I’m Ryan Thompson. I’m from Houston, Texas. 

And in high school, I was out in school, but not out to my mom. 

A couple of years later, I’m in college, first winter break. So I go back home to Houston, and there was a kid that I’d known. We head to a park and we start smoking weed, and I immediately started to feel strange. So I finally just asked him to take me home. 

And my big sister gets home and she’s immediately like.. Like she… she’s like, “Something is wrong.” And she’s trying to contact my mom. My mom’s best friend comes over. They call, like, my best friend from high school. And finally, they’re able to get in touch with my mom, and my mom just walks into the house.

And she walks up to me and she says, “Get in the car. We’re going to the hospital.” And I’m in the front seat, my friend’s in the back seat, and it’s quiet for a little while.

And my mom, she looks over and she says, “What’s going on?” 

I was like, “Nothing. Nothing’s wrong. I’m fine.” 

And then my friend in the back seat, “I think you should tell her.” 

She goes, “Tell me what? That you’re gay?”

She goes, "Tell me what? That you're gay?"

And I said, “Yes.” 

Then she says, “Okay. Well, I already knew that. I was just waiting for you to tell me.” 

So when we made it to the hospital, um, they did a drug test and they just assumed that the weed was laced with something. And after that, um, it just became something that we never really spoke about. I think that I convinced myself that my mom wasn’t, like, truly okay with it.

And after graduating college, I got my job in Austin, and I remember going to queer spaces and gay clubs and feeling invisible. As a Black queer person, a lot of times, you know, the queer spaces can be racist or just make you feel kinda like you don’t belong there.

So the Paramount Theatre is a historic theater. I was working in this theater, and I remember almost kind of like soft launching pieces of myself. A year or two prior, I had met, a mother of the House of Lepore, icon Natalie Lepore, and I remember when she brought me to my first ball, just walking into the room and just seeing queer and trans and Brown and Black folks that were just so confident, and I knew that a ball was the right Pride celebration, and thus the Majestic Ball was born.

Fast-forward to 2025, year four of the Majestic Ball, and we’re now the largest ball in all of Texas, and everything is great, but I just felt like there was something that was missing. 

And so my mom comes to town, and we’re having lunch, and I finally just say, “Mom, um, I have to tell you something. There’s this big event that I produce in Austin. My favorite thing about it is it’s an event to shed light on and to center queer people of color because I’m a part of that community.” 

And she says “Okay…” She’s kinda quiet and she doesn’t really have much of a reaction, and I think the conversation kinda just dies. It gets awkward. 

So a couple weeks go by and a text comes through in our family group message, and it’s my mom. And she’s like, “Who’s riding down to Austin with me to come to Ryan’s event?”

And I’m like, “What the fuck?” But also in this moment I’m like, “Holy shit, this is a really gay… trans and non-binary. It is truly an event where folks can be themselves.”

So the day of the ball comes. My mom’s being very, like, calm and subdued, and this is making me nervous, ’cause my mom is not a calm and subdued person. We get my mom seated and the ball starts, and I, like, march out on stage to do the intro, and I’m in this, like, net, like, top. And everyone’s screaming, they’re going crazy.

And I shout my mom out from the stage. I’m like, “It’s my mom.” And my mom stands up, and she’s, like, doing a little wave, and she does a little dance. And I’m like, “Okay, this is good.” 

So the ball starts, and we’re kind of well into the ball, and I see my mom talking with Joe. So it’s the best dressed category, and they’re doing, like, last call for anyone who wants to walk best dressed. And the next thing I know, I, like, turn. Lo and behold, Joe is walking my mom up the steps. So my mom, like, blasts onto the stage, and she’s, like, twirling. She has, like, a bold red lip, and she’s, like, serving it to the judges. She’s literally strutting across the stage. And then she comes back out and she battles, I think, like, with a, a local drag queen. She knocks her out. She literally gets second place. 

But also, um, it was just the fact that my mom, like, did that. My mom could have come to the ball and enjoyed herself, but she went a lot further. And the next day I called my mom and I said, “Mom,” like, “thank you for accepting me and, you know, thank you for coming.”

And she says, “Son, I’ve always accepted you. You just had to give me a chance.” 

And I just realized that I had been hiding from my mom and from myself for so long, and this moment really represented me coming out on stage, but also inviting my mom into my space, into my community, and just saying, “Here it is.”

And now I literally carry a picture of little Ryan with me every time I do the ball. I feel like it’s just like a big hug to him, and also a big… just telling him that, like, everything is gonna be fine. Little Ryan, yeah, he’s healing, and he gets to come with me, so yeah.