The American West Was Always Queer

By: Elise Sabin

Recently, Montana’s Department of Health and Human Services passed an emergency rule barring Montanans from correcting the gender markers on their birth certificates. This bill and other anti trans legislation would make Montana one of the harshest states in the country for trans folks. 

Narratives of Montana and the Wild West tend to paint Montana as a harsh, hypermasculine place where traditional gender roles have always been upheld. This picture erases the history and culture of indigenous peoples who lived here long before settlers, and even within the scope of a settler narrative, it excludes queer people. The most recent attack on trans rights is no different. It aims to exclude loved and important members of our community. 

But trans and queer people have always been and will always be critical members of our communities; their stories have just been erased. These are some stories from the “Wild West” that might challenge the traditional story you have been told about this region. 

Harry Allen 

Despite their presence, It would be inaccurate to say that the early West was a safe haven for queer people, a place where they were fully accepted and able to thrive freely. In actuality, people were arrested for not dressing according to their gender stereotype. However, it did offer more freedom than the strict societal rules in the East. During the early 1900’s Harry Allen was one of the trans people that came West to make a life for himself and he ended up being one of the most notorious men in the West. He was known for gambling, stealing, fighting, bootlegging, and vagrancy. Vagrancy was a vague charge given to people who weren’t conforming with society's rules, in Harry’s case this was for not dressing with his assigned gender. He was quoted in a 1908 issue of the Seattle Sunday Times saying “I did not like to be a girl; did not feel like a girl, and never did look like a girl… So it seemed impossible to make myself a girl and, sick at heart over the thought that I would be an outcast of the feminine gender, I conceived the idea of making myself a man.” Harry was in and out of jail for most of his life but he also made quite a life for himself. He worked as a bartender, barber and longshoreman. Allen never married but he had a long term partner, a sex worker looking for a different life with Allen. Allen’s story is relatively well known because he was so notorious and newspapers latched onto his story wherever he traveled. There are other stories, however, of trans and queer people who lived quiet, peaceful lives that didn’t involve running from the law constantly. 

Sammy Williams 

There are many accounts of men who were assigned female at birth who lived out happy and successful lives out West. Their identities as transgender men were often unknown until after they died. Peter Boag, a historian at Washington State University, reported in his book Re-dressing America’s Frontier Past the story of a man named Sammy Williams. Williams lived and worked in Manhattan, Montana as a logger and cook for 18 years. He was a popular member of the Gallatin County community. When he died at 80 years old, the undertaker found out that his assigned gender at birth was female. Boag states that “no one ever really seemed to seriously doubt that Williams was anything but what he presented” (Boag, 2011). Boag also stated that there are hundreds of stories similar to this one. The west offered an escape for trans men, where they were mostly able to avoid scrutiny, but it was not as kind to trans women. 

Mrs. Nash

When white people first started moving out West, the region was dominated by men. Because men outnumbered women so aggressively it was common for men to dress as women in community gatherings so that they would be able to participate in partner dancing. Men also performed as women in theater and vaudeville acts. Even with this fluidity in societal gender roles, stories of trans women are much less common from this time. This is due to the fact that it was much more dangerous to be a trans woman in the West. It was a risk to be a single woman in the West in general. There were very few opportunities for work and they often didn’t pay a living wage. They were also subject to exacerbated sexual violence becuase men outnumbered women. Being trans and a woman was especially hard because they faced all of the hardships mentioned as well discrimination due to their trans identities. However, it was still not unheard of and the Westl offered an escape for these women compared to the strict societal rules in the East. 

In an article by Sabrina Imbler, they tell the story of Mrs. Nash who lived in Fort Lincoln, North Dakota. When Nash died, it was discovered that her assigned sex at birth was male. She was reported as being a core member of the community, midwife, interior decorator, and excellent tamale cook (Imbler, 2019). She had three husbands in Montana who she married when she worked as a laundress for Montana’s cavalry. 

Bachelor Marriages

In his book Queer Cowboys: And Other Erotic Male Friendships in Nineteenth Century Literature, Chris Packard explains the prominence of queer relationships in the early West. Packard writes that while outward examples of queer relationships are not that common, there are many examples of covert queer relationships in Westerns and other literature. “In Westerns produced before 1900, references to lusty passions appear regularly, when the cowboy is on the trail with his partners, if one knows how to look for them. In fact, in the often all-male world of the literary West, homoerotic affection holds a favored position.” Packard hypothesizes that if these relationships were showing up in literature at the time that must be reflected in what was happening in the West. 

Bachelor marriages, or households where men lived together and formed egalitarian relationships in which they transcended traditional gender roles, were relatively common. Historians state that because there were so few women in this area at the time, it was much more acceptable for men to form these relationships. Peter Boag explains that this acceptance was because the stratification between heterosexuality and homosexuality didn’t happen until the late 1800’s so relationships were able to be much more fluid.

Trans and queer people have always been core members of our communities. The modern western myth is just that, a myth and it is used to perpetuate harmful ideas and exclude queer people from our history. The most recent actions by the Department of Health and Human Services are harmful and aim to erase these beloved members of our community. We must uplift our trans community members now and always. 

Author’s Note: Because a lot of the stories mentioned were about people who did not choose to disclose their identities as queer people; I felt very conflicted about telling their stories. I ultimately decided that since these stories have already been reported and we want to celebrate their contribution to history that I would include them in this piece. I personally found a lot of validation challenging the notion that the West was solely hypermasculine and I wanted to share that. If you have any thoughts on this I would love to hear them!

Reach out to me at elisea.1402@gmail.com :)