He was a skilled working stiff – the horseback equivalent of an autoworker or coal-miner.
People also called him a cattleboy, cowpuncher, cowpoke, drover, wrangler, vaquero, buckaroo, ranahan, rannie and waddie. To handle these millions of cattle, the cowboy proliferated too. Beef was suddenly abundant and cheap, and Americans rushed to eat it.
For a couple of decades, my family’s ranch, the CK, was one of the big shippers – we averaged 15,000 steers to the Chicago stockyards every year. By the 1880s, there were millions of cattle on the prairies and plains. But after the Civil War (1861-1865), with native tribes being slaughtered or swept onto reservations, millions of square miles of grassland in the Western interior were suddenly open to grazing. To find the roots of gay rodeo riders – and gay rodeo itself - we have to dig in this soil of the Old West.Īlready in colonial times, cattle and herders dotted the English-speaking east coast and the Spanish-speaking southwest. Rodeo is said to be "the only sport that grew out of an industry" – meaning the vast 19th-century livestock business that flourished west of the Mississippi, from Mexico north to Canada. Important profiles also come from the gay rodeo circuit, which is not affiliated with PBR or RCA. Their stories are important because they give us some texture of an ongoing gay presence in the sport. So instead I will profile a few rank-and-file contestants who pioneered simply by being there – by competing in mainstream rodeo when they were young and closeted.
Going by what we know of other sports, there must be a few closet cases on the lists of world champions for the Rodeo Cowboys Association (RCA) and Professional Bull Riders (PBR). If gay cowboys have never been visible in professional rodeo, it’s because the sport has gone so conservative that it makes the NFL look more liberal than the ACLU. Back through American history, few occupations were more conducive to secret man-to-man love than cowboying.Indeed, frontier men may have gravitated to this job so they could enjoy the company of other males. I grew up on a historic Montana cattle ranch that was steeped in cowboy tradition. Meanwhile, on the rodeo scene, some contestants assure the media that, in all their years around the arenas, they never met a real-life Jack Twist. God help us, and John Wayne forgive us!" In Congress, Senators from sagebrush states are pushing a resolution declaring July 22 as "National Day of the American Cowboy." One Christian blogger screamed, "Now they're out to destroy the American legend of the cowboy. After all, right-wingers view the cowpoke as a core symbol who embodies the purest in family values. The film also kicked up a political dust storm.
Riding high, "Brokeback Mountain" became a culture icon overnight.
Rodeo even has its own TV reality show – "Cowboy U" on CMT. The sport reached exhibition status at the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics.
As an action-packed extreme sport that lends itself to TV showcasing, rodeo now gets routine coverage on ESPN. Rodeo is one of our most American sports, with roots as deep as baseball’s. Yup, it’s time to talk about rodeo and the gay people in it. Was this a heterosexist propaganda ploy timed to counter the hit movie’s gay cowboys? Especially 20-year-old Jack Twist, the gay rodeo rider played by Jake Gyllenhaal? "Beyond the Bull" profiles world champion bullriders as regular guys who are belt-buckle deep in wives, kids, girlfriends and groupies.
From Andy at Towleroad: The author of The Front Runner trilogy and many other gay themed bestsellers addresses the real life equivalents of Jack & Ennis in this interesting article.Īs "Brokeback Mountain" hit mainstream movie theaters, TLC launched a TV series about rodeo.