In queer life, a mother isn’t defined by gender, biology, or tradition. It’s a role, a presence, a commitment to someone else’s survival. A mother is the one who stays when others vanish, who nurtures not out of obligation, but out of choice. In our world, a mother is someone who helps you grow when the world is trying to erase you. More than a title, mother is what we call the people who make our lives possible.

Over a decade ago, I met one of mine. We’ll call her Auntie Maggie — partly because she loves Maggie Roche of The Roches, so she’ll appreciate the reference, and partly because that’s just who she is: everyone’s auntie. 

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Aunt Maggie was volunteering at a community center for LGBTQ+ youth and young adults, a place I turned to while trying to hold myself together. I was young, uncertain, and carrying more questions than answers. She was older than I was, this white woman with a razor-sharp mind, a loud laugh, and a storytelling gift that could still a whole room. She was warm without being soft, sharp without being cruel, and funny in ways that left you laughing long after she stopped talking. I liked her instantly. Part of that, I think, was because she reminded me of my own mother, my biological mother, who, at the time, hadn’t yet reconciled with who I was. 

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There was something in Auntie Maggie’s presence, her ability to hold space, to cut through bullsh*t with wit and care, that felt familiar. It felt like home, or at least like the home I had needed.

She never claimed a title. She didn’t have to. Her presence made it clear who she was. She kept showing up—not to be seen, not to be praised, but because she knew what it meant to be abandoned, and she refused to let others feel that alone.

We don’t talk every day. We can go months without speaking. But there’s a rhythm to our connection—a quiet pull. She always seems to reach out at the exact moment I need her, sending a meme, a joke, or a quick note about how hilariously oblivious straight people can be to things that feel painfully obvious to us. No fanfare. Just enough to remind me: I’m not alone.

She’s told me stories I’ll never forget, always with her signature mix of deadpan and drama. Like the legend of Vonda, the pyromaniac drag queen infamous for setting people’s sh*t on fire when they crossed her (she died in a fire, of course). Or the time she described—with complete seriousness—how an acquaintance had gone to Mexico for gender-affirming surgery and came back, in Auntie Maggie’s exact words, “pooping out her new p*ss.” She’s a historian of queer macabre, a gossip archivist of gay ghosts, drag disasters, and legendary bad decisions.

But she also told stories that weren’t meant to make me laugh — though she often told them with the same dry tone. Stories from her younger years: clocking long hours at fast food counters and movie theaters, saving every dollar for care the world made her fight to access. These weren’t shared to inspire pity. They were strategies. Survival maps. Lessons wrapped in humor, passed from one body to another.

One of the most useful things she ever said to me was, “Plan your work, and work your plan.” That line has carried me through more than a few disasters. It’s how I learned to navigate the chaos around me and the chaos inside myself. And I watched her live that motto — not in grand gestures, but in quiet determination, like when she went back to school in her 40s to complete her English degree and become a teacher. 

Auntie Maggie is, in every meaningful way, my own queer mother warrior poet — a phrase Audre Lorde once used to described herself: “Black lesbian mother warrior poet.” Now, to be clear, Auntie Maggie is very much not Black. She is absolutely a poet. She is a warrior in spirit. But a lesbian? That’s where the line breaks. I once joked that she was a lesbian, and she shut it down instantly. “I was only ever a gay boy,” she said, completely serious. “Never a gay girl. The only c**ch I ever wanted I paid a doctor for.” And that was that.

Her care was consistent. Her timing was uncanny. Her love never looked like performance — it looked like truth. She helped raise me into myself when I didn’t yet have the words for who I was becoming. She believed in me without asking for anything in return.

Lorde’s framing helps me make sense of it — not because Auntie Maggie and Lorde lived the same life, but because they both understood that mothering is not a category. It’s a practice. A discipline of presence. A refusal to look away. Auntie Maggie’s mothering isn’t theoretical. It’s real. It’s lived. And it changed me.

So yes, this is a Mother’s Day story — but not the kind you’ll find in a Hallmark aisle. It’s for the kind of mother who never had children but raised people anyway, who shows up quietly and fiercely, who teaches you to hold your ground with humor and precision, who sees you when you barely see yourself. She is mother — not because she has ovaries or because she’s ever been knocked up (though God knows, she’s tried), but because she chose to be. Because she stayed. Because she made survival something we could laugh about. Because she loved me without needing a reason, a title, or a script. I honor her — not just today, but every time I remember who helped me stay alive long enough to become who I am.

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