Gay cowboys in history
“Homos on the Range”
In truth, History professor Clifford P. Westermeier noted any examination of sexual activity by cowboys—homosexual or not—was such a cautious topic, his article in the 1975 Red River Valley Historical Review was titled “Cowboy Sexuality: A Historical No-No?”
“To tamper with the image of a folk hero, a historic formula, a legend, and most of all, that of the American cowboy heritage is probably more dangerous than the proverbial where ‘fools rush in,’” Westermeier writes. He notes the traditional cowboy had four failings: drinking, gambling, lechery and violence. “Of these … lechery is often alluded to but is the least detailed activity of his frenetic pleasures.”
While most would expect the cowboy’s lechery was pointed towards women, that wasn’t always true, but it also didn’t mean what it would mean today.
“It’s significant to know the history of homosexuality,” notes History Department Chairman Peter Boag from the University of Colorado at Boulder. “Society didn’t really designate people as homosexual or heterosexual through most of the 19th century; it was not really until the 20th century that those identities crystallized.”
Boag, w
STAFF OPINION: Cowboys in media are inherently gay
Spending time away from your wives, going on adventures, dusty and clad in leather is not straight people behavior…Cowboys are gay.
Cowboys are inherently gender non-conforming. Not the redneck “pop country” cowboys that we watch today, but the pop culture versions that we’ve seen on our T.V.s.
Being from Colorado, I have had interactions with cowboy identity all my animation, from riding horses at my grandma’s house to my school annually participating in “Wild West Days,” where kids dressed up as cowboys and participated in wild west-themed activities.
In terms of this piece, though, I intend to look at more of the portrayal of the untamed west in the media and how oftentimes it is so very queer.
Now before I acquire too far into it there are a few spoilers (notably for "Tombstone," though it is based on a historical event, so do with that what you will).
Movies like "Tombstone,""Brokeback Mountain" and "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid"cement these ideas. From Val Kilmer’s very fruity portrayal of Doc Holliday to the dynamic between Butch Cassidy and Harry Longabaugh in the Sundance Kid, there contain bee
Queering the Cowboy And Other American Institutions
Stefanie Cuthbert
Rainbow Rodeo is thrilled to display another brilliant essay about the history of cowboys in homosexual country by Stefanie Cuthbert!To decipher the entire list of homosexual cowboy songs Cuthbert covers — and its companion playlist — subscribe to the Rainbow Rodeo Patreon today!
“Cowboys are frequently secretly fond of each other”, or so Ned Sublette sang endorse in 1981. Although Sublette himself was straight, the song is purported to be inspired by gay cowboy iconography of the seventies (think Tom of Finland and the Village People). In the years since, the song’s taken on a wonderfully gay second life, covered by Willie Nelson in 2006 for the soundtrack of Brokeback Mountain, that most quintessential of gay cowboy movies, and, more recently, by Orville Peck (but more on him later).
Although it’s easy to imagine this unsubtle song as being the first instance of a recording artist putting to music what many strongly suspected about hyper masculine subcultures, ‘The Lavender Cowboy’ of 1930 has it beat by fifty years. There’s no denying the clearly homophobic l
Gay Cowboys? Sure, Pardner.
But real-life gay cowboys and Wild West historians say that the plot of Brokeback Mountain -- an Oscar favourite after topping the Golden Globes nominations -- is nothing new.
And in a claim that is likely to outrage many rural conservatives, they tell that homosexuality was an unspoken norm on the American frontier, where men were close and women were scarce.
''There they were, a couple of men, alone together in isolated frontier country, for weeks or sometimes months at a time,'' says Randy Jones, 53, who was the stetson-wearing, lasso-throwing gay cowboy in the Village People and who acted as an adviser on the film.
''The thought must have passed through their minds, even if they didn't act on it, because men are sexy animals. If that wasn't the case, there wouldn't be so much homosexual sex in prison.''
There is growing evidence to support Jones's theory. As far support as 1882, the Texas Livestock Journal wrote that ''if the inner history of friendship amon