David Lawson competes in the barrel race at the Best Buck in the Bay Rodeo & Festival in Duncan Mills on Sunday.

Attendees watch Best Buck in the Bay Rodeo in the Sonoma County town of Duncan Mills on Sunday.

Teams of three compete in the wild drag race event at the Best Buck in the Bay Rodeo in the Sonoma County town of Duncan Mills on Sunday.

Allie Li and Jeannie Taylor attend the Best Buck in the Bay Rodeo in the Sonoma County town of Duncan Mills on Sunday.

Vanessa Padilla runs the barrel race at the Best Buck in the Bay Rodeo in the Sonoma County town of Duncan Mills on Sunday.

David Lawson and Greg Begay compete in team roping at the Best Buck in the Bay.

Best Buck in the Bay judges watch the contestants.

There are a lot of reasons to be skeptical of the gay rodeo, which rolls into the small Sonoma County town of Duncans Mills every September. It might be gay, but it is a rodeo, after all.

Country-western culture lifts the mythical image of the white, self-reliant, John Wayne-style cowboy and sidelines the actual Black and Mexican cowboys who existed on America’s frontier. The cowboy looms large in the American psyche — a symbol of our individualist ethos and the righteousness of the strongman amid a backdrop of lawlessness and terror. Kind of problematic.

And yet all of that baggage makes the gay rodeo that much more appealing to me. It exists and is wonderful despite, or perhaps because, of the baggage.

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Last weekend, I went to this........

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