I have been reading about ballroom culture in the US and how black and latino LGBTQ youths kicked out of there homes would join balls and be taken in by houses led by elders within the community that took on parental roles. I was just wondering if there was a similar phenomenon within the white LGBTQ community, or perhaps homeless white working class LGBTQ youth were welcome in ball culture?
Just to be clear, I'm not asking whether there was a white ballroom culture, I'm asking whether older white LGBTQ people provided such support for LGBTQ youth. I'm guessing that such support was on the whole less necessary for white people because of white privilege and the ability for young white people to be more economically independent. However, white working class LGBTQ youths would have similarly be rendered homeless if kicked out of their family homes.
I have been through every LGBT+ history book I have this morning as well searching online resources and I can't find a single description of white ball houses operating in the same way as Black and Latina/o houses did (or not doing so, either). In fact, the only mention I found of white ball houses at all was in an essay written by Tim Lawrence:
Then, in 1987, the boutique owner and fashion designer Pat Field established the House of Field as the first white downtown house to walk the uptown balls. ‘We call ourselves House of Field now because that is what we have evolved into,’ Myra Christopher, a salesclerk in the boutique, who encouraged Field to create the house, commented in 1988. ‘We were always around, though, as Pat Field kids, and we’ll evolve into something else eventually. Becoming a house was just officialising it for some other people’s benefit, so we could compete on their terms.'
From this, it sounds as though there had previously been houses founded and populated by white folks since Lawrence specifies that House of Field was a downtown house, although they likely weren't as common for the reason you mentioned. I can't speak to the 90s or before, but it does look as though several of the more established houses have been home to a mix of people from various ethnic backgrounds since at least the early 2000s. However, since that falls under the 20-year rule I didn't really look into it past skimming a couple of articles. Unfortunately that's all the information I could find in answer to your question since the vast majority of source material focuses on the lives and experiences of the Black and Latino folks who founded the culture.
Also, I've not seen it, but pretty much every article I read mentioned the 1990 documentary Paris is Burning made by Jennie Livingston. While it focuses on the experiences of people of color within ballroom culture as well, it might be worth watching to see if it gives any more information if you haven't already seen it.
Source:
Tim Lawrence, "'Listen, and You Will Hear all the Houses that Walked There Before': A History of Drag Balls, Houses and the Culture of Voguing". London: Soul Jazz, 2011 (This is a REALLY good read if you have the time for it!)