The Tenacious Unicorn Ranch: How to Build a Haven, Part Four: A Queer Microcosm

welcome center. What were the general vibes? That was fucking Bombker's um. So we went in initially, and we've gone into the bookshop and I found a book that told me the holding hands is for play. That was called sex in a Marriage. I've seen a book with a pink triangle on the cover that is about OGBTQ people, which is deeply truck and traveling. Well, it's it's it's about men struggling with their sexual identity. I see on

the way to stop that struggling. Yeahide Queer elimination of rhetoric hasn't just been confined to Christian bookstores or the Internet. In November, it once again became very clear how this kind of NonStop hate speech being beamed into everyone's homes impacts them. On the eve of Transgender Day of Remembrance, as Club Q gay bar in Colorado Springs was preparing for an all ages drag show, a twenty two year old shooter walked in and killed five people, leaving twenty

five more injured. The shooter was ultimately tackled and pistol whipped by a US Army veteran Richard Fierro, and stomped in the face by an unidentified trans woman. A few days after the club queue uting, on so called Thanksgiving, the Focus on the Family headquarters was defaced, leaving behind a graffiti message pointing out the organization's culpability from pioneering the kind of gay exterminationist propaganda that the modern conservative

right is embracing. The message left on the property that James and I visited just a few months prior read quote, their blood is on your hands, five lives taken way back in I put together behind the Bastards on Focus on the Family and their founder, James Dobson, and I've covered Focus on the Family's increase in anti trans propaganda

earlier this year on this very show. After the graffiti was left on their headquarters on Thanksgiving, a statement was released by the Colorado People's Press, and I'm going to read a few parts of that quote. It is no accident that the club queue shoeing happened in Colorado Springs, a city steeped in homophobia, transphobia, and white supremacy. It is no surprise that somebody did this in the city that is home to such a hateful organization as Focus

on the Family. If you visit their website, you will see them eagerly display their desire to rid the world of all queer people. It is important to us that you understand why Focus on the Family must be held accountable for the ramifications of their hateful theology. You have likely seen the onslaught of anti trans legislation, of which Focus on the Family is a huge proponent, both in funding and propaganda. Focus on the Family's goal is to

eradicate queerness. Unquote. Two of the five people killed in the club queue shooting were trans people, and in the days after the attack, figures on the right continued to call for attacks on trans people and drag queens, using their familiar language of groomers and grooming while of course completely ignoring multiple figures within their own myths to have very well documented relationships with people convicted or suspected of sex crimes. But obviously evidence or logic doesn't really make

a difference in these types of situations. What's happened is that a handful of figures on the right have decided that they can gain power, influence, and money by whipping up hatred towards queer people. With this hate has come an uptick in violence, and this only makes queer havens

like the Tenacious Unicorn Ranch more important. Last month, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, after a donut shop hosted a drag queen and queer art event, a man in a maca hat smashed the windows of the store with a baseball bat and threw in a Molotov cocktail. The attacker also taped a note with Bible verses and homophobic and transphobic slurs on the

window of a neighboring shop. This wasn't the time the store had been targeted, and this attack happened a day before the shop was set to host another drag art event. On December three, a right wing activist and former U. S Army psychological operations officer claimed on Facebook that God had caused a power outage in Moore County, North Carolina in an effort to shut down a drag show that

was currently taking place in a local theater. Earlier that same day, a holiday themed drag show in Columbus, Ohio, hosted by a Unitarian Universalist church was canceled due to threats and protests outside by Proud Boys, Patriot Front and a number of unidentified armed men in Cammo. Patriot Front chanted blood, liberty, and victory, while the Proud Boys chanted Feds Feds Feds back at them. Despite their disagreements, the two groups seemed perfectly fine working together to shut down

the drag event. The Nazi group White Lives Matter Ohio was set up a few blocks away in their skull masks and were seek hiling two drivers passing by. After it became clear the drag show was not going to take place, the groups moved to a busier, more visible street to wave their groomer signs. A few dozen Patriot Front members stood chanting outside of a Chipotle as a

Christian Diminiist flag flew behind them. On December seven, someone fired a gun through the window of a bar in rent in Washington after threats against the bar were posted online for hosting a drag queen story time. Just a few days ago. On December, the FBI designated extremist militia group named This is Texas Freedom Force showed up armed with guns outside of a Christmas themed drag show in

San Antonio, Texas. Other right wing groups like the San Antonio Family Association and the Fascist Patriot Front also had members present. By the end, the crowd protesting the drag show was greatly outnumbered by people showing up to support and defend the queer event, some of whom also showed up armed. What do we do? Something that was mentioned across the multiple interviews we did while visiting the ranch

is the idea of microcosm and macrocosm. The Tenacious Unicorn Ranch story and the threats of violence that they have faced really does embody a microcosm version of the transphobic and queer eliminationist rhetoric and genocide campaign that the country as a whole is experiencing. It's just that this local manifestation of it happened to be on an outpaca farm

as odd as that maybe apparently kind of funny. And and then with the way they run with their head all the way down to the ground and just yeah that impracticalities. Yeah, little camels animals straight out of you know, they really are. They have the same amount of magic. Yeah. Just driving up here seeing them, I was like, wow, Yeah, they are like unicorns are like a mythical and it's just kind of like, wow, is this real. It's like a fucking tont on what's going on? They just looks

so snuggleble I want to snuggle them. And the way they walked like that, like that like crewcome. Yeah, when they do a trot like America. This is clown. He's an asshole, but he's a really good dad. Yeah. For this last episode of the series, we want to give you a sense of what regular life is like at the ranch now that it's been almost two years since the siege and people have had time to process, grow and adapt. One thing that's growing is the number of

alpacas something like that. With the reason Crea is born, we are a hundred so about a d alpaca. Um, let's talk a little bit about alpacas. I think they're interesting, right. You came into both your alpaca as rescues. Yea, yeah we uh so at the original ranch, we purchased ten alpaca, but it was like a rescue purchase. The only way that we could get them to give them up as if we paid money for them. But they were obviously like they needed new homes. That was all from really

lovely people. It was just like these weren't alpaca they wanted um. And then we learned really quickly that there is a that there's a problem in America with alpaca ranchers aging out of being able to take care of these really massive herds that they've built and either euthanizing or splitting up herds, which is both things are not great for the health of the alpaca. Yeah. Um, that

ends that story. But so we found really quickly that there is a As a rescue we were able to help more animals and afford animals, you know, like uh because and because we were on the acres that were on we could take in entire herds and not break

them up, which is a big deal. Um. And so our first intake of rescues was seventies six alpaca from a really great couple in horse Tooth that was retiring really great animals, hardy, really quality fiber um and we just kind of have been with that model ever since as a rescue and the way you you like sustainable as a run cheese in addition to working outside is selling the fiber, right, the fiber from the animals. Yeah, both sheep and the alpaca provide fiber that we then

turned into. Really what we do is turn it into yarn and then sell the yarn. We've never needed to go beyond that because we've always sold out of our yarn almost immediately. Speaking of sheep, here's a nice little clip of James fawning over some of the door sets. There's a dead nice looking sheep doors. There's some of them that are mixed with the remember what the black face Scotch black face. Yeah, um, and they're they're a

really lovely mix. Yeah, that's a nice combination. Actually pretty rugged sheep, big and just rugged like they put up with everything. Yeah. You can see their coats are just like bread, like they're just a doughey. Yeah. Yeah, the dorsets have like a nice thick fleece and they're like, well fleas on the head and the neck. Yeah, they make really good We mixed it with our alpacking yard

this year. It's a wonderful yarn. It's really rough thinking that there's people that are just like fucking a pack of farmers. What's gone wrong in your life that you so angry at someone for looking after these fleuefy animals. Yeah, Like the big thing was there was that moment where like they had the Nazi parade in town and that's what really like we called them out on it and

that's what started the animosity. But like it was a greade of Nazis, Like like, I don't feel bad, Like it's weird that they took it to the level of oh yeah, well we're going to burn down your house and kill you all. That will show you. It's like, yeah,

it'll show us that your Nazis. In our conversation with Jordan's from The Tribune, as somebody who was born and raised in this area, he gave us his perspective on why people may have thought they could get away with attacking the ranch and how there has been this cultural shift in recent years to allow this kind of reactionary militancy you know, again, I don't think it was anything super organized other than a bunch of these individuals that

had already been sort of organized deciding to do something really stupid and knowing that the sheriff and a lot of other people wouldn't take it that seriously. That's what I wondered. Yeah, they thought they could get away with it. And I've been a history of that, Like have they done that sort of thing happened in the valley U in the past, and there's been plenty of just as I said, But you know, but usually that stuff wasn't condoned, so eventually they get caught in terms of like like

pressuring or minorities. You know, in the past, there was there was always some of those types of things, but it also wasn't condoned or even excused even against most If it came out, then those people were chunned and shamed even by Republicans. But these days it's much more like, well, we'll look the other way, you know. Now it's tipped

the other direction. Thankfully, so far, the efforts of these few individuals to harm or pressure the Unicorns out of the community have unequivocally failed, and in some ways just may stronger bonds. Yeah. They wanted you to leave. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean all of it was designed to make you so afraid you would go away. Yeah, like yeah, terrorism and that hasn't happened, right, So you await a year and change, a year and a half, all nice? Yeah? Two years in. Two years and change and a year

plus since since And how are things now? I think at this point people legitimately love us like locals, like, yeah, people call us the unicorns and they everybody knows who we are and it's and not in a bad way, like it's really we feel at home here. Because of the timing of their initial move over to Westcliffe, it made local community building kind of challenging and little did they know that they would crucially need community and support

in the month to come. So, because it was during the pandemic uh and everything was on lockdown, we didn't establish a lot of community. We Uh Annie moved in who was somebody we knew down in birth It which was very close to us, uh and so she moved up here at the exact same time we were moving up here. So we did have like somebody that we could like talk to and interact with but they were

just as new to the area as we were. Um and I mean honestly setting up a ranch and moving from one location to another when you're talking about like multiple hundreds of animals, and at that point we were six people. Uh, we were very self focused for the first six months we were up here. Uh. So our general sweep was they have Shakespeare in the park and it's a tourist town, so it seems great. We moved here because we could afford this house and no other

house in Colorado. Uh And then and then it slowly started to become a parent that we've moved into a very red area. But again, there wasn't any overt signs upon arrival, Like everybody was cool and honestly, like people are still pretty cool of people that suck. As things have steadily stabilized and settled into a version of normal, the Unicorns have been getting more involved throughout the local community. A little while back, they stepped up to assist with

recycling for the county. We stepped up for a small period of time when the recycling company that was handling the counties recycling folded. We stepped up with our horse trailers and just collected recycling and drove it to a facility. Um. Now there's actually a facility in the Westcliffe Landfill that does recycling for the this county and the neighboring three counties. Um. And that was a building that like we designed and the person who's running at Rocky Mountain Rocky Mountain Recycling,

Joni's her name. Amazing people. They're doing great things and we're glad that we could help in whatever we could. It just became a government project and that's when we stepped out because that's not really what we're about. But yeah, and as socialization has been able to get more possible since the pandemic, the Unicorns have developed ways to connect with the existing community of queers and weirdos in the area.

Jen put together like a weekly game night and it's it's like slowly growing and we're bringing in queer people to play board games and stuff. Yeah, we've got four different people from in town who you know, otherwise don't really have a connection to the ranch coming in to play a board game or maybe Magic Night and playing Suspicion.

That's going to keep growing. Uh. It might be Arkham Horror third edition, or it might be mysterium or it might be magic, okay, m magic, because I would I would would love to beat everyone here in a game. Oh my gosh, you should play with us. Yes, that fun, even little things like that, like like and it's just always to build community. Yeah, it's important because we need to be here when like, if it gets really bad on the macro cosm scale, things do seem to be

getting bad. When we talked with Jordan's about how George from The Sentinel was targeting the unicorns, the conversation segued into how there's been this shift from economic conservatism to this rising brand of far right Christian vanguardism. I think if I was to classify some of the movement you see in conservative America right now, where it all starts to make sense is that in the past, conservatism was always trying to push against sort of this idea of

revolution or progress or too fast. You know, they always go back to the French Revolution. That's where of the left and right kind of started saying, hey, if you move too quickly with progress, everybody gets their heads chopped off, you know. So that was kind of conservatism, which is we don't really believe in anything necessarily we're just gonna the tradition and just kind of be saying no a lot.

But at the same time, that's how conservatism was here until the Soviet Union fell, and then all of a sudden something switched, which is, we have the system that won. Our system should spread across the world, because if every day but he did American style capitalist democracy, we would enter this weird and randy in utopia. Yeah yeah, well into history, but on a conservative side. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, That's exactly what it was. And but the problems is

two thousand one, particularly here, pushed it over. It went from like, okay, maybe two we're actually going to try to push this on other countries. And really what I called the right or the conservative right now they got bit by the utopian bug, which is if everybody is armed to the teeth, if everybody lives the way that they dictate they should live, which is some weird and randy in version of life and morality, then we'll enter utopia. And so if anybody stands against you as that prophet,

you are the enemy. So that can be that's why the right now turns on themselves all the time, is anybody stands against them is the enemy. A liberal stops utopia, is there deffinite? Anybody that stops utopia, you have to go through this is liberal or communist, you know. And I think if you look at it in that lens, the world makes a lot more sense. I don't see very much utopianism at all on the left anymore, whereas

on the right it's everywhere. So it's one of those weird political things that's flopped the other direction now, just in different words, different ways. Utopianism is on the right now, they also need to have some type of conflict. They need to have a purging episode. You have to purge everybody that's on the other side to enter utopia. And that that's why Christians are really into it. They read

the book or Revelation. We have to have the civil where we have to purge all the leftists because on the other side we enter the Kingdom of God. It's the exactly, it's absolute millinari is um. And that's what we're facing here. If I was a summit up, that's how it says, it's definitely millinari is um. In the local forum. If we are going to look at the tenacious Unicorn ranch story as a microcosm of transphobic violence.

Then I think it should also be seen as a case of study of the invaluable role solidarity and community have in resisting the concerted effort to harm queer people back when the siege was just starting. Simply feeling able to go to sleep because people were willing to show up for you is just one example from this story. That's a powerful display of the values many people claim

to have but seldom implement. We were exhausted, and so to have people show up and be like you, like you, you will be safe tonight, lay down, gets sleep and trusted enough to sleep like because it was incredible. It was incredible. As the unicorns continue to make connections and become a known staple of the larger local community, it's

made organizing any harassment against them more difficult. I bet a bunch of those people who hate us have tested the waters with their friends, like all those unicorns, and they're like what, they're cool, and oh, yeah, that's what that's That's why I meant because um, but that's been our ongoing precautions because it hasn't the animosity from that group hasn't gone away, and it does resurface every once in a while, like some people threatened to kill our

dogs a little while back and things like that. So the same people, we're not sure possibly confirming nowadays, some security measures have been integrated into their everyday lives thanks to support they've gotten from strangers. We definitely we have cameras, so we had to go fund me where people amazingly kind of like through a large amount of money at us, which afforded a better fence and cameras everywhere on property, so that in things like gear, yeah, better gear and

upgrades and stuff like that. So um, we kind of earned an ongoing keep us safe mode. But like cameras and guns, that's how we do it. And I do, I really do think like we showed the shitty people of this town like don't mess with that. We we showed what well, what we showed was that community matters and if you weren't a ship hell, community will show up for you. The day after the club queue shooting, once again, the ranch posted a tweet asking for people

to come. This time, they didn't need help. They wanted to offer it. Only an hour or so away from Colorado Springs, and they wanted to offer their home as a place to heal, to talk, and to begin moving forward as a part of the community struck by violence and hate. In addition to a home for the ranchers and the animals, the ranch also provides emergency housing for queer people who aren't safe wherever they currently are. There have been lots of residents at the ranch in the

four years deep when operating. Some of them come briefly and use the stability to get set up with a fresh start in some place. Some others intend to stay but find the country life isn't for them, and some like Jay, become permanent fixtures on the ranch. The term you've kind of used a lot to describe this place is like a queer haven. And the past year, definitely there's been a pretty volatile increase in transphobia and queer phobia,

even like a resurgence of homophobia. So as this type of stuff is happening, as we're seeing more kind of rhetoric around, like a queer genocide or queer exterminationism, how do you see this place and you know, possible places like it fitting into kind of how how the world seems to be going. Yeah, so what we've seen aside from people wanting to come up here and live permanently that we're we've put that on hold right now because we're just kind of, yeah, we don't have the space

to like facilitate. But what we have found is something

that we are as a haven. What the thing that we do that's most important is groups of queer people will come here for a recharge and to feel like it is recharging to spend a week up here in community with other queer people with no burden from the outside and just being yourself bus network, yeah, and like kind of reigniting your fire for revolution and for you're in kind of I don't know, like I don't know, like touching base and realizing that like the community is

still big, it is still growing, people are still standing strong. Being able to come up here and really in vibe that for a week or two has been from the letters I get really important to people. And so that that is what we like deliver routinely. Um. We do also like emergency like save people when we can, Like if you're just got kicked out on the street, you don't know what to do, but you can kind of like you have somewhere to go, but you can't get there yet. We are a really good way station for

people in that position. You come up, uh you know, touch grass for a week and then go back out into the world like and given you know, climate collapse and encroaching fascism um, which if you don't get then you need to probably study your history. Listen to this podcast more often. Probably probably uh there there. You know there's gonna be rainbow railroads. Um, there's going to be a lot of bad things happening, and it's gonna happen quickly. Well,

we'll still be here. We're trying to grow to a size that can help people more directly. Well, but also we are already still here. Yeah, worst we didn't grow, we'd still be here and you could count on us, you know what I mean. But the networks that are set up, um, like being able to quickly get people out of the country, being able to quickly get people to safety from anywhere in the country. That's what we

have been focusing on. What watching much like we started in response to the violence that was that was ratcheting because of the Trump administration. We haven't lessened that right like we are we're setting up networks and possibilities to get people safe from very unsafe situations in this country, and that's kind of where it's going fucking everywhere right now. So that kind of networking has we've found not only

bolstered people, but is really important. The need for places like these is growing just as quickly as the manufactured panic around drag shows. In response, the Unicorns have decided to expand to another property in the valley and one in Boulder County. These properties will allow them to serve a larger community, to grow crops, have horses, and increase

the amount of emergency housing they can provide. The Unicorns have launched a new go fund meat to help cover some of the starting costs to get the new locations up and running and begin farming operations. The additions would not only be providing more housing and income, but also add the ability to offer support groups and host queer events that are safe and accessible to focus in and

around Boulder County, Colorado. You know, we've had some really intimate conversations with some queer people that are like, you know, like what you're doing is kind of keeping me going. So it's it's pretty seriously because it's why we weigh everything so heavily because it's like, look, we can't fail. Like where people people put that much faith and like belief in what you're doing, you can't you can't let

them down. Like we've said from the beginning, like this project isn't about us, like this project is about the community and giving giving us a stronghold of just fucking hope. Instead of walking away from this series thinking, oh, I'm gonna go move to the ranch because I guarantee there's not enough room for everybody listening, even with the ongoing expansion. But people should take what we've learned from the Tenacious

Unicorn Ranch and apply it elsewhere wherever you are. You can lie this example, with all of its ups and downs, to prospective havens across the continent, whether in cities or in the country. Building queer zones doesn't need to take form as a completely isolated, closed off commune as we've seen here. Having connections and fostering community with those around you is a crucial part of maintaining a livelihood beyond

just mere survival. While this has been a story about the Internet and how it provides both positive connections and a medium for some of the worst beginned hatred and of story about guns, both how they have been used as a tool to protect trans people and rule Colorado, as well as being part of the original threat to

translives and now a seemingly increasing one. But if there's one thing that I hope people can take away from this story, it's how all of these positive aspects are meaningless unless people are willing to demonstrate solidarity and work towards building a community that's capable of ensuring a queer haven like the Tenacious Unicorn Ranch is able to continue

despite threats from queer exterminationists. If you want to keep up with the ranch, you can find them at Tenacious Unicorn Ranch dot com, where you can also find their Patreon and the go fund me page for their expansion. You can find James at James Stout and you can find me at Hungry About I See you on the other side. It Could Happen Here is a production of

cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zone media dot com, or check us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could happen here, updated monthly at cool Zone media dot com, slash sources, Thanks for listening.