Box Turtle Bulletin
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyDecember 16th, 2009
The Autry National Center of the American West is a cowboy museum. In fact, it was founded by one of the country’s best known Hollywood cowboys.
The Museum of the American West, formerly known as the Museum of Western Heritage, was co-founded by Gene and Jackie Autry and Monte and Joanne Hale. With the opening of the Museum in 1988, Gene Autry realized his dream “to build a museum which would exhibit and interpret the heritage of the West and show how it influenced American and the world.”
A museum dedicated to keeping alive the image of the cowboy and the lore of the wild west is not the first place you’d think to look for an exhibit on the LGBT community. But the West was wild enough that gay folk and transgender folk could avoid the close scrutiny of ‘civil society’.
And so the Autry is going to spend 2010 looking at the way in which gay and trans people fit into the American West. (LA Times)
The series is the first of its kind hosted by a Western-heritage museum, say people associated with the Autry. It consists of a gallery tour, panel discussions, lectures and performances to be rolled out in four installments over the course of 12 months. Dates for future events are being finalized.
The impetus for the series was a exhibit of props which included wardrobe pieces from recent western movies such as “Unforgiven” and “Pale Rider”. It also included the two shirts from Brokeback Mountain.
This seemed to have unexpectedly caught the attention of those who attended the museum.
Public interest in the shirts was one of the main motivations for producing “Out West,” according to those involved with the project. If “Brokeback Mountain” helped to open the frontier’s closet door, the Autry is taking the next step by rummaging through the closet’s contents and sharing what it finds with the public.
And perhaps not surprising to those of us who know that gay folk have always been around, it turns out that west had its fair share of gay folk and transgender folk, some – to their surprise – already a part of the Autry collect. And now the fans of the cowboy life will learn of its broader and richer history.
Latest Posts
Featured Reports
In this original BTB Investigation, we unveil the tragic story of Kirk Murphy, a four-year-old boy who was treated for “cross-gender disturbance” in 1970 by a young grad student by the name of George Rekers. This story is a stark reminder that there are severe and damaging consequences when therapists try to ensure that boys will be boys.
When we first reported on three American anti-gay activists traveling to Kampala for a three-day conference, we had no idea that it would be the first report of a long string of events leading to a proposal to institute the death penalty for LGBT people. But that is exactly what happened. In this report, we review our collection of more than 500 posts to tell the story of one nation’s embrace of hatred toward gay people. This report will be updated continuously as events continue to unfold. Check here for the latest updates.
In 2005, the Southern Poverty Law Center wrote that “[Paul] Cameron’s ‘science’ echoes Nazi Germany.” What the SPLC didn”t know was Cameron doesn’t just “echo” Nazi Germany. He quoted extensively from one of the Final Solution’s architects. This puts his fascination with quarantines, mandatory tattoos, and extermination being a “plausible idea” in a whole new and deeply disturbing light.
On February 10, I attended an all-day “Love Won Out” ex-gay conference in Phoenix, put on by Focus on the Family and Exodus International. In this series of reports, I talk about what I learned there: the people who go to these conferences, the things that they hear, and what this all means for them, their families and for the rest of us.
Prologue: Why I Went To “Love Won Out”
Part 1: What’s Love Got To Do With It?
Part 2: Parents Struggle With “No Exceptions”
Part 3: A Whole New Dialect
Part 4: It Depends On How The Meaning of the Word "Change" Changes
Part 5: A Candid Explanation For "Change"
At last, the truth can now be told.
Using the same research methods employed by most anti-gay political pressure groups, we examine the statistics and the case studies that dispel many of the myths about heterosexuality. Download your copy today!
And don‘t miss our companion report, How To Write An Anti-Gay Tract In Fifteen Easy Steps.
Anti-gay activists often charge that gay men and women pose a threat to children. In this report, we explore the supposed connection between homosexuality and child sexual abuse, the conclusions reached by the most knowledgeable professionals in the field, and how anti-gay activists continue to ignore their findings. This has tremendous consequences, not just for gay men and women, but more importantly for the safety of all our children.
Anti-gay activists often cite the “Dutch Study” to claim that gay unions last only about 1½ years and that the these men have an average of eight additional partners per year outside of their steady relationship. In this report, we will take you step by step into the study to see whether the claims are true.
Tony Perkins’ Family Research Council submitted an Amicus Brief to the Maryland Court of Appeals as that court prepared to consider the issue of gay marriage. We examine just one small section of that brief to reveal the junk science and fraudulent claims of the Family “Research” Council.
The FBI’s annual Hate Crime Statistics aren’t as complete as they ought to be, and their report for 2004 was no exception. In fact, their most recent report has quite a few glaring holes. Holes big enough for Daniel Fetty to fall through.
“Google” is a trademark of Google Inc.
© Box Turtle Bulletin. All Rights Reserved.
Posts 
Posts via daily email:
Richard W. Fitch
December 16th, 2009
I have heard the legend that the song, “Frankie and Johnnie Were Sweethearts”, is actually about two men. Can anyone verify that? Even in recent decades, TV shows, such as Gunsmoke, held an underlying premise that the likes of Miss Kittie were gender renegades. And to think that the movie “Brokeback Mountain” helped to seed this set of events at the Autry!!
Elise
December 16th, 2009
This looks amazing.
This sort of history just fascinates me. Kudos to the museum for going there!
Lynn David
December 17th, 2009
I remember from back in the 80s, one of those old cowboy stars, on one of those shows similar to ‘Death Valley Days’ or some such show, talking about William Bonney, aka Billy the Kid, as…. well, it wasn’t very good terms, I remember something about being a back-shooter, maybe whining, little…. and ending with queer. That sorta thing sticks with you. I remember thinking to myself, how did he know that? Then deciding he was just calling ‘the kid’ whatever he could to denigrate him. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t refering to this William Bonney.
Jafuf
December 17th, 2009
Transgender folks in the ‘wild’ west. C’mon, let’s be serious folks. I seriously doubt anyone went ‘under the knife’ to change their sex in the mid to late 19th century. Transvetites, yes, of course. Unless the word ‘transgender’ is now being used to classify anyone who even cross dresses. Sorry, but I’m not up on my gay vocabulary.
Lymis
December 17th, 2009
Jafuf,
Of course there wasn’t gender reassignment surgery. The idea isn’t about the reassignment, it is about the experience of finding yourself in a body that doesn’t match your personal experience of gender.
Dressing and acting as the other gender – sometimes to the point of actually spending your life passing if you could get away with it, is hardly new, and with the rigid social and gender roles back East, it is hardly a surprise to find that people who chose (for whatever reason) not to fit in headed West.
For that matter, it has long been documented that some Native American cultures accepted members of their tribe who chose to live as the other gender.
Jaft
December 17th, 2009
Jafuf – You’re thinking strictly of Transsexual. Transgendered means anyone who crosses traditional gender boundries (though often, when used, means specific groups). So, yes, cross dressers (straight men who dress as women) and transvestites qualify under Transgendered.
Jafuf
December 17th, 2009
Well, I said I wasn’t up on the latest ‘gayspeak’. Words change meaning so often these days, I wonder how anyone can keep up. In my day, we were all ‘queer’, but that seems to have lost all gay connotations these days.
Jaft
December 17th, 2009
Not really. Queer is still used to encompass all the non-heteronormative, including the more specific groups. So, we’re still all Queer.
Jason D
December 17th, 2009
Jafuf, transgender is not exactly new, it was popularized in the 1970’s and become something of an umbrella term in the 1980’s.
Bruce Garrett
December 17th, 2009
If you ever get your hands on William Dale Jennings’ book, The Cowboys, give a scan to the absolutely fascinating “Western Glossery” he attached to the end of it. Jennings, himself a pioneer in the modern gay rights movement, clearly did a lot of research and picked up on things that perhaps heterosexual historians of the period were either blind to, or just didn’t want to notice. Here’s one entry, just to give you a taste:
Beyond the notice of terms that could clearly be taken as homoerotic double-entendre when you looked at them more carefully, there are a lot of delightful western slang terms such as “Coffin Varnish” for whiskey and “Live on the jawbone” for living on credit and “Ankle Express” for when circumstances force you to walk rather then ride. You’re told that “Eating grass” is one of 31 terms the cowboy had for being thrown from a horse. The book is vastly better then the John Wayne movie made from it, mostly for all these little details of cowboy life.
Ephilei
December 17th, 2009
Transgender people (even people going under the knife) have been around for thousands of years. Eunuchs. Hijras. It makes sense for transfolk to have manifested in the Wild West where there was lots of alone time and not worrying about what culture thought, not to mention no cross dressing laws. Transpeople will thrive where cultural taboos are weak.
cowboy
December 17th, 2009
From the referenced LA Times article:
That’s making an assumption all Christians are anti-gay and all gays are anti-Christian doesn’t it?
mikeksf
December 17th, 2009
Cowboy..
Yup, Pardner, it sure ‘nough does
John Trudell
December 17th, 2009
Jim’s comment in the article uses the words “sometimes” and “some”, not “always” and “all”.
So no, there isn’t an assumption that all Christians are anti-gay and all gays are anti-Christian .
Timothy Kincaid
December 17th, 2009
Not necessarily. As a gay Christian, I would probably feel uncomfortable in a rodeo group’s Bible study. This is a pretty conservative community (cursin’, carousin’, drinkin’ and cheatin’ notwithstanding) and I think that if social issues arose in such a setting that I would either have to bite my tongue or get confrontational.
People who are otherwise friendly and polite can find themselves feeling perfectly justified in saying the most offensive things if they they are in a religious setting.
cowboy
December 17th, 2009
My experience with gay/straight rodeos can be rather stereotypical. Sometimes you have to defend doing barrel racing (which is strictly a female event at “normal†rodeos) but I was proud to know our one-time champion bull rider (and local sheriff/forest ranger) was a petite woman. There aren’t many in the main-stream rodeo circuit who know we have steer-wrestling for both genders. If I get any flack from anyone I just introduce them to Debbie.
[Tip hat] mikekSF
Oh…okay John T. maybe it was a bit implied.
John Trudell
December 17th, 2009
If it was implied, it wasn’t implied by Jim.
A lot of what was said during the interview didn’t make it into the final copy.
We have many Christians on the Ultimate Brokeback Forum where Jim is a member.
It’s a topic we’ve been discussing for 4 years.
alanschultz
December 17th, 2009
Unknown to most, the real cow “BOYS” were Black men fleeing slavery in the south and going west. Blacks were often called “BOYS” thus the word cowboy. A more historical museum would be to visit the Black Cowboy Museum in Denver, Colorado. (Not sure if that is the correct name) fascinating place and probably depicts the real cowboys better.
Leave A Comment