Queer West: How the West Was Fabulous

Stories of the American West often rely on tired tropes of tough cowboys, but real history is much less straight and narrow and way more interesting. Join host Niecy Nash-Betts for a wild round-up of LGBTQ+ lives that got buried in the dust of popular culture and history and take a look at how queer people continue to shape the West today–from gay rodeos to two-spirit identity to trans truckers.Episode 1: "Welcome, Y'all!"Saddle up and get ready to make some lifestyle choices! Host Niecy Nash-Betts introduces herself and the series–explaining how folks like her, a Black Hollywood star who’s married to a woman, find power in sorting out their place in the American West by bucking the typical stereotypes. From John Wayne to Lil Nas X, dressing the part has always been part of the package in coming to terms with a complicated history.Episode 2: "Oklahomos!"The musicalOklahoma!is a saga of the plains often performed as a high school musical and presented as an American Classic. But the man behind its creation–a gay Cherokee playwright named Lynn Riggs–is barely known today. We get to know Lynn Riggs, who mined the yearning in old cowboy songs to express himself, and ended up revealing the spiritual connections between the West, musicals, and queer identity.Episode 3: "The Man in Lavender"Country cred is a confusing mix of cheesy marketing and hard-to-put-your-finger-on-it authenticity. And that leaves a lot of room for country music to speak to tons of queerdos and fans from all walks of life. Back in 1973, a real-deal outlaw musician named Patrick Haggerty gave the finger to all the rules in Nashville and made the first gay country album–breaking a mold that, decades later, still needs remaking.Episode 4: "Calamity Jane"Calamity Jane–whose name became shorthand for gender-bendy nonconformity in the old West–was a legend in her own time, and remains a puzzle in ours. But in 1953, when homosexuality was illegal in every state, Doris Day brought her to life in a very queer film with a hit song that echoed off the walls