Back to the Frontier episode explores overlooked 1880s LGBTQ+ history amid casting backlash
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Hoda Kotb hosts a TODAY Show Radio event with Magnolia's Chip and Joanna Gaines (Image via Getty)Back to the Frontier aired a new episode on August 7, 2025, on Magnolia Network, highlighting an LGBTQ+ story rarely shown in Western-themed shows. The episode featured husbands Jason Hanna and Joe Riggs, who appeared on the reality series with their twin sons.
Their casting had earlier faced online criticism, but this episode showed their role as a way to explore how same-sex couples might have lived on the American frontier in the 1880s. In one scene, Jason and Joe read from an almanac describing men who lived together in that period, often referred to as “batching.”
Although homosexuality was against the law at the time, living in remote homesteads sometimes allowed same-sex couples to live quietly and manage a home together.
Jason and Joe thought about these facts while talking about the challenges of adjusting to frontier life and raising their children in the simulation.
By linking their own experiences to those of people in the past, the episode showed that LGBTQ+ individuals have long found ways to live and build families.
It also gave viewers background on struggles that continue in different forms today. All episodes of Back to the Frontier are available on HBO Max.
Jason and Joe discover hidden history of same-sex couples on Back to the Frontier
In the August 7, 2025 episode of Back to the Frontier, Jason Hanna and Joe Riggs came across an almanac entry that changed the way they saw their role in the series. While reading about the 1880s, Joe shared aloud,
“An opportunity to live your own life, homesteading required hard work, so two men living together wouldn’t have been unusual.”
The passage explained that such arrangements were called “batching.” At the time, homosexuality was illegal, and most people saw it as wrong. Even so, some same-sex couples quietly lived within homestead communities.
Jason and Joe thought about what this might have meant for people living more than a hundred years ago.
Jason said that photographs from that period seemed to show “the look of people in love,” suggesting these relationships existed, even if they were not recorded in official histories. The couple related these past stories to their own challenges in the show’s 1880s simulation, where strict gender roles shaped daily life.
For Jason and Joe, the discovery was a reminder that LGBTQ+ history has long been present, even if hidden.
Their sons, Ethan and Lucas, also witnessed the moment, which opened space for discussions about resilience, identity, and the ways families, then and now, find ways to exist in difficult times.
Why the Dallas dads’ journey adds depth to Back to the Frontier’s experiment
The episode also placed Jason and Joe’s modern family history alongside the 1880s context.
Before same-sex marriage became legal across the country, the couple married in Washington, D.C., but Texas did not recognize their marriage.
When their surrogate had twin boys, Ethan and Lucas, state laws stopped both men from being listed as fathers on the birth certificates.
After a two-year legal battle, the Supreme Court’s marriage equality ruling gave their family full legal recognition.
This background added weight to their presence on Back to the Frontier. Their participation went beyond reenacting daily homestead life, it explored how a queer family might have navigated the realities of that time.
Bringing their sons into the experiment created opportunities to discuss how societal acceptance and legal recognition have evolved.
The couple’s storyline also countered criticism of their casting by showing its historical and educational value.
As the episode made clear, LGBTQ+ families were part of American life long before modern rights movements, even if their stories were rarely documented.
Stay tuned for more updates.
TOPICS: Back to the Frontier, Magnolia Network, Joanna Gaines, Reality TV