Events Calendar

In Reno, Nevada, a group of cowboys led by Phil Ragsdale organized an event known as the Reno Gay Rodeo in 1976. In the 1970s, LGBTQ communities nationwide operated through an “imperial court system,” whereby local communities elected people to a “court” that organized fundraising efforts for various charitable causes. These fundraisers were creative ways to get involved and connect with mainstream society, which had constructed divisive walls separating the LGBTQ community. In 1975, Ragsdale, a rodeo athlete, had the idea to host a gay rodeo with events for men and women and a royalty celebration that would raise money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. Gay rodeo is an overlooked part of the 1970s gay liberation movement. The goal of rejecting heteronormative social rules in sport was advanced in the American West by rural, country LGBTQ rodeo athletes, and it became a powerful force in the community nationwide, becoming an international phenomenon by the 1990s.

Gay rodeo can be seen as an LGBTQ paradox, juxtaposing gay liberation from heteronormativity by challenging traditional gender roles in the sport of rodeo, while at the same time adhering to the commonly accepted ideals of masculinity and femininity associated with being a cowboy or a cowgirl. Moreover, gay rodeo simultaneously challenges socially constructed ideas of masculinity and femininity, LGBTQ culture as urban versus rural, and commonly accepted knowledge about gay pride celebrations. This is not to say that gay rodeo has impeded the progress made by gay liberationists; quite the opposite, gay rodeo represents the diversity within the LGBTQ community. This is a diverse group, and not because they are L, G, B, T, or Q but because they are urban and rural, clog dancers and pop music fans, cowgirls and attorneys, liberals and conservatives.

Gay rodeo functioned like a gay pride celebration in places where such festivals did not exist. In his 1982 Reno Gay Rodeo program, Ragsdale professed that the gay rodeo was “Western Gay Pride.” This presentation contends that gay rodeo was the pioneering gay pride of rural America and eventually managed to introduce gay cowboy and cowgirl culture to cosmopolitan urban centers as far east as Washington, DC. As a result, gay rodeo brought together a somewhat divided urban versus rural LGBTQ community with a common cause: to have fun, celebrate identities, and raise money and awareness for issues that affected their lives. In small towns and large cities alike, gay rodeo became a political force that contested heteronormativity in the American West and rural communities.

Nicholas (Nick) Villanueva is Director of Critical Sports Studies and Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he also has affiliation with the Center for the American West and Latin American Studies. He is a first-generation college student originally from Gary, Indiana, but grew up in the Chicago metro area. Villanueva earned his Ph.D. in History with a concentration in Race and Ethnicity in 20th Century U.S., from Vanderbilt University, 2014. His first book, Lynching of Mexicans in the Texas Borderlands, examines the increase in Mexican lynching during the first ten years of the Mexican Revolution, 1910-1920. This work contributes to the historical work on lynching, global perspectives of violence, and borderland studies by differentiating between the lynching of African Americans and the borderland lynching of ethnic Mexicans. His book won the 2017 Southwest Book Award by the Border Regional Library Association and the 2018 National Association of Chicana & Chicano Studies, Texas Foco Non-fiction Book Award. His second book, Critical Sports Studies: Social Problems & Practical Solutions, was published in 2019. His fellowships and awards include the National Endowment for the Humanities, Ford Foundation, Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, Excellence in West Texas History Association, and the Walter Prescott-Webb publishing award. Disability Services honored Dr. Villanueva with the 2018 Faculty of the Year Award for his commitment to inclusion.