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Gay Rodeo Oral History Project Archives
MSA.73
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Table of contents
Contributing Institution:
Library and Archives at the Autry
Title: Gay Rodeo Oral History Project Archives
Creator:
Scofield, Rebecca
Creator:
Campbell, Renae
Creator:
Flaig, Saraya
Creator:
Fleener, Dusty
Creator:
Fund, Court
Identifier/Call Number: MSA.73
Physical Description:
75.5 Megabytes
(187 digital files, including digital audio/video files that total approximately 72.3 hours in duration)
Date (inclusive): 2016-2023
Language of Material:
English
.
Appointments to view materials are required. To make an appointment please visit
https://theautry.org/research-collections/library-and-archives and fill out the Researcher Application Form.
Donated by Rebecca Scofield, 2022-2024.
Materials are organized by interviewee as they were received by the Library and Archives at the Autry, in multiple deposits.
The interview files are ordered alphabetically according to the interviewee's first name.
The Gay Rodeo Oral History Project was created in 2016 by Rebecca Scofield, associate professor of history at the University
of Idaho in Moscow, Idaho. Drawing on her specialization in gender and sexuality in the United States West and her research
at the Autry Museum of the American West, Scofield became interested in the International Gay Rodeo Association (IGRA) as
an LGBTQ+ community engaged with and within rural spaces, practices, and histories. With funding from a University of Idaho
Seed Grant and a Whiting Foundation Public Humanities Project grant, Scofield and a team of student researchers – Renae Campbell,
Court Fund, Dusty Fleener, Revulai Detiv, and Saraya Flaig – attended IGRA rodeos and conferences across the United States,
conducting over 60 oral history interviews.
The interviewees include current and former IGRA members; rodeo competitors; former presidents, vice presidents, secretaries,
Public Relations directors, and other administrators of IGRA and its member associations; rodeo directors, judges, arena directors,
chute coordinators, auditors, and clowns; rodeo royalty, including Mr. [cisgender or transgender men and nonbinary people],
Ms. [cisgender or transgender women and nonbinary people], and Miss [drag queens] (the MsTer role [drag kings] is not represented
in the interviews); volunteers; archivists; photographers and disc jockeys; an IGRA University chancellor; country western
dancers; and member association founders. Specific biographical information for each interviewee can be found in the transcripts.
For information about IGRA and its history, please see
the finding aid for the IGRA Institutional Archives .
The Gay Rodeo Oral History Project also includes a web exhibition,
Voices of Gay Rodeo . Developed with the support of the University of Idaho's Center for Digital Inquiry and Learning, Voices of Gay Rodeo curates
these interviews to create data visualizations highlighting themes of "cowperson, injuries, teaching, family, IGRA, race,
community, parents, religion, coming out, mentor, homophobia, jobs, childhood, PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals),
events, and dance" across all selected interviews. Transcripts of some of the interviews in the Gay Rodeo Oral History Project
Archives are available through Voices of Gay Rodeo. However, many transcripts on Voices of Gay Rodeo contain significant redactions
resulting from the curatorial process.
Publications drawing from the Gay Rodeo Oral History Project include
Outriders: Rodeo at the Fringes of the American West (Rebecca Scofield, University of Washington Press, 2019),
Slapping Leather: Queer Cowfolx at the Gay Rodeo (Rebecca Scofield and Elyssa Ford, University of Washington Press, 2023), and
That Damn Horse: The Stories of Gay Rodeo (Rebecca Scofield, Robert Caisley, Court Fund, and Kendra Phillips, 2023).
Gay Rodeo Oral History Project Archives, 2016-2023, Autry Museum of the American West, Los Angeles; MSA.73; [folder number] [folder title] [date].
Files were received in multiple installments from 2022 to 2024. Initial processing and preliminary description done by Hunter
Isenstein and Andrea Decker, 2023. Additional processing, description, and transcription completed by Ezra Loeb, 2023-2024.
Processing of this collection was supported by the "Preservation and Accessibility of California's LGBTQ+ History" grant funded
by the California State Library.
All docx and xlsx files were normalized to PDF for long-term preservation and access.
Golden State Gay Rodeo Association Archives, 1985-2022, Autry Museum of the American West, Los Angeles; MSA.72
International Gay Rodeo Association Institutional Archivess, 1982-2024, Autry Museum of the American West, Los Angeles; MSA.26.
Jim Wilke donations, Autry Museum of the American West, Los Angeles; 93.31 and 94.79.
The Gay Rodeo Oral History Project Archives comprises 60 oral history interviews with current and former International Gay
Rodeo Association (IGRA) members. Each interview includes born-digital audio recordings and transcripts. Some interviews also
include an image of the interviewee, which were either taken by the interviewer or provided by the interviewee. Most interviews
were recorded on-site at IGRA rodeos and conferences, but some were recorded using the video web-conferencing platform, Zoom.
Recordings were transcribed using transcription software, edited in Microsoft Word, and approved by the interviewee. Some
transcripts were also coded by theme in Microsoft Excel for inclusion in the Voices of Gay Rodeo web exhibition (see Project
History Note).
The interviews represent a wide range of stories from the 1940s through 2023; some only cover experiences with IGRA and gay
rodeo, while others contain detailed life histories. Questions generally addressed across the interviews include: Where did
you grow up? What was your childhood like? How do you identify in terms of gender and sexuality? How did you get involved
with IGRA? Can you speak about the gender and racial diversity of IGRA? Do you think the larger LGBT community supports the
rodeo? Have you experienced any protests or homophobia at the rodeos? Were you ever injured in the rodeo? What does it mean
to be a cowboy or a cowgirl, and are you one?
Other significant topics variably represented by the interviews include the development of IGRA and its member associations;
the organizational structure of IGRA; the cultures of individual member associations of IGRA; the place of IGRA in broader
LGBTQ+ communities; the role of drag and rodeo pageantry within IGRA; sexual activity at the rodeos; the relationship between
IGRA, professional rodeo, Black rodeo, and Indian rodeo; rural childhoods; urban migration; survival, community care, protest,
and loss amid the HIV/AIDS epidemic; gay activism; coming out; gay, lesbian, and leather bar scenes; the ways in which experiences
of queerness have changed over time; cisgender, transgender, nonbinary, gender non-conforming, and gender-fluid identity and
expression; disability; mental health; military service; parenthood and raising children among the rodeo; television and film
cowboys and westerns; experiences of racism, misogyny, transphobia, homophobia, and ableism; religion; country western dancing;
professional development and work-rodeo balance; and perspectives on contemporary queer politics.
Copyright has not been assigned to the Autry Museum of the American West. All requests for permission to publish or quote
from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Library and Archives at the Autry. Permission for publication is given
on behalf of the Autry Museum of the American West as the custodian of the physical items and is not intended to include or
imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained by the reader.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Rodeos
Gay rodeos
Gay rodeos -- Arizona
Gay rodeos -- California
Gay rodeos -- Colorado
Gay rodeos -- Canada
Gay rodeos -- Missouri
Gay rodeos -- New Mexico
Gay rodeos -- Oklahoma
Gay rodeos -- Texas
Oral histories
AIDS (Disease)
Drag performance
Rodeo royalty
LGBTQ+
LGBTQ+ -- History
AIDS Activists
Transcripts
Gay rodeos -- History
Gay rodeos -- Arkansas
Gay rodeos -- District of Columbia
Gay rodeos -- Florida
Gay rodeos -- Michigan
Gay rodeos -- Minnesota
Gay rodeos -- Nevada
Gay rodeos -- Pennsylvania
Gay rodeos -- Utah
Gay rodeos -- Washington
Transgender people
Digital media
Country life
International Gay Rodeo Association