Wyoming’s cowboy party boss takes a stand … against ‘gay rodeo’

I’ve been searching for a reason why some Wyoming residents go out of their way to make life more difficult for LGBTQ people. Is their goal to drive them away from the “Equality State” forever? 

There are plenty of examples, including two in the spotlight recently. One featured Brooklyn Ross, a 27-year-old transgender woman from Colorado, who entered the Wyoming Governor’s Open tennis tournament in Cheyenne. 

The second was Wyoming State Republican Chairman Frank Eathorne’s broadside against “gay rodeos.” The man’s a true visionary — a Wyoming politician coming out as anti-rodeo.  

The tennis tournament having a trans player likely would have been a quickly forgotten ripple in the state’s sports world, but Cheyenne Tennis Association President Jackie Fulkrod resigned in protest. Loudly.

Suddenly, the incident made headlines across the country and even had tabloids in Britain and Italy covering the controversy like it happened at the Wimbledon finals. 

A new state law banning transgender girls from competing in middle- and high-school sports — a response to the far right’s rabid support of such exclusions — is a fresh stain on Wyoming’s national reputation. It was one of the most closely watched legislative fights of the year, taking hours of debate time, and rightly so. Even though Gov. Mark Gordon said the ban would likely affect only four high school students in the state this year, their access to sports is worth defending. 

Yet Gordon failed to stand up for the vulnerable and few. Despite calling the bill “overly draconian” and discriminatory, he didn’t bravely veto the bill. Instead, he took a more cowardly route and let it become law without his signature.

With the stage thus set for attacks on trans athletes, Fulkrod dramatically served an ace. It was an extreme act, but she believed her resignation was the only way “to protect our female athletes.”

“I think a man playing against a woman is a very unfair matchup when it’s specifically meant for women in that specific draw,” Fulkrod said. “I feel like having a transgender athlete compete is against my personal integrity and what I believe and value.”

She also fretted about whether Ross would use the women’s restroom.

But the director of the tournament, Peg Connor, supported letting Ross compete. The Wyoming Governor’s Cup is sanctioned by the United States Tennis Association, which states in its policy on trans athletes, “Tennis thrives when the sport embraces inclusion.”

Ross met all USTA requirements for trans players. She transitioned six years ago; the policy calls for at least four years. Players must take hormonal therapy appropriate for the assigned sex to minimize gender-related advantages in competitions.

Ross, who plays on the NCAA Division II University of Texas at Tyler tennis team, said she’s played 123 singles matches in tournaments across the nation without controversy. But she withdrew a day after Fulkrod’s resignation. Ross told Cowboy State Daily she didn’t want the event to become a “circus” with protesters, and she also worried about her own safety.

The athlete said she thought playing in Cheyenne would have been a positive experience for young spectators who have never seen a trans athlete compete. She’s right, and it’s Cheyenne’s loss — as is the national  renewal of the capital city’s transphobic reputation.

And then there’s the party boss’s gallant defense of the real Wyoming way. At an Aug. 12 Wyoming Republican Central Committee meeting in Laramie, Eathorne — who was re-elected to an unprecedented third term this year — showed his true grit by condemning the idea of his party giving money to gay rodeos.

While there are gay competitors in professional rodeo, there are no gay rodeos in Wyoming. Republicans may be funding gay rodeos somewhere, but it’s not here. So what’s the problem?

The problem is that Eathorne fears Ronna McDaniel, chairwoman of the National Republican Committee, might one day erect a party tent big enough to include Americans that don’t look or sound like his straight, white, cisgender ideal. Eathorne, after all, takes his party purity very seriously. The chance to take a swipe at a high-profile establishment Republican and also throw some red meat to the far-right cowpokes in his state was apparently a two-fer he couldn’t resist.

“There’s been expenditures made, unbeknownst to us until later discovery, that direct contributions [to] things like gay rodeos and LGBTQ causes has in fact been transacted [on McDaniel’s watch],” Eathorne said.

Eathorne said the state GOP keeps insisting that money the national party collects be spent on “platform items.” McDaniel, however, in partnership with a group of LGBTQ conservatives, launched the controversial “RNC Pride Coalition” in 2021. 

“There’s plenty of good causes and organizations to support those measures, not those the Democrats support,” Eathorne said.

Don’t be fooled by Eathorne’s misinformed understanding that LGBTQ is synonymous with the Left. The Log Cabin Republicans — an organization dedicated to representing LGBTQ conservatives — has been around for decades. It also seems like he didn’t do his research on gay rodeos, which are not exclusive to members of the LGBTQ community.

They’re open to everyone, including heterosexuals. What other rodeo features women riding bulls and men competing in barrel racing and pole bending? Or the famous “goat dressing” challenge, where a team puts underwear on a goat? 

Gay rodeos also feature the “wild drag race,” where a contestant dressed in drag holds on with all four limbs while a steer tries to shake him off.

I still hadn’t found anyone to explain the anti-LGBTQ sentiment of so many on the far right, so I turned to Sara Burlingame, executive director of Wyoming Equality and former state legislator from Cheyenne.

Burlingame said for decades, LGBTQ folks and their families in Wyoming have been able to confidently say, “Yes, I know we’re real conservative, I know we’re real rural. But trust us, we’re good people. We don’t set out to hurt anyone and we protect each other.”

But with the rise of the alt-right, she believes Wyoming is now at a tipping point. “For the longest time, we’ve kind of held the line with the libertarian, small government ethos,” she said. Civility mattered.

“But the alt-right has no concept of that. Everything about how we do business around Wyoming, and our expectations about civility and civic engagement, they are just pouring toxic waste on it,” Burlingame said. “They think civility is for people you agree with. They think a civic virtue is that we want to ban the same books.”

Burlingame said LGBTQ folks and their supporters have been too passive, and I agree. “What has always been true of Wyoming is no longer true,” she realized. “We are not as safe.”

But last year the former legislator said she had an epiphany. “You only get to keep what you’re willing to fight for,” Burlingame said. So fight.

That means when a transgender athlete is getting hassled and pressured to drop out of a tournament she has every right to enter, we need to stand by her side. Unfortunately, Ross’ experience means no transgender woman athlete will likely come near Wyoming for years — so extremists have won another round.

I hope the Wyoming GOP’s little pre-emptive strike against gay rodeos backfires, and some community in the state reaps the economic benefits that have made the shows popular tourist attractions nationally since the first in Reno in 1976.

I’ve never been to a gay rodeo, but “Cowboy Frank” Harrell, a member of the International Gay Rodeo Association’s Hall of Fame in Denver, says it’s the opposite of the cut-throat competition found at other rodeos.

“We want everyone to do their best, and we’re willing to lend a hand, offer advice, or fix equipment for each other,” he told an Italian magazine last month. “We compete against each other, but we also want others to succeed.”

I guess Eathorne is right. There’s nothing in that description that would remotely interest a member of the Wyoming Republican Central Committee.