Gay Rodeos, Western Wear, and Unresolved Tensions in 21st-Century North America Cowboy Culture and Esthetics

In the 1970s, activists founded the International Gay Rodeo Association in the North American Midwest, disrupting traditional heteronormative and hypermasculine norms within cowboy culture. In this research, we critically analyze the intersections of cowboy manifestations and twenty-first century LGBTQ+ communities in North American queer cowboy portrayals via the gay rodeo. Specifically, we examine how the gay rodeo creates space for LGBTQ+ style, fashion, and dress embodiments in relation to the longstanding, heteronormative Wild West hero of the late 1800s. We analyzed two types of primary sources: the 2014 film Queens & Cowboys: A Straight Year on the Gay Rodeo and social media content from the official IGRA along with ethnographic work conducted at gay rode events. Using critical discourse analysis and the concept of articulation, we explored the nuanced meanings conveyed through these media. Through our analysis, we identified numerous emergent tensions from the gay rodeo’s twenty-first century representations in their documentary, social media, and live rodeos. Our observations centered on the overarching intersections of gender-and-sexuality-expression-tensions. Specifically, we observed notions of (a) disrupting and embracing layered, unsettled gender binaries, (b) ambiguous identity entanglements, and (c) camped-up traditions via moments and movements.