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

We talk about the future of the Ranch, and the role of Queer Havens in a world of increasing hostility against Trans and queer people.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
On our drive down from Denver to Westcliff. We were
first going to meet up with the Unicorns in Colorado
Springs for a little birthday dinner. James and I arrived
a few hours early, so I had the bright idea
to stop at the headquarters of the evangelical media organization
Focus on the Family. I hadn't been there since I

(00:28):
was a little Christian kid, so I was curious what
it would be like for me to walk through. Now,
what was it like walking through their little headquarters and
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

(00:53):
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

(01:13):
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

(01:37):
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

(01:58):
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

(02:21):
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

(02:43):
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

(03:07):
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

(03:33):
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

(03:53):
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

(04:15):
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,

(04:40):
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

(05:03):
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

(05:27):
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

(05:51):
Feds Feds Feds back at them. Despite their disagreements, the
two groups seemed perfectly fine working together to shut down

(06:14):
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

(06:35):
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

(06:59):
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

(07:19):
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

(07:43):
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

(08:04):
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,

(08:32):
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

(08:54):
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

(09:24):
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,

(09:46):
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,

(10:07):
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

(10:29):
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

(10:50):
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

(11:11):
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

(11:34):
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

(11:57):
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

(12:18):
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,

(12:38):
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,

(13:00):
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

(13:20):
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

(13:43):
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

(14:05):
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

(14:26):
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

(14:46):
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

(15:13):
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

(15:34):
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

(15:55):
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

(16:16):
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

(16:40):
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

(17:00):
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.

(17:24):
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

(17:47):
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

(18:10):
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

(18:31):
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

(18:52):
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

(19:15):
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

(19:37):
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

(20:00):
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

(20:25):
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

(20:45):
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

(21:06):
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

(21:27):
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

(21:48):
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

(22:22):
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

(22:44):
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

(23:06):
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

(23:29):
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

(23:51):
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,

(24:13):
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

(24:35):
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

(24:58):
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

(25:21):
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

(25:42):
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

(26:03):
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

(26:24):
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

(26:45):
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

(27:07):
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

(27:31):
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

(27:55):
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

(28:18):
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

(28:41):
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.

(29:02):
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

(29:23):
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

(29:46):
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.

(30:07):
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

(30:28):
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.

(30:51):
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

(31:12):
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

(31:36):
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

(31:56):
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

(32:20):
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

(32:44):
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.