The Wild and Queer Old West: Race, Gender and Identity in the American West

Trigger warning: Suicide and bigotry.

by Jason Lee

Whenever anyone imagines the “Wild West” certain images are always conjured up. A heroic gun-toting cowboy (probably John Wayne), a grand stallion, free in the desert plains, delivering justice, saving the girl. These Hollywood visions are increasingly resisted. Historians of the American West are recovering the stories of marginalised groups and individuals, helping us understand the way of life and identity of the “real Wild West”.

There are many explanations as to why Americans began to migrate west. There were the political motivations of America’s “Manifest Destiny” to colonise westward and ‘civilise’ the Indigenous population. Another motivation was economics, declining opportunities of the Eastern Seaboard and economic recessions drew migration west with the promise of opportunity, particularly in the 1848 gold rushes and with the rise of ranching.

Black and queer Americans also headed west but for many additional reasons. For African Americans, the west presented an opportunity for freedom. Many initially headed west as fugitives escaping southern plantations and later as ‘Exodusters’ in the 1870s fleeing Jim Crow. Queer people, as well as women, also headed west due to the horrors at home; some fled sexual or domestic abuse, and others fled the growing rigidity of concepts of gender and sex uality. These groups were sold the prom ise of freedom in the west’s colonisation.

These freedoms manifested in the growing agency in the West. Far from visions of white heroic masculinity, the west was filled with examples of representation. African Americans came to dominate the cowboy profession, with around 25% of cowboys being black in this period. This, plus the number of Latino and Indigenous cowboys, demonstrates the west’s diversity. This led some contemporaries to believe in a black “spiritual” affinity with the job. Some even became performers headlining shows and rodeos. Additionally, the west’s lack of central authority was utilised by many to escape increasingly gendered codes of life. Ambitious women demonstrated this, free from conceptions of domesticity, exploited opportunities for businesses, like Mary Elitch Long who ran the first woman-owned zoo. Others used the opportunity to create communities free from contemporary heterosexual and gendered expectations, with male miners in Camp Angel in Southern California holding dances dressed as women, wearing patches on their pants to signify their feminine role.

Freedom in the West began to be limited as authority was established, and many African Americans were significantly disappointed in their “Promised Land”. In the west, migration was often met with racism - early settler communities were facing a downturn in economic services, which were further stretched by this migration of African Americans who were increasingly blamed for their problems. Additionally, in starting with little capital of their own, African Americans found themselves working poor quality land on homesteads or for former plantation owners.

For queer people, freedom from expectations did not necessarily mean acceptance. For most men in the west, work meant being in homosocial spaces for long periods where platonic and sexual acts often blurred. The common perception was that engagement in homosexual relationships was “acceptable” if these men eventually married women. Thus, gay men could enjoy some freedoms until they reached the age at which it was expected they were to marry. However, migratory life allowed individuals to move to another settlement when accusations of homosexuality arose. Similar to their male counterparts, sapphic (female) relationships were often understood as “romantic friendships”. Whilst widely accepted, they were not seen as ‘valid’. Those seeking to continue relationships with women faced societal difficulties and were typically branded as sexually predatory, man-hating and seeking to imitate men.

Recovering queer history is often difficult. Much of the sources we do have detail tragedy, such as in newspaper columns or in criminal records. Experiences of marginalised people are also lost because of the family burning of diaries and erasure by historians, deliberate or otherwise. However, notable individual examples do exist. First, there is the relationship between Jessie Elizabeth Wrigley and Portia Doyle. Jessie talked of how she felt like a “stranger” due to her sexuality; she went west with Portia who escaped from her husband, and they pursued a sapphic relationship. The nature of their relationship was only publically known due to media reporting on their double suicide - they had shot each other through the heart. Next, was ‘Old Nash’ the laundress of the famous army officer, General Custer. Her work as a midwife led her to be well respected, but at her death she was found to be trans, leading to ridicule from her fellow soldiers. However, there were people who supported ‘Old Nash’, with the wife of the General, Elizabeth Custer, expressing her sadness, saying, “Poor old thing, I hope she is comfy at last.” Finally, Alan Hart provides a happier story, Alan was the first documented transgender male to transition in the United States, and has felt “happier since”. Alan married, was a successful author, and made a revolutionary contribution to the screening of TB, saving thousands of lives.

In the Old West, to live freely was to live free from the ear of society and its judgement. This is seen in the use of coded language by gay men; terms such as ‘confirmed bachelors’ or ‘fans of poet Walt Whitman’, helped to keep their sexuality more private. Recovering these codes and engaging with marginalised experiences contributes to a better understanding of the American West, one filled with diversity, agency and resistance against violent racism and patriarchy.