If you’re at all connected with contemporary pop culture, you’ve likely heard fans refer to feminine celebrities they love as “mother.”
“Mother is mothering,” they declare reverently on message boards. “Mother is back,” they gush at concerts and red carpets. “Mother is keeping us fed,” they tell one another with each new album drop.
But what does any of this mean?
Like so much modern slang, this use of the word mother stems from Black and Latine ballroom culture in the 80s and 90s. A mother is a matriarch of her queer and trans community, providing love, support, guidance, and sometimes housing. Think Crystal LaBeija, the iconic trans woman who popularized the House system by founding the Royal House of LeBeija. In a time when queer teens were often disowned, House Mothers created new families (aka found families) where identities were celebrated rather than shamed.
With the popularity of Paris is Burning and Rupaul’s Drag Race, the legendary mothers and houses of the East Coast are relatively well known today. What too many people don’t know is that, on the West Coast, we had a mother too.
Becoming Mother
In the 70s, Jewel Thais-Williams was a Black lesbian in Los Angeles looking for community. The city’s established gayborhood, West Hollywood, was largely unwelcoming to people like her. Club owners there didn’t allow entry to women or non-white folks. Thais-Williams experienced this discrimination and promised herself that, one day, she’d create a space where everyone was welcome.
In 1973, she achieved her goal and mother status by opening Jewel’s Catch One, the first Black LGBTQ+ discotheque in the United States. For 42 years, Thais-Williams ran the club and supported her community through exhilarating highs and devastating lows. They weathered the AIDS crisis together and taught Madonna how to vogue.
Thais-Williams’ amazing journey is captured in the 2016 documentary Jewel’s Catch One. The film contains archival footage and six years worth of shooting, laying out Thais-Williams’ legacy in beautiful detail. As the documentary prepares for a 10-year anniversary re-release, I sat down with Director C. Fitz to discuss the club, its impact, and the woman behind it all.
A Mother’s Work is Never Done
Fitz met Thais-Williams in 2010, while volunteering at the LA LGBT Center. Thais-Williams was receiving an award, and Fitz was charged with creating a video about her work. As Fitz learned more about Jewel’s Catch One (locally referred to as ‘The Catch’), she knew she had to document Thais-Williams’ story.
Thais-Williams agreed, and the duo spent the next few years working together to tell this story. It took a lot of determination, as they didn’t receive much support at the beginning. “We applied for grants and things like that, but we could not get anybody to help us financially. It was odd. We got a lot of no’s but I just kept going.” Fitz says.
It was odd. Especially considering that Thais-Williams didn’t just run Jewel’s Catch One. She also housed a vegan cafe in the building, and across the driveway, she ran the Village Health Foundation.
“I couldn’t keep up with her. Her energy was unbounding,” Fitz recalls.
Thais-Williams was in her seventies as during filming, but that didn’t hold her back. “First she’s outside, then she’d be inside, and that was just during the club. During the day she’s doing the vegan restaurant. She’s shopping for fruits and veggies in the morning. Then she’s across the street doing acupuncture. And she’s still in the nightclub until four in the morning. It’s crazy,” Fitz says.
Four Decades of Motherhood
Like most mothers in the LGBTQ community, Thais-Williams became adept at adjusting her care as the community’s needs changed. When AIDS hit the community in the 80s and 90s, she welcomed gay men with open arms. She used the restaurant to feed them, provided a kind ear to listen to their fears, and held space on the stage to memorialize them. She even called their next of kin when they passed. At the same time, she and her wife, Rue Thais-Williams, founded Rue’s House. It was the only shelter in the area where women impacted by AIDS could bring their children when they came for support.
When the gay community was in its darkest hour, Thais-Williams was there, shining her light. “She kept those doors open through good times and bad times, more bad times, some good times, great times, all times,” Fitz says. Over the years, Jewel’s Catch One also provided space for Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, held fundraisers for the community, and treated those in need of help—whether or not they could pay for care.
Distilling the breadth of Thais-Williams’ care for the queer community in one film was difficult. “The Catch was a safe space. It was home. It was so many things: it was a church, it was a place to be free and not be afraid,” Fitz says. “When people left The Catch, they were afraid, and rightfully so. The police were right outside waiting for them. People might not be out at work, or they might be thrown out of their own families for being LGBTQ+. They were afraid outside of those walls, but inside those walls they could dance, be unafraid, and be themselves, and it was so beautiful.”
I actually got to experience that beautiful acceptance. For a few months in late 2014 and early 2015—years before I wrote for Tagg—I was a bartender at Jewel’s Catch One. My best friend, (a Mexican-American gay man) and I (a Black lesbian) worked there together and talked often about how cool it was to work for an elder in the queer community. In our racial communities, our sexualities still aren’t always accepted, but at The Catch, everyone we worked with looked like us and loved like us.
When I share this with Fitz, she brings up Thais-Williams’ mantra: Everyone is welcome.
“That was Jewel’s true essence. What she created was for everyone who needed it.”
Mother Knows Best
The documentary went on the film festival circuit in 2016, and Thais-Williams joined Fitz on the road. “ It was really, really fun. Jewel got her well-deserved standing ovations after the screenings. It was beautiful to see her get her flowers all over the country, and internationally as well,” Fitz says.
Thais-Williams passed in 2025, and the re-release of the documentary is almost one year after her homegoing. In Jewel’s Catch One, Thais-Williams passes on two important lessons for those who come after her.
First, doing work for the community is important, but it isn’t always easy. “The club burned down, the community went through the AIDS crisis, and Jewel overcame addiction. All the things that she struggled with, she rose above and became a huge leader,” Fitz says. That tenacity is celebrated in the film, with a tribute to Thais-Williams set to “Rise Up,” by Andra Day.
When Fitz suggested the song to Thais-Williams, she was so touched, she cried. “Jewel just rose up time and time again. I don’t know how she did it. She had some really great friends, great community, but sometimes that community wasn’t there and she just rose up. She kept opening those doors,” Fitz says.
Second, one person can make a difference. Jewel did. “You can make a difference in your own backyard, any backyard. You just have to get out there and meet your neighbors,” Fitz says.
2026 marks fifty-three years since Thais-Williams opened Jewel’s Catch One. The world looks much different for LA’s LGBTQ+ community today. Women are welcomed in West Hollywood, and Black and Brown folks aren’t turned away from the bars on the strip. Police don’t patrol gay bars, prepared to arrest patrons as they leave. People spend hours on their phones, connecting via apps with like-minded folks near and far.
At the same time, attacks on the LGBTQ+ community, Black folks, and people of color are quickly gaining ground. Thais-Williams ethos of meeting up to connect face-to-face might be the key to making it through these hard times. We all need care, support, and a safe space to land. Thais-Williams isn’t here to mother us anymore, but she’s given us the knowledge we need to mother ourselves.
Jewel’s Catch One is once again available on all major streaming platforms. It is also available through Kanopy and Hoopla via your local public library.
