Photo of Miss IGRA (Int’l Gay Rodeo Assn) 2024 by Health Tanner, Zia Regional Rodeo 2024—Santa Fe, NM
There were three days of bull riding, steer riding, roping on foot and on horseback, Barrel Racing, Pole Bending—and finally, Goat Dressing.
This odd event was created especially for gay rodeos. The two-person team stands fifty feet from each goat, tethered to a rope attached to a concrete block weighed down by a sitting woman. Each team at a signal runs to its goat, grabs it and pulls a pair of white underpants over its back legs and up its butt. Some of the nannies (no Billies here, for obvious reasons) just stood baffled, but others kicked vigorously, making it tough to get the underwear on. When it was more or less on, the team ran back to the starting line, and each team was timed. The winners managed the feat in 21 seconds.
Now it was the turn of the underwear man (I’m sure he goes by another name) to collect all the pants off the goats.
When that was done, four brawny men armed with underwear descended on the two women sitting on the concrete blocks, tackled them and pulled the underwear up over their boots and pants.
Well…
The brightly colored program was full of information, such as a line of old-time cowboys in front of a sign reading, “Get your HIV status faster than you can say Giddy Up?” and “Are you eighteen or younger and in search of an LGBTO family?” and “Gay, Bi, Trans or Questioning?”
The progress we’ve made in these areas is astonishing, although of course there are always holdouts such as the two cowboys sitting at a bar in a New Yorker cartoon: one turns to the other and says with bemusement, “Did you know we was gay?”
Well Sallie, As an activist lesbian, I have a life-long herstory of working for civil rights and human rights in New Mexico. As an organizer of 2003 legislative effort to pass An Act Relating to Human Rights, the LGBT population was included as a protected class in the New Mexico. With the federal right to marry, we have gained so much. Although, there is clearly a backlash of efforts to undo much of this progress, the march continues. I am conflicted about the “gay rodeo” because of the treatment of animals and struggle to feel this practice as progress. As a lifetime vegetarian and animal rights supporter, I feel sad for the fear and potential abuse suffered at the hands of my community. Thank you for the opportunity to comment.