Dressing Dykes: Exploring The Lesbian Cowboy Aesthetic
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Cowboys as we know them were never really real. The “as we know them” is important – the role of a ‘cowboy’, a horse-riding livestock herder, is one that has existed and continues throughout the world, from gauchos in the south of Latin America to vaqueros in Mexico and the csikós in Hungary. But cowboys aren’t only people who herd livestock and work on ranches, at least not in the popular imagination. They’re rebellious and dangerous, shaped by North American westerns of the ‘50s and ‘60s, where every hero was a straight, white man. Cowboys, as we know them, are pretty much mythical.
This means, of course, that they’re ours for the taking; ours to reinvent continually, the tropes of which we can wind into our own queer narratives, the aesthetics of which we intertwine with our dykey-est moments. The cowboy is a narrative device, allowing us to process our feelings and explore our desires. And the trappings of the western film tick all the queerest boxes: homosocial communities, outcasts from wider society, camp little outfits. Yet, in many ways, cowboy imagery is firmly tied to men and to queer male aesthetics in a way that leaves women and non-binary people in the dust – and the tumbleweeds. Of course, queer culture informs and grows from all parts of itself, and the queerest cowboy pop-cultural moments are there for all to claim and enjoy (or critique, if we choose), from The Village People to Brokeback Mountain to Pedro Almodóvar’s new release, Strange Way of Life.
The cowboy aesthetic is a bundle of contradictions, at once glittering and gritty, mythic and relatable. It balances the straight, white, male heroes immortalised by the likes of John Wayne with the feminine flamboyance of stars like Lady Gaga – whose 2016 western-inspired album Joanne reinvented John Wayne’s image with a song of the same name. In fact, the influence of the cowboy is everywhere in the realm of pop, especially in the last few years. The newest online aesthetic, ‘Cowboy Core’, embraces the potential of the cowboy and decks it in as much sparkle as humanly possible. Think Beyoncé’s Renaissance imagery, with her mirrorball Stetson hat. Think of Lil Nas X in monochrome hot pink, all leather and harnesses, cowboy boots and a cropped jacket.
In all these reinventions, I want to take a moment to absorb ourselves in the ways that the cowboy aesthetic has been reworked within sapphic communities. Lesbian cowboys are definitely nothing new.
The 1953 American western musical Calamity Jane is a cult classic for queer women, with Doris Day starring as the gun-slinging Jane, clad in neckerchiefs and fringed suede. Though the story is ostensibly a straight romance, the sapphic subtext of the film is hard to miss, with its award-winning song “Secret Love” being described as the “first gay anthem.” And once you start spotting the influence of the cowboy on sapphic media, or the way that lesbian audiences are drawn to them, it’s hard to stop: Margot Robbie’s all-pink cowboy ensemble in Barbie is a look coveted by legions of femme lesbians; Taylor Swift’s 2020 song “cowboy like me” is a favourite among her queer audiences, with lines about “the skeletons in both our closets” and how it “takes one to know one”; queer musician Norma Night’s recent single “Passenger Princess” is a sapphic cowgirl utopia, the accompanying music video full to the brim with cowboy hats, cowboy boots, and a country twang.
The cowboy aesthetic is widespread within lesbian fashion history and sapphic visual culture today, whether by design or coincidence. There’s something about cowboys that continues to be appealing, no matter the flavour of queer identity. In lesbian pop-cultural writer Kira Deshler’s fantastic article about 1980s sapphic western romance Desert Hearts, she writes about the tropes of the Wild West, and how they appeal to queer audiences: the conflicting “push and pull between independence and connection, between the individual and the collective.” These conflicts echo those that can arise in the lives of queer people searching for their place in the world.
“The cowboy aesthetic is widespread within lesbian fashion history and sapphic visual culture today, whether by design or coincidence. There’s something about cowboys that continues to be appealing, no matter the flavour of queer identity.”
With this in mind, there are a lot of westerns that could be read as queer, no matter the relationships that actually play out on-screen. See, for example, 2019 South African neo-western Flatland. The female-focused film redefines the western on its own terms, combining guns, horses, and the open desert with three leading women – whose shearling denim jackets and velour tracksuits aren’t a thousand miles from the embroidered two-pieces and workwear of a traditional cowboy. In the words of the film’s director Jenna Bass, “I began wondering how I could change the [western] genre, not only by including women characters but by having them dominate the film.” By centering women in the narrative, Flatland gives the viewer space to imagine the significance of relationships between women, whether romantic, platonic, or antagonistic.
Recently, cowboy aesthetics are being used with increasing intentionality within the LGBTQ+ community. Take, for example, the music video for super-queer pop band MUNA’s song Kind of Girl. In it, the trio play with the meanings and associations of “girl” and “boy”, using cowboy-inspired clothing as well as the melody and lyrics of the song itself, reinventing the conflicts of the cowboy and the western for the 2020s. MUNA’s lead singer Katie Gavin explains the significance of this to the band, since “all three [members] have different relationships to girlhood (and Naomi is non-binary, so not a girl at all!).” Once again, aesthetics are integral: MUNA start the video in denim and casual ranch gear, and end it in the silk shirts and embroidery worn by only the glossiest of fictional cowboys. For a song about transformation and the desire to “grow and change”, clothing is a perfect metaphor.
The trappings of the western, the cowboy, the sprawling desert and a Stetson hat are as much a part of lesbian history as they are sapphic media. In fact, lesbians in the 1970s and ‘80s who took to the land in a search for freedom have remarkable similarities to the cowboy archetype. These communities, sometimes known as the “landdyke” movement, prioritised freedom, self-sufficiency, and a separation from patriarchy. The conflicts between independence and connection that Deshler wrote about arise here again – landdykes were separatists, actively seeking to remove themselves from wider society. They were also community-focused, but only towards specific, lesbian communities. And, of course, living and working on the land required clothes that were fit for purpose. Perhaps not the elaborate outfits worn by MUNA, but garments on the same spectrum. Clothes that give off the air of the outdoors: denim and boots, work shirts and bandana-covered heads. These are the looks we see when we gaze back on the landdyke movement of the ‘70s and ‘80s, captured in black and white by photographers like JEB (Joan E. Biren), whose lenses have shaped the lesbian aesthetic of semi-recent history.
Cowboys and their domain are rich with potential – whether that domain is fashion and aesthetics, cinema, or real-life land. The cowboy, as a mythic figure, can be loved and longed for by us all, the conflicts of the genre a reflection of the intricacies of our own lives. It’s easy to reach out and touch; all it takes is some fringe or a denim jacket, and a tip of a cowboy hat.
Words: Eleanor Medhurst
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