Bucking in the blood: For these, gay rodeo is an all-around lifestyle

“All I remember is getting on, and a whole bunch of people telling me a bunch of stuff at the same time,” Char Duran recounted the first time she sat on a raging bull, moments before she and the animal were together thrust into a roaring rodeo arena. “The gate opened,” she said “– and then I was on the ground.”

Duran, 42, of Aurora, told the story of her first bull ride with a bubbling laugh.

“I think I lasted, probably not even two seconds,” she said. “But it was two seconds that impacted the rest of my life. There’s no description for it – it’s a huge adrenaline rush.”

Duran started in the gay rodeo in 1995. “I didn’t grow up with the Western lifestyle – I’m a military brat,” she said. “My grandfather is a Mexican bull fighter so I was exposed to it through that, but I never thought I’d ever go for it.”

But she was brought to a rodeo by a woman she was seeing at the time – “and I got roped in to volunteering,” she said. Standing next to the roughstock near the arena, Duran said, was the closest she’d ever been to a bull. “People were saying ‘in three months you’ll be riding these,’ and I thought no way.”

“Sure enough, three months later, there I was,” Duran said. “I’ll try anything once. If I like it, I’ll do it again.” 

And she did. For some, the gay rodeo is a party – a community festival for urban and rural lesbians and gays who meet at the nearest event once a year for a good time. For others it’s a chance to challenge stereotypes, forcing rural America to stop and scratch its head – you’re in a what kind of rodeo? – proving once and for all that gay people can stand toe-to-toe with the roughest of bullfighters. But still others are simply immersed in the Western culture, three parts cowboy to one part gay, and by birth or through long-held commitment have rodeo in their veins. For these, the rodeo is an all-around lifestyle.

Duran steadily gained years of experience, starting with camp events and steer riding as she worked up the skill and courage for her first bull ride. When she reached that goal, she continued to ride bulls and participate in horse events, touring eight separate gay rodeos per year at her peak and continuing to this day to do both gay and straight rodeos every year. Through it all she accumulated prizes, a mountain of stories – “only a handful of people in the world can say they’ve ridden a bull,” she said – and a jaw-dropping list of injuries.

They’ve included a broken ankle, a broken right forearm, a broken left arm, a bruised heart and lung, a broken collar bone three separate times, fractured teeth, concussions, five surgeries to repair damage, and the list goes on.

“I’ve still never broken my nose, so it’s all good,” Duran said, chuckling.