A lone cowboy emerges against the canvas of a starlit evening, still cloaked in the last embers of sunlight. For generations, this enduring figure has been heralded as the quintessential emblem of American masculinity: straight-backed in the saddle, stoic eyes fixed on a far-off goal. Yet, the true horizon of Western history arcs with greater nuance than any quick-draw cliché could reveal.
On the windswept plains of the Old West, queer pioneers discovered that distance from rigid Eastern norms granted them a measure of liberation. Under endless star-sprent skies, these gay cowboys forsook the only homes they knew to become who they wanted to be. And one might ask: what is more radical—or more aligned with the spirit of the frontier—than allowing yourself to break free of everything that confines you?
Embodying frontier life was an act of self-creation. But society’s gatekeepers rarely saw value in preserving the stories of these LGBTQ+ explorers who lived on the margins. Many accounts withered away like abandoned wagon wheels on a deserted trail.
An awakening is taking shape now. Historians, cultural critics, and storytellers alike sifting through scattered court records, old cowboy poems, local newspapers, and ephemeral diaries to uncover evidence that the Old West was, in many ways, more open-minded about gender and sexuality than the official storylines ever acknowledged. And these revelations prove beyond doubt that the American frontier included—and was shaped by—communities that upended conventional beliefs about who a cowboy could be.
Yes, the Wild West was unruly: its landscapes unconstrained by fences, its moral code frequently overshadowed by the need to survive. But in revisiting these neglected histories, we uncover a hidden dimension to the American frontier. So in the here and now, we’re journeying into the grit and daily realities of 19th-century cowboys, finding traces of same-sex passions on dusty cattle drives, encountering transgender folk who embraced new identities in remote towns, and unearthing how mainstream mythmakers tidied away every messy detail that didn’t fit their pure, heroic Western narrative.
Key Takeaways
- Beneath the rugged myth of the lone cowboy lies a hidden trail of queer love and gender-defying bravery, illuminated by letters, limericks, and campfire confessions—an untold frontier romance finally breaking free.
- The American West, mythologized as straight, white, and narrow, was in truth a kaleidoscope of queer identities, bachelor marriages, and transgender trailblazers who found fleeting freedom beneath endless skies.
- From cowboy poets mourning their "lost pardners" to transgender outlaws defying Victorian constraints, the frontier was always wild—unfenced by Eastern morals, vibrant with passion, secrecy, and subversion.
- Mythmakers may have straightened history, but buried beneath Hollywood’s veneer is an authentic West rich with queer intimacy, racial diversity, and gender fluidity—real stories riding boldly into view.
- Reclaiming the queer cowboy isn’t just rediscovering history; it’s a powerful, defiant assertion of existence, reshaping the American icon into a symbol of inclusivity, resilience, and unapologetic pride.
Gay Cowboys On YouTube
Historical Context: Unspoken Norms of the Wild West
To unravel the lives of queer settlers, we must first grasp the material and social realities that shaped their world. By the late 19th century, the American West was a patchwork of sparsely populated zones—mining hamlets, tent towns, lonely ranches—where religious and legal structures from the East held less sway. A scholar famously described it as a “world saturated with masculinity,” emphasizing that male-dominated trades like logging, mining, and cattle herding were the lifeblood of frontier commerce.
Frontier existence was unforgiving. Cowboys, drifters, merchants, and saloon-keepers alike labored without much in the way of official oversight. When forced to deal with the formidable tasks of daily survival—finding drinkable water, corralling stampeding herds, or treating snakebites—people often had little patience left for policing each other’s private lives. This limited enforcement of Victorian morality allowed for unexpected flexibilities in intimacy and identity.
Homosocial vs. Homosexual
In the 1800s, categorizing desire into strict labels like “straight” or “gay” was uncommon. Genuine closeness between men was routinely accepted as part of a homosocial world. Cowboys slept side by side under the firmament, swapped jokes, and supported each other through the hazards of trail life. The lines between platonic brotherhood and deeper, more romantic attachments might be blurred—or, at times, crossed—yet often without recourse to the naming and shaming that would come later in more industrialized or conservative spaces.
This doesn’t imply the frontier was a sanctuary of true acceptance. It simply means that in the swirl of daily dust and labor, there was less impetus to scrutinize or condemn. Actions that might be deemed “queer” in an uptight Victorian parlor might pass under the radar in a roiling cattle camp, so long as it did not disrupt operations or provoke outright conflict.
“Strange Way of Life”: Tough, Resilient, Dependent but Roaming ‘Free’
From the outside, the cowboy lifestyle seemed both liberated and harsh. These men traversed valleys with herds of cattle, sleeping rough and boiling coffee over open flames. Their jokes and songs carried a rough-hewn poetry—sometimes off-color, sometimes bracingly heartfelt. They cherished a code of loyalty that outsiders seldom comprehended.
For example, miners and cowboys alike spent weeks—even months—away from towns. They formed tightly knit units to endure the vast emptiness that swallowed them each night. From hauling supplies to nursing a bunkmate’s injuries, they lived in each other’s pockets. Anyone scandalized by bed-sharing arrangements or communal bathing might have found themselves quickly ostracized. Survival overrode social norms: if body heat or partnership eased the journey, so be it.
Isolation and Companionship
Amid the frontier’s stark distances, companionship felt as vital as food or water. Cowboys relied on each other when a horse threw them into a ravine, or when early snow blocked any path back to civilization. They labored side by side, exchanging jokes, stories, and occasionally deeper confidences. The concept of an “all-male family” wasn’t an anachronism out here; it was a lived reality.
Accounts from that time speak of “bachelor marriages”—domestic partnerships between two men who cooked, cleaned, and shared the same roof (and sometimes the same bed). Though such unions lacked formal sanction, their existence was remarkably open in many corners of the West. Viewed through pragmatic eyes, if two adult men wanted to pool resources and chores, what did it matter if they also displayed the affection typically associated with heterosexual couples?
Threats and Secrecy
None of this is to say the frontier was a queer utopia. Dangers abounded – from stampedes and shootouts to the constant risk of exposure for those living a secret. There were always bigoted eyes keen to enforce gender norms, especially as towns grew and Eastern law caught up. Cross-dressing (wearing clothes of the “opposite” gender) became explicitly outlawed in dozens of cities starting in 1848.
Even without formal laws, social disapproval could turn violent. Many who transgressed norms survived by staying mobile or undercover, moving on when suspicions grew. As we’ll see, a transgender cowboy like Harry Allen found the wide frontier somewhat safer than big cities, yet ultimately nowhere was fully safe when the law – or a vigilante’s noose – could be tipped by prejudice.
In short, frontier life created conditions ripe for same-sex intimacy and gender subversion while keeping such behavior largely out of official scrutiny. It was a world of rough riders and “confirmed bachelors,” of pseudonyms and aliases, of passions expressed in campfire songs and unspoken bonds. To truly see the Queer West, we must read between the lines of traditional history – and sometimes, read between the ranches, looking to diaries, poems, and whispered legends for the truth.
Reading Between the Ranches: Glimpses of a Queer Frontier
Little Hard Evidence, Plenty to Ponder
Stealth shaped queer existence on the range, meaning explicit documentation is scarce. Yet historians have discovered enough wry cowboy limericks, personal letters, and curious remarks in diaries to piece together an image. One example: historian Clifford Westermeier stumbled on a bawdy limerick describing two cowpokes who shared more than a campfire. Its humor, though coarse, signaled that same-sex encounters did occur, known at least to the participants and possibly shrugged off by those around them.
In Gold Rush–era California, men outnumbered women dramatically, and it was typical to refer to a close male companion as a “pard.” Social events like frontier dances saw men adopting dresses in jest to stand in for absent women. Romantic feelings could spark in that swirl of make-believe, drifting into deeper territory once the fiddles stopped. Though these scenarios weren’t openly labeled “homosexual,” the undertones are there for modern readers to interpret.
When frontier men organized dances in the absence of ladies, half the men would jokingly dress as women so that couples could waltz – a practical solution that also reflects how gender roles could bend for fun or comfort. The line between a lark and love could be thin: who’s to say some of those dancing pairs didn’t continue their partnership back in the privacy of a cabin?
Contemporary newspapers occasionally printed hints as well. In 1890s Denver, a professor casually noted the city’s homosexual subculture spanned many professions – including ministers, teachers, even a judge – and that at his university “the usual percentage of homosexuals can be found.” Such remarks indicate that even in the frontier’s twilight, same-sex love was an open secret in some communities.
One anonymous San Francisco gay man in 1911 wrote that life could be hard but “extremely interesting,” saying he was glad to have had the opportunity to live it – a rare first-person testament to queer life in the West at the turn of the century. The affectionate heart of the cowboy reveals itself in the language of male friendship, belying the stoic marble image crafted later by Hollywood.
Bachelor Marriages and Same-Sex Unions
One of the most striking phenomena was the widespread occurrence of quasi-marital relationships between frontier men. In mining towns and cattle ranges alike, men formed domestic partnerships. They cooked and cared for each other, jointly invested in property, and in at least a few cases, even referred to each other as “my man” or “my partner” in the same way a married couple might.
Frontier lore has numerous accounts of two cowboys who rode together, lived together, and were essentially inseparable. Historians note that “miners and cowboys often settled into convenient partnerships called ‘bachelor marriages,’” which could be intimate in all senses. Notably, these arrangements “were not discouraged” in the community, as long as a pair of cowboys pulled their weight.
We have instances where the veil slips. One report from 19th-century Montana described two bachelors who had lived together for years; when one died, the other openly grieved like a widow, discomfiting the town. In New Mexico Territory in 1873, a U.S. Army post trader was formally charged with a “most unnatural” relationship, while in 1896 Texas, a man named Marcelo Alviar faced a sodomy charge with bond set equal to murder. These cases demonstrate that while quiet same-sex relations often flew under the radar, those unlucky enough to be exposed were subject to harsh legal and social repercussions.
Love and Ambiguity: Cowboy Poetry and Song
The scarcity of explicit records means we often have to interpret subtle clues. One such clue comes from cowboy poetry. The late 1800s saw a flourishing of cowboy poets – rough riders by day, soulful balladeers by night. Among them was Charles Badger Clark Jr., a cowboy poet who penned “The Lost Pardner” in 1895.
This poem mourns a cowboy’s beloved partner killed in a fall, describing a depth of grief and love that’s hard to read as purely platonic. Clark’s poem stands as a quiet anthem of queer grief on the range, assuring us that even in 1895, a cowboy could love another cowboy so deeply that losing him made the whole world feel empty.
Clark himself never publicly identified any orientation, and modern labels didn’t apply then. But that he could publish his poem without scandal suggests readers allowed themselves to dismiss it as just about a comrade. It exemplifies the careful ambiguity queer people often lived with.
Beyond Cowboys – Saloons, Sailors, and the City
While our focus is cowboys, similar dynamics prevailed in other male-dominated frontier arenas – logging camps, railroad crews, sailing ships, and army outposts. Wherever men were isolated together, bachelor bonds formed.
In some California mining camps, half the men might don women’s dresses during social gatherings for lack of actual women. Frontier cities like Denver, San Francisco, and Seattle developed underground queer scenes by the 1890s. Sex researcher Alfred Kinsey’s 1948 report noted the highest frequencies of homosexual intimacy in certain rural farming communities, indicating that a “make do” attitude persisted in areas where women were scarce.
The cowboy of yesteryear and the farmhand of the Great Depression may have shared similar secrets. It all supports the notion that the frontier environment fostered a natural closeness among men who lived and worked side by side.
Queer Pioneers and Outlaw Tales from the Old West
To truly humanize this history, let’s meet some of the notable figures – individuals whose stories, though fragmentary, give us windows into the Queer West. These range from poets and lawmen to outlaws and aristocrats, painting a picture as diverse as the West itself.
The Cowboy Poet and His “Lost Pardner”
One of the more arresting examples of queer-coded frontier art remains Charles Badger Clark Jr.’s “The Lost Pardner,” composed in 1895. He painted an intimate grief that pulsed with a palpable sense of devotion, hinting at a bond that readers may have overlooked or politely termed “purely comradely.” Yet for those who have felt the sting of losing a beloved partner, the poem echoes with unmistakable sorrow.
Clark’s other works often celebrate the airy freedom of frontier life, praising the sight of open horizons and the hush of dawn, but “The Lost Pardner” stands apart for its raw, personal expression. Historians note that, in a time when “homosexual” was not even a widely recognized term, Clark’s poem testifies to the presence—and heartbreak—of deeper attachments formed between rugged men on the range.
Sir William Drummond Stewart’s Wild Adventures
Sir William Drummond Stewart, a Scottish aristocrat laboring under scandalous rumors at home, arrived in the American West around 1833. Among the fur traders in the Rocky Mountains, Stewart found acceptance (and possibly romance) with a French-Cree hunter named Antoine Clement. Their connection, by all accounts, flowed naturally in the freewheeling ethos of the annual rendezvous—those rowdy, mostly male gatherings teeming with dancing, revelry, and open forms of physical closeness.
In 1843, Stewart financed a medieval-themed extravaganza on Fremont Lake in Wyoming—a bizarre pageant blending European masquerade and frontier grit. By modern standards, this event exudes a playful, almost camp flair, featuring costumes and indulgent feasting far from the judgmental gazes of European society. Later, Stewart commissioned paintings that included Clement, capturing him in ways that discreetly pointed to a bond transcending employer and guide.
Stewart’s life shows that the frontier offered a rare freedom for men of certain persuasions. The aristocrat could drop his mask, don a costume, and love whom he pleased—at least for a summer or two in Eden.
Outlaw of Love: “Two-Gun Lil” and the Bisexual Bandit
The queer experience in the Old West was not solely poetic or aristocratic. Sometimes, it wore the brand of an outlaw. Bill Miner—nicknamed “The Gray Fox”—earned notoriety for robbing trains and stagecoaches. A Pinkerton detective circular described him as a sodomist, hinting he might keep a boy companion. Victorian society found such allegations scandalous, yet the Pinkertons deemed it worth recording, suggesting that awareness of same-sex relationships was more pervasive than we might imagine.
There were also female-presenting rogues like “Two-Gun Lil,” rumored to prefer men’s attire, revolvers slung at both hips, and romantic entanglements unconstrained by conventional norms. Although details on these figures sometimes drift into legendary territory, their presence underscores that a culture of gender and sexual fluidity wound through the West’s fringes, where everyday law struggled to keep pace.
Gender Non-Conformists of the Frontier: Trans Cowboys and Cross-Dressing Outlaws
The Wild West also served as a stage for those who dared to live as another gender. Sometimes it was for survival or economic opportunity, sometimes for love – often a mix of all three.
Charley Parkhurst
Charley Parkhurst epitomized the trans cowboy life. Assigned female at birth, Parkhurst carved a name as one of California’s most skilled stagecoach drivers, navigating treacherous mountain roads with a fearlessness that awed passengers. It was only upon Parkhurst’s death that acquaintances realized his assigned sex, discovering he had even voted in 1868, predating women’s suffrage. Many modern historians argue that, by contemporary standards, Parkhurst was a trans man who thrived in an era that lacked any clear language to define his life.
Sammy Williams
Sammy Williams spent two decades passing as a male lumberjack in Montana. By the time of Williams’s death—around age 80—friends realized he had been assigned female at birth. Yet the entire community had accepted Sammy as “one of the guys” for decades. The frontier’s code of survival over speculation allowed people like Sammy to exist on their own terms, provided they delivered the required labor and didn’t spark a moral backlash.
Harry Allen
In the Pacific Northwest, Harry Allen (born Nell Pickerell in 1882) openly scorned female attire. He wrangled broncos, bartended, and declared himself a man at every turn. Seattle and Spokane law enforcement arrested him repeatedly, though not for wearing men’s clothes—no explicit cross-dressing statute existed—so they resorted to charges like vagrancy or disorderly conduct. Allen’s life, documented in press accounts, highlights the precarious tightrope he walked as a transgender man in a region still grappling with waves of new settlers and evolving ordinances.
Seattle and Spokane police repeatedly arrested him, but he was never truly charged for “cross-dressing” because no statute existed. Instead, authorities pinned charges like vagrancy, drunkenness, or disorderly conduct on him. Harry Allen’s defiance and persistent presence in the press make him one of the earliest known trans masculine figures in American history. His very life shatters any notion that transgender identities are recent inventions.
Myth of the Straight, White Cowboy & Erasure of the True Wild West
If queer cowboys and non-white cowboys were so common, why do popular images still default to the straight, white Marlboro Man? The answer lies in how the West was later mythologized—in dime novels, Wild West shows, and especially Hollywood. 20th-century storytellers deliberately created a mythic cowboy archetype to serve American ideals, excluding inconvenient truths about diversity.
The “Lone” Cowboy
The Western dime novels and Hollywood blockbusters that emerged in the early 20th century framed the cowboy as an isolated figure—John Wayne astride a horse, gazing into a blood-orange sunset, never needing anyone. This deliberate simplification served American ideals of fierce individualism. By refusing to show him in close relationships, storytellers sidestepped any suggestion that deep bonds among men could harbor romantic or sexual currents.
Whitewashing the Range
Simultaneously, storytellers erased non-white cowboys, even though historians estimate that one in four cowboys were Black. Countless others were Mexican or Indigenous, bringing their own equestrian and ranching expertise. This conscious whitewashing advanced a narrative of Anglo-Saxon taming of the frontier, burying the genuine tapestry of races and cultures that shaped Western economies and societies.
African-American Cowboys
In the aftermath of the Civil War, newly freed African Americans sought opportunities in the open rangelands, often finding pay and respect unavailable under Jim Crow. Nat “Deadwood Dick” Love and Bill Pickett carved out legendary reputations. Love’s autobiography details a life judged more on skill than skin color in many ranch settings.
Meanwhile, Bill Pickett pioneered the rodeo sport of bulldogging—subduing a steer by gripping its lip with his teeth—and became the first African American inducted into the National Rodeo Hall of Fame. Yet Hollywood’s portrayal of the West seldom reflected such accomplishments, depriving mainstream audiences of a fuller narrative. Only now are we correcting that omission.
Indigenous Cowboys: The Two-Spirit Horsemen
Native Americans also adopted cowboy practices. Plains tribes like the Comanche were already renowned horsemen. Many Indigenous people worked on ranches or served as scouts and herders.
At the same time, numerous tribes had traditions acknowledging individuals we might now call Two-Spirit—people blending masculine and feminine roles. These traditions offered more flexible views on gender and sexuality. Interactions between Native and cowboy communities may have further relaxed frontier attitudes. Though details are scarce, it’s plausible that Indigenous concepts of gender fluidity influenced the West’s general live-and-let-live ethos, at least in the earlier, more lawless stages of frontier life.
Beyond Brokeback: Reclaiming the Cowboy in Modern Times
The 20th and 21st centuries have witnessed a renaissance of interest in queer cowboy culture, a movement to reclaim history and make new history. Nothing exemplifies this cultural clash more clearly than the reaction to Annie Proulx’s short story “Brokeback Mountain” and its 2005 film adaptation.
Many embraced the film as a nuanced love story between two men, but critics raged. They saw it as defiling the sacred image of the cowboy. Yet the film’s incongruity with the old myth only highlighted that the “straight cowboy” legend had excluded a wealth of real experiences.
The International Gay Rodeo Association: A New Frontier
Real gay cowboys were forming their own traditions long before Brokeback. By the 1970s, the Urban Cowboy aesthetic and the birth of gay rodeos transformed the Western scene. Events like the National Reno Gay Rodeo started raising funds for charities while providing safe spaces for queer competitors and spectators.
In 1985, various regional gay rodeos united under the International Gay Rodeo Association (IGRA), formalizing a circuit that spans multiple states. These events feature the usual bull riding and barrel racing, alongside playful twists like “goat dressing.” Men and women compete in each other’s events, drag queens ride in costume, and it’s all underpinned by a spirit of inclusion.
Cowboys as Icons in LGBTQ Culture
The cowboy aesthetic gained popularity in LGBTQ circles, symbolizing raw masculinity recast through queer desire. From the flamboyant swagger of the Village People to Tom of Finland’s famed erotic illustrations, these images flipped the script on stereotypes. They beckoned a vision of rural, robust manliness that thrives in gay bars and Pride parades, celebrating a blending of modern identity with historical bravado.
Lesbian ranchers, drag kings, and transgender rodeo stars, too, found fertile ground in the Western motif. They drew from its legacy of self-determination and grit, finding kindred spirits in tough frontier women who wore men’s clothes, carried rifles, and refused to be fenced in.
A More Inclusive Western Mythos
Today, as academics and artists revisit cowboy history, they’re constructing a richer narrative. One where the cowboy hero can be Black or brown, queer or trans, male or female or in-between, without losing any grit or authenticity.
Rural queer youth can now look to historical role models who bridged country life and LGBTQ identity, discovering that “people like you always have been here.” The Western myth is evolving, especially in film and literature. Modern works like The Power of the Dog explore the psyche of a closeted rancher. Documentaries and photo exhibitions celebrate queer rodeo stars. Novelists pen queer Western romances.
This revisionist wave is about inclusion, fulfilling a need for a more expansive fantasy of the American West—one that better represents the vast diversity of people who actually lived on the frontier. Crucially, it’s not invention but restoration of what was always there, now reclaimed.
Riding Proud into the Sunset
The tale of the Queer Wild West is both scholarly and deeply human. On one level, it’s about accuracy—digging through archives and diaries to show that gay cowboys, trans ranchers, and queer outlaws really did exist in the frontier era. It’s about recognizing that the classic Western narrative distorted reality by leaving them out.
On another level, it’s about resilience and freedom. The individuals we met—Badger Clark, William Drummond Stewart, Harry Allen—lived boldly, forging identities that redefined what a “real cowboy” could be. Their existence alone challenged the notion that “cowboy” meant straight, white masculinity.
For LGBTQ+ folks today, claiming the cowboy is an act of empowerment. It says: we have always been here, roping and riding and helping build this country. It broadens the meaning of an American icon in a way that is both rebellious and deeply patriotic.
As we continue telling these stories—through scholarship, films like Brokeback, and gay rodeos—we shape a culture that acknowledges its full past. The cowboy now rides for everyone. By peeling away the myth’s narrow veneer, we see a frontier as diverse and unpredictable as the human spirit.
Queer people can look at a cowboy and see a kindred soul, someone who might have shared a blanket under the same stars. The West was never just straight. It was as queer, untamed, and surprising as human hearts. That is a truth as grand as the frontier itself.
Reading List
Berger, Knute. Meet Nell Pickerell, Transgender At-Risk Youth of Yesteryear
Benemann, William. Men in Eden: William Drummond Stewart and Same-Sex Desire in the Rocky Mountain Fur Trade
Billington, Monroe Lee, and Roger D. Hardaway, eds. African Americans on the Western Frontier
Black Hills Visitor Magazine. Biography: Charles Badger Clark
Boag, Peter. Redressing ‘Cross-Dressers’ and Removing ‘Berdache'
Brown, Benjamin. Black Cowboys Played Major Role in Shaping the American West
Capozzi, Nicco. The Myth of the American Cowboy
Clark, Badger. Sun and Saddle Leather
Collins, Jan MacKell. Untold Tales of Gender-Nonconforming Men and Women of the Wild West
Cooper, James Fenimore. The Leatherstocking Tales
Durham, Philip, and Everett L. Jones. The Negro Cowboys
Garceau, Dee. “Nomads, Bunkies, Cross-Dressers, and Family Men: Cowboy Identity and the Gendering of Ranch Work.” — Across the Great Divide: Cultures of Manhood in the American West
Hardaway, Roger D. African American Cowboys on the Western Frontier
Hobsbawm, Eric. “The Myth of the Cowboy
Jessie Y. Sundstrom. Badger Clark, Cowboy Poet with Universal Appeal
The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. Deadwood Dick and the Black Cowboys
Kinsey, Alfred C. Sexual Behavior in the Human Male
Lawrence, D. H. Studies in Classic American Literature
Miller, Hana Klempnauer. Out West: The Queer Sexuality of the American Cowboy and His Cultural Significance
Osborne, Russell. Journal of a Trapper; In the Rocky Mountains Between 1834 and 1843
Packard, Chris. Queer Cowboys: And Other Erotic Male Friendships in Nineteenth-Century American Literature
Patterson, Eric. On Brokeback Mountain: Meditations about Masculinity, Fear, and Love in the Story and the Film
Remington, Frederic. Late 19th-century cowboy articles; see Hobsbawm, “Myth of the Cowboy.”
Roosevelt, Theodore. Ranch Life and the Hunting-Trail
Slotkin, Richard. Myth and the Production of History. - Ideology and Classic American Literature
Turner, Frederick Jackson. The Frontier in American History
Vestal, Stanley. Jim Bridger; Mountain Man
