederacies of "children" who adopt a family name, usually swiped from a fashion designer, and adhere to rules set up by a presiding "mother" and "father."

Members of the house led by Willi Ninja, for example, adopt "Ninja" as their surname within ball culture, members of the house led by Angie Xtravaganza used the surname "Xtravaganza," and members of the house led by Avis Pendavis used the surname Pendavis.

One theme discussed in Paris Is Burning is that people of color, queers, and poor people face certain disadvantages and are each a marginalized group; to qualify as all three makes one a pariah. In response, drag houses are

...a whole new way of living, one that's highly structured and self-protective. The structure consists of system of houses where the young men function as apprentices. Reflecting a minority coping with hatred, the houses are associations of friends, presided over by a "mother," that provide a substitute for biological families.

Under the house parents are

...a big raucous band of "children": drag queens, butch queens, transsexuals—mostly MTF but some FTM, a few non-trans girls and one or two straight guys. The smattering of girls and straight guys notwithstanding, the houses are, essentially, cabals of young black and Hispanic men obsessed with being fashionable and fabulous.

House parents can provide wisdom, guidance and care for young people who otherwise might be homeless and without a parental figure. An exploratory study of two houses in Newark, New Jersey employed qualitative research methods including participant observation and in-depth interviewing to discern that:

Strategies employed by "house parents" have had an impact on the choices made by children of the houses regarding HIV risk behaviors. These strategies can be adapted for use by well-established community-based HIV prevention programs when they are comprised of staff who mirror the characteristics of "house parents" and engage in relationships that parallel this alternative family structure.