Unapologetically brings gay rodeo out of the closetCampy and competitive, gay rodeo offers a community of refuge that straddles the urban and rural. Since the mid-1970s, gay rodeos have provided space to both embrace and challenge the idealized masculinity associated with the iconic cowboy of the US West. Slapping Leather traces the history and growth of gay rodeo over the decades, demonstrating how queer cowfolx have fought to build a community where LGBT...

From the Wild West shows of the nineteenth century to the popular movie Westerns of the twentieth century, one view of an idealized and mythical West has been promulgated. Elyssa Ford suggests that we look beyond these cowboy clichés to complicate and enrich our picture of the American West. Rodeo as Refuge, Rodeo as Rebellion takes us from the beachfront rodeo arenas in Hawai‘i to the reservation rodeos held by Native Americans to reveal how people largely missing from that stere...