Gay Rodeo Turns 50 as World Gay Rodeo Finals Return to El Reno, Oklahoma

The International Gay Rodeo Association held its 38th World Gay Rodeo Finals Oct. 22 to 25 at the Canadian County Expo & Event Center in El Reno, Oklahoma, according to the association’s finals page. IGRA’s schedule put two nights of royalty contests ahead of rodeo events on Saturday and Sunday.

It was the first finals since gay rodeo‘s 50th birthday. The first gay rodeo was held Oct. 2, 1976, at the Washoe County Fairgrounds in Reno, The Nevada Independent reported. A One Institute festival listing says the sport’s 51st year began this Oct. 2.

The finals feature the season’s top 20 cowboys and cowgirls, IGRA says. Camp events included goat dressing, where a two-person team races to get underwear on a goat. The wild drag race ends with a teammate in drag riding a steer over the line.

Haze Hollywood was crowned Mx International Gay Rodeo Association 2027 in El Reno on Oct. 24, according to an interview published by Your Big Break. The title followed a royalty competition that included horsemanship, talent and public presentation. The Finals Are Scheduled to Return to El Reno in 2027

Mark Christensen, who directed the 2024 finals in El Reno, told KOSU that IGRA had held them in Canada and around the U.S. before picking a central spot with milder fall weather.

“We are about family, and that’s one of the things that a lot of folks don’t understand,” Christensen said.

Anna Sherman of Mangum, then 68, started competing about 15 years earlier because her son asked her to.

“Because everybody loves everybody. I mean, everybody is really nice with everybody,” Sherman told KOSU.

“Everybody can compete for anything,” said Seliah DeLeon, who was competing for Miss IGRA that year.

IGRA’s fact sheet says the Oklahoma Gay Rodeo Association was seated at the September 1985 Denver convention where groups from Colorado, Texas, California and Arizona founded IGRA. IGRA’s calendar lists El Reno again for Oct. 21 to 24, 2027. Phil Ragsdale’s 1976 Reno Rodeo and the 1988 Fallon Injunction

Phil Ragsdale, a leader in Reno’s Imperial Court, dreamed up the rodeo in 1975 as a charity fundraiser. Ranchers wouldn’t rent him livestock after learning who the sponsor was. He secured animals from a Fallon rancher the night before, says OutHistory’s Nevada exhibit.

Charity remained part of gay rodeo as it grew. One Institute’s exhibition history names the Muscular Dystrophy Association as an early beneficiary, followed by causes including services for older people and people with AIDS.

The University of Nevada, Reno backed out of hosting the 1988 finals. IGRA moved them to a private ranch in Fallon, where a judge’s injunction and the Churchill County sheriff kept contestants out, High Country News reported.

Ragsdale died of AIDS in 1992. “Prior to the newer medications, we lost a lot of our competitors, and our officials, and our administration people also,” IGRA President Brian Helander told the Daily Yonder. “We’ve spent the last ten or 15 years recovering from that, and we have recovered from that.”

The finals returned to Reno in October 2025. Attendees also toured the Fallon site, High Country News reported. “It was our Stonewall,” John King told the publication, recalling the 1988 confrontation. Bull Riding and Chute Dogging at Santa Fe’s Zia Regional Rodeo

The Daily Yonder covered the Zia Regional Rodeo, an IGRA stop in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in late August.

Harry Children of Colorado Springs, at his second rodeo, said three people helped him in the chute at his first. “It’s truly rodeo without the expectations, and to me, it’s been incredible to be able to show up and just be who you want to be,” he said.

Brian Contratto of Austin, Texas, earned his first individual buckle at Zia with an eight-second bull ride. “Intergenerational access to queer people of all ages, I think that’s even special in its own right,” he said.

Kenzie Garcia, 18, downed her chute-dogging steer in four seconds Sunday, the best women’s time that day. “My whole rodeo family screamed at the top of their lungs for me,” she said. Fifty Years of Gay RodeoSource: IGRA history and fact sheet; 2026 finals schedule. Gay Rodeo Archives at the Smithsonian and One Institute

IGRA gave rodeo programs, posters and other material to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in December 2024, the Archives Center’s finding aid shows.

In West Hollywood, One Institute’s “50+ Years of Gay Rodeo Archives” show at One Gallery closes Sunday, Nov. 1. Roger Bergmann, a former IGRA president, put it together. A traveling version has made 38 stops since 2019, the listing says.

“Today it’s important because of diversity,” Bergmann told The Nevada Independent at last year’s finals. “We have straights competing.”

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