Although enormously popular, the tragic love story of Brokeback Mountain doesn't reflect the lives of some of today's lesbian and gay residents of Wyoming. When not working for LGBT organizations, they swim, run, play volleyball and even ride horses as out gay people.
Curtis Mork, activities director for Wyoming Equality, is part of a group of people who get together each Sunday at Cheyenne's Unitarian Universalist Church and play volleyball.
'Not everyone that is there is GLBT,' says Mork, 'but they are GLBT-friendly. The church has long been a supporter of our organization.' Mork says the volleyball group remains more social than competitive. 'For the moment our group is not competing in any leagues, because we are still working on developing our competitiveness and coordination.'
Patrick Nolan, born and raised in Sundance, is an avid horseman and recreational skier. Nolan grew up raising livestock on his parents' ranch in northeast Wyoming, where he visits when not at his home in Laramie.
'Horses are a part of most rural Wyoming kids' life, gay or straight,' says Nolan. 'I think most people forget [ riding ] really is a sport, as well as an everyday tool.'
Skiing is Nolan's winter sports activity. He also snowboards with a gay friend. 'Being in the Rockies, I have access to some of the best snow in the world,' says Nolan. 'As a person who chooses to live in Wyoming, you have to be somewhat avid in outdoor activities. Summers here are always full of backpacking, rafting trips, daily hikes with the dogs, and bike rides galore. These are the reasons I still live here and have not chosen to move to a bigger, gayer place.'
Nolan also visits his uncle's Soda Butte Ranch, where sheep and ostriches graze. Asked about the relevance of the gay characters in Brokeback Mountain, Nolan says there are real versions of the men portrayed in the film. 'As for other gay ranchers, I see them online in the chat rooms sometimes, but they seem to be more hired hands than anything.'
Debra East is the sole out lesbian at her regular water aerobics workouts at a Laramie swimming pool, and at 51, one of the youngest participants. 'They have been good to me,' says East of her swimming partners. 'I am out because I have a shoulder tattoo [ interlocking women's symbols backed by a pink triangle ] that has been asked about, and I answer the question.'
East's career encompasses an impressive array of work, including her diversity training consulting company ( www.lezwest.com ) , and her job as founding director of the Wind River Country Initiative for Youth, which serves crosscultural LGBT and Two Spirit communities in Fremont County and the Wind River Indian Reservation. Her third job is director of the Wind River Country Chapter of the National Coalition Building Institute ( www.ncbi.org ) .
'We have accomplished trainings that include white people, members of tribes in the area, black African heritage people, Latino heritage people, and some folks who have Asian heritage. Wyoming is 95 percent white. So when we work on diversity, it includes examining our own wide diversity.'
Gail Leedy, 52, an accomplished distance runner who has lived in Laramie since 2000, started participating in distance races in 1994. Leedy organized running events as fundraisers for AIDS and other charities in her previous home in Topeka, Kan., and is on the organizing committee for Laramie's Shepard Symposium for Social Justice.
After moving to Laramie, Leedy joined the Bettys and Bobs, a group of gays and lesbians who enjoyed skiing, hiking, camping, and biking. When that group's membership waned, Leedy joined a nongay running group. As to being a lesbian, she says other members 'took it in stride. They already knew me as a runner, and weren't terribly upset by my sexual orientation.'
Leedy says people have mostly been nonjudgmental, despite the conservative climate of the state. During a recent trail race, Leedy recalls how her partner 'asked me if I needed anything, and I stopped and kissed her and ran on. The woman standing next to her said, 'I guess that's what she needed.' There was no rancor in her comment, just amusement.'
Scott Roberts serves on the board of Spectrum, an LGBT organization, and the Wyoming AIDS Walk. An avid athlete throughout high school in Gillette in track, football, basketball, baseball, tennis, and swimming, Roberts did not come out until after he graduated.
'Being a part of the athletic system in high school was a huge obstacle for me to overcome,' says Roberts. 'It was one of the main things keeping me in the closet.' Roberts later discontinued his pursuits in competitive athletics and came out.
As a student speaker at Laramie's University of Wyoming campus, Roberts has talked about being out and gay. But competing in collegiate sports, despite his skills, is unthinkable, he says, due to homophobia. 'Now I just play pick-up games in the gym and some intramural sports.'
When Leedy co-taught a course on women in sports to a group of freshman students at the university, she says most of them expressed strong disdain for gay people. 'The women's intolerance relates to a fear of being assumed to be lesbian because they play sports,' she says. 'If there are lesbians in collegiate sports, they're closeted. The women don't even want to be seen as feminists.'
Leedy says most people think of Wyoming as the place where Matthew Shepard was murdered, and they forget about lesbians. But 'a comment often made by lesbians when coming to Wyoming is that their gaydar goes off constantly,' she says. 'Many Wyoming women look like they could be lesbians. The 'look' is due to the independence and grit that is required to survive in a place like Wyoming.'
Jim Provenzano is the author of the novels PINS and Monkey Suits. Read more sports articles at www.sportscomplex.org . He can be reached care of this publication or at sportscomplex@qsyndicate.com .
