Elyssa Ford

I am a cultural and social historian and am interested in women's history and sport history in the United States. A lot of my work examines these areas by asking questions about gender, race, and sexuality, with a focus on questions of identity and memory. My book "Rodeo as Refuge, Rodeo as Rebellion" (2020) looks at race- and group-specific rodeos in the United States, such African American rodeo, LGBT+ rodeo, and Hawaiian rodeo. In it, I argue that rodeo’s ties to the past allow people to connect to it in a way that is deeply personal and to see it as culturally and historically relevant. Because of this, race- and group-specific rodeos not only have continued far beyond the time of segregation, but have become even more relevant for the communities that support them.

My next book project focuses more specifically on the gay rodeo circuit. Participants in gay rodeo created a different queer sexual subculture that straddled the urban and rural. It also is a site with tensions between offering an inclusive environment (for men and women, for trans and cis competitors, and more) and one that still was created by gay men for gay men. Topics examined include hypermasculinity, sex and AIDS, rodeo drag queens, political and consumer power, and the position of women within this setting.