Speaker 1: On our drive down from Denver to Westcliff. We were
Speaker 1: first going to meet up with the Unicorns in Colorado
Speaker 1: Springs for a little birthday dinner. James and I arrived
Speaker 1: a few hours early, so I had the bright idea
Speaker 1: to stop at the headquarters of the evangelical media organization
Speaker 1: Focus on the Family. I hadn't been there since I
Speaker 1: was a little Christian kid, so I was curious what
Speaker 1: it would be like for me to walk through. Now,
Speaker 1: what was it like walking through their little headquarters and
Speaker 1: welcome center. What were the general vibes? That was fucking
Speaker 1: Bombker's um. So we went in initially, and we've gone
Speaker 1: into the bookshop and I found a book that told
Speaker 1: me the holding hands is for play. That was called
Speaker 1: sex in a Marriage. I've seen a book with a
Speaker 1: pink triangle on the cover that is about OGBTQ people,
Speaker 1: which is deeply truck and traveling. Well, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: about men struggling with their sexual identity. I see on
Speaker 1: the way to stop that struggling. Yeahide Queer elimination of
Speaker 1: rhetoric hasn't just been confined to Christian bookstores or the Internet.
Speaker 1: In November, it once again became very clear how this
Speaker 1: kind of NonStop hate speech being beamed into everyone's homes
Speaker 1: impacts them. On the eve of Transgender Day of Remembrance,
Speaker 1: as Club Q gay bar in Colorado Springs was preparing
Speaker 1: for an all ages drag show, a twenty two year
Speaker 1: old shooter walked in and killed five people, leaving twenty
Speaker 1: five more injured. The shooter was ultimately tackled and pistol
Speaker 1: whipped by a US Army veteran Richard Fierro, and stomped
Speaker 1: in the face by an unidentified trans woman. A few
Speaker 1: days after the club queue uting, on so called Thanksgiving,
Speaker 1: the Focus on the Family headquarters was defaced, leaving behind
Speaker 1: a graffiti message pointing out the organization's culpability from pioneering
Speaker 1: the kind of gay exterminationist propaganda that the modern conservative
Speaker 1: right is embracing. The message left on the property that
Speaker 1: James and I visited just a few months prior read quote,
Speaker 1: their blood is on your hands, five lives taken way
Speaker 1: back in I put together behind the Bastards on Focus
Speaker 1: on the Family and their founder, James Dobson, and I've
Speaker 1: covered Focus on the Family's increase in anti trans propaganda
Speaker 1: earlier this year on this very show. After the graffiti
Speaker 1: was left on their headquarters on Thanksgiving, a statement was
Speaker 1: released by the Colorado People's Press, and I'm going to
Speaker 1: read a few parts of that quote. It is no
Speaker 1: accident that the club queue shoeing happened in Colorado Springs,
Speaker 1: a city steeped in homophobia, transphobia, and white supremacy. It
Speaker 1: is no surprise that somebody did this in the city
Speaker 1: that is home to such a hateful organization as Focus
Speaker 1: on the Family. If you visit their website, you will
Speaker 1: see them eagerly display their desire to rid the world
Speaker 1: of all queer people. It is important to us that
Speaker 1: you understand why Focus on the Family must be held
Speaker 1: accountable for the ramifications of their hateful theology. You have
Speaker 1: likely seen the onslaught of anti trans legislation, of which
Speaker 1: Focus on the Family is a huge proponent, both in
Speaker 1: funding and propaganda. Focus on the Family's goal is to
Speaker 1: eradicate queerness. Unquote. Two of the five people killed in
Speaker 1: the club queue shooting were trans people, and in the
Speaker 1: days after the attack, figures on the right continued to
Speaker 1: call for attacks on trans people and drag queens, using
Speaker 1: their familiar language of groomers and grooming while of course
Speaker 1: completely ignoring multiple figures within their own myths to have
Speaker 1: very well documented relationships with people convicted or suspected of
Speaker 1: sex crimes. But obviously evidence or logic doesn't really make
Speaker 1: a difference in these types of situations. What's happened is
Speaker 1: that a handful of figures on the right have decided
Speaker 1: that they can gain power, influence, and money by whipping
Speaker 1: up hatred towards queer people. With this hate has come
Speaker 1: an uptick in violence, and this only makes queer havens
Speaker 1: like the Tenacious Unicorn Ranch more important. Last month, in Tulsa, Oklahoma,
Speaker 1: after a donut shop hosted a drag queen and queer
Speaker 1: art event, a man in a maca hat smashed the
Speaker 1: windows of the store with a baseball bat and threw
Speaker 1: in a Molotov cocktail. The attacker also taped a note
Speaker 1: with Bible verses and homophobic and transphobic slurs on the
Speaker 1: window of a neighboring shop. This wasn't the time the
Speaker 1: store had been targeted, and this attack happened a day
Speaker 1: before the shop was set to host another drag art event.
Speaker 1: On December three, a right wing activist and former U.
Speaker 1: S Army psychological operations officer claimed on Facebook that God
Speaker 1: had caused a power outage in Moore County, North Carolina
Speaker 1: in an effort to shut down a drag show that
Speaker 1: was currently taking place in a local theater. Earlier that
Speaker 1: same day, a holiday themed drag show in Columbus, Ohio,
Speaker 1: hosted by a Unitarian Universalist church was canceled due to
Speaker 1: threats and protests outside by Proud Boys, Patriot Front and
Speaker 1: a number of unidentified armed men in Cammo. Patriot Front
Speaker 1: chanted blood, liberty, and victory, while the Proud Boys chanted
Speaker 1: Feds Feds Feds back at them. Despite their disagreements, the
Speaker 1: two groups seemed perfectly fine working together to shut down
Speaker 1: the drag event. The Nazi group White Lives Matter Ohio
Speaker 1: was set up a few blocks away in their skull
Speaker 1: masks and were seek hiling two drivers passing by. After
Speaker 1: it became clear the drag show was not going to
Speaker 1: take place, the groups moved to a busier, more visible
Speaker 1: street to wave their groomer signs. A few dozen Patriot
Speaker 1: Front members stood chanting outside of a Chipotle as a
Speaker 1: Christian Diminiist flag flew behind them. On December seven, someone
Speaker 1: fired a gun through the window of a bar in
Speaker 1: rent in Washington after threats against the bar were posted
Speaker 1: online for hosting a drag queen story time. Just a
Speaker 1: few days ago. On December, the FBI designated extremist militia
Speaker 1: group named This is Texas Freedom Force showed up armed
Speaker 1: with guns outside of a Christmas themed drag show in
Speaker 1: San Antonio, Texas. Other right wing groups like the San
Speaker 1: Antonio Family Association and the Fascist Patriot Front also had
Speaker 1: members present. By the end, the crowd protesting the drag
Speaker 1: show was greatly outnumbered by people showing up to support
Speaker 1: and defend the queer event, some of whom also showed
Speaker 1: up armed. What do we do? Something that was mentioned
Speaker 1: across the multiple interviews we did while visiting the ranch
Speaker 1: is the idea of microcosm and macrocosm. The Tenacious Unicorn
Speaker 1: Ranch story and the threats of violence that they have
Speaker 1: faced really does embody a microcosm version of the transphobic
Speaker 1: and queer eliminationist rhetoric and genocide campaign that the country
Speaker 1: as a whole is experiencing. It's just that this local
Speaker 1: manifestation of it happened to be on an outpaca farm
Speaker 1: as odd as that maybe apparently kind of funny. And
Speaker 1: and then with the way they run with their head
Speaker 1: all the way down to the ground and just yeah
Speaker 1: that impracticalities. Yeah, little camels animals straight out of you know,
Speaker 1: they really are. They have the same amount of magic. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Just driving up here seeing them, I was like, wow, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they are like unicorns are like a mythical and it's
Speaker 1: just kind of like, wow, is this real. It's like
Speaker 1: a fucking tont on what's going on? They just looks
Speaker 1: so snuggleble I want to snuggle them. And the way
Speaker 1: they walked like that, like that like crewcome. Yeah, when
Speaker 1: they do a trot like America. This is clown. He's
Speaker 1: an asshole, but he's a really good dad. Yeah. For
Speaker 1: this last episode of the series, we want to give
Speaker 1: you a sense of what regular life is like at
Speaker 1: the ranch now that it's been almost two years since
Speaker 1: the siege and people have had time to process, grow
Speaker 1: and adapt. One thing that's growing is the number of
Speaker 1: alpacas something like that. With the reason Crea is born,
Speaker 1: we are a hundred so about a d alpaca. Um,
Speaker 1: let's talk a little bit about alpacas. I think they're interesting, right.
Speaker 1: You came into both your alpaca as rescues. Yea, yeah
Speaker 1: we uh so at the original ranch, we purchased ten alpaca,
Speaker 1: but it was like a rescue purchase. The only way
Speaker 1: that we could get them to give them up as
Speaker 1: if we paid money for them. But they were obviously
Speaker 1: like they needed new homes. That was all from really
Speaker 1: lovely people. It was just like these weren't alpaca they
Speaker 1: wanted um. And then we learned really quickly that there
Speaker 1: is a that there's a problem in America with alpaca
Speaker 1: ranchers aging out of being able to take care of
Speaker 1: these really massive herds that they've built and either euthanizing
Speaker 1: or splitting up herds, which is both things are not
Speaker 1: great for the health of the alpaca. Yeah. Um, that
Speaker 1: ends that story. But so we found really quickly that
Speaker 1: there is a As a rescue we were able to
Speaker 1: help more animals and afford animals, you know, like uh
Speaker 1: because and because we were on the acres that were
Speaker 1: on we could take in entire herds and not break
Speaker 1: them up, which is a big deal. Um. And so
Speaker 1: our first intake of rescues was seventies six alpaca from
Speaker 1: a really great couple in horse Tooth that was retiring
Speaker 1: really great animals, hardy, really quality fiber um and we
Speaker 1: just kind of have been with that model ever since
Speaker 1: as a rescue and the way you you like sustainable
Speaker 1: as a run cheese in addition to working outside is
Speaker 1: selling the fiber, right, the fiber from the animals. Yeah,
Speaker 1: both sheep and the alpaca provide fiber that we then
Speaker 1: turned into. Really what we do is turn it into
Speaker 1: yarn and then sell the yarn. We've never needed to
Speaker 1: go beyond that because we've always sold out of our
Speaker 1: yarn almost immediately. Speaking of sheep, here's a nice little
Speaker 1: clip of James fawning over some of the door sets.
Speaker 1: There's a dead nice looking sheep doors. There's some of
Speaker 1: them that are mixed with the remember what the black
Speaker 1: face Scotch black face. Yeah, um, and they're they're a
Speaker 1: really lovely mix. Yeah, that's a nice combination. Actually pretty
Speaker 1: rugged sheep, big and just rugged like they put up
Speaker 1: with everything. Yeah. You can see their coats are just
Speaker 1: like bread, like they're just a doughey. Yeah. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: dorsets have like a nice thick fleece and they're like,
Speaker 1: well fleas on the head and the neck. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: make really good We mixed it with our alpacking yard
Speaker 1: this year. It's a wonderful yarn. It's really rough thinking
Speaker 1: that there's people that are just like fucking a pack
Speaker 1: of farmers. What's gone wrong in your life that you
Speaker 1: so angry at someone for looking after these fleuefy animals. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like the big thing was there was that moment where
Speaker 1: like they had the Nazi parade in town and that's
Speaker 1: what really like we called them out on it and
Speaker 1: that's what started the animosity. But like it was a
Speaker 1: greade of Nazis, Like like, I don't feel bad, Like
Speaker 1: it's weird that they took it to the level of
Speaker 1: oh yeah, well we're going to burn down your house
Speaker 1: and kill you all. That will show you. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it'll show us that your Nazis. In our conversation with
Speaker 1: Jordan's from The Tribune, as somebody who was born and
Speaker 1: raised in this area, he gave us his perspective on
Speaker 1: why people may have thought they could get away with
Speaker 1: attacking the ranch and how there has been this cultural
Speaker 1: shift in recent years to allow this kind of reactionary
Speaker 1: militancy you know, again, I don't think it was anything
Speaker 1: super organized other than a bunch of these individuals that
Speaker 1: had already been sort of organized deciding to do something
Speaker 1: really stupid and knowing that the sheriff and a lot
Speaker 1: of other people wouldn't take it that seriously. That's what
Speaker 1: I wondered. Yeah, they thought they could get away with it.
Speaker 1: And I've been a history of that, Like have they
Speaker 1: done that sort of thing happened in the valley U
Speaker 1: in the past, and there's been plenty of just as
Speaker 1: I said, But you know, but usually that stuff wasn't condoned,
Speaker 1: so eventually they get caught in terms of like like
Speaker 1: pressuring or minorities. You know, in the past, there was
Speaker 1: there was always some of those types of things, but
Speaker 1: it also wasn't condoned or even excused even against most
Speaker 1: If it came out, then those people were chunned and
Speaker 1: shamed even by Republicans. But these days it's much more like, well,
Speaker 1: we'll look the other way, you know. Now it's tipped
Speaker 1: the other direction. Thankfully, so far, the efforts of these
Speaker 1: few individuals to harm or pressure the Unicorns out of
Speaker 1: the community have unequivocally failed, and in some ways just
Speaker 1: may stronger bonds. Yeah. They wanted you to leave. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean all of it was designed to make you
Speaker 1: so afraid you would go away. Yeah, like yeah, terrorism
Speaker 1: and that hasn't happened, right, So you await a year
Speaker 1: and change, a year and a half, all nice? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Two years in. Two years and change and a year
Speaker 1: plus since since And how are things now? I think
Speaker 1: at this point people legitimately love us like locals, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: people call us the unicorns and they everybody knows who
Speaker 1: we are and it's and not in a bad way,
Speaker 1: like it's really we feel at home here. Because of
Speaker 1: the timing of their initial move over to Westcliffe, it
Speaker 1: made local community building kind of challenging and little did
Speaker 1: they know that they would crucially need community and support
Speaker 1: in the month to come. So, because it was during
Speaker 1: the pandemic uh and everything was on lockdown, we didn't
Speaker 1: establish a lot of community. We Uh Annie moved in
Speaker 1: who was somebody we knew down in birth It which
Speaker 1: was very close to us, uh and so she moved
Speaker 1: up here at the exact same time we were moving
Speaker 1: up here. So we did have like somebody that we
Speaker 1: could like talk to and interact with but they were
Speaker 1: just as new to the area as we were. Um
Speaker 1: and I mean honestly setting up a ranch and moving
Speaker 1: from one location to another when you're talking about like
Speaker 1: multiple hundreds of animals, and at that point we were
Speaker 1: six people. Uh, we were very self focused for the
Speaker 1: first six months we were up here. Uh. So our
Speaker 1: general sweep was they have Shakespeare in the park and
Speaker 1: it's a tourist town, so it seems great. We moved
Speaker 1: here because we could afford this house and no other
Speaker 1: house in Colorado. Uh And then and then it slowly
Speaker 1: started to become a parent that we've moved into a
Speaker 1: very red area. But again, there wasn't any overt signs
Speaker 1: upon arrival, Like everybody was cool and honestly, like people
Speaker 1: are still pretty cool of people that suck. As things
Speaker 1: have steadily stabilized and settled into a version of normal,
Speaker 1: the Unicorns have been getting more involved throughout the local community.
Speaker 1: A little while back, they stepped up to assist with
Speaker 1: recycling for the county. We stepped up for a small
Speaker 1: period of time when the recycling company that was handling
Speaker 1: the counties recycling folded. We stepped up with our horse
Speaker 1: trailers and just collected recycling and drove it to a facility. Um.
Speaker 1: Now there's actually a facility in the Westcliffe Landfill that
Speaker 1: does recycling for the this county and the neighboring three counties. Um.
Speaker 1: And that was a building that like we designed and
Speaker 1: the person who's running at Rocky Mountain Rocky Mountain Recycling,
Speaker 1: Joni's her name. Amazing people. They're doing great things and
Speaker 1: we're glad that we could help in whatever we could.
Speaker 1: It just became a government project and that's when we
Speaker 1: stepped out because that's not really what we're about. But yeah,
Speaker 1: and as socialization has been able to get more possible
Speaker 1: since the pandemic, the Unicorns have developed ways to connect
Speaker 1: with the existing community of queers and weirdos in the area.
Speaker 1: Jen put together like a weekly game night and it's
Speaker 1: it's like slowly growing and we're bringing in queer people
Speaker 1: to play board games and stuff. Yeah, we've got four
Speaker 1: different people from in town who you know, otherwise don't
Speaker 1: really have a connection to the ranch coming in to
Speaker 1: play a board game or maybe Magic Night and playing Suspicion.
Speaker 1: That's going to keep growing. Uh. It might be Arkham
Speaker 1: Horror third edition, or it might be mysterium or it
Speaker 1: might be magic, okay, m magic, because I would I
Speaker 1: would would love to beat everyone here in a game.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, you should play with us. Yes, that fun,
Speaker 1: even little things like that, like like and it's just
Speaker 1: always to build community. Yeah, it's important because we need
Speaker 1: to be here when like, if it gets really bad
Speaker 1: on the macro cosm scale, things do seem to be
Speaker 1: getting bad. When we talked with Jordan's about how George
Speaker 1: from The Sentinel was targeting the unicorns, the conversation segued
Speaker 1: into how there's been this shift from economic conservatism to
Speaker 1: this rising brand of far right Christian vanguardism. I think
Speaker 1: if I was to classify some of the movement you
Speaker 1: see in conservative America right now, where it all starts
Speaker 1: to make sense is that in the past, conservatism was
Speaker 1: always trying to push against sort of this idea of
Speaker 1: revolution or progress or too fast. You know, they always
Speaker 1: go back to the French Revolution. That's where of the
Speaker 1: left and right kind of started saying, hey, if you
Speaker 1: move too quickly with progress, everybody gets their heads chopped off,
Speaker 1: you know. So that was kind of conservatism, which is
Speaker 1: we don't really believe in anything necessarily we're just gonna
Speaker 1: the tradition and just kind of be saying no a lot.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, that's how conservatism was here
Speaker 1: until the Soviet Union fell, and then all of a
Speaker 1: sudden something switched, which is, we have the system that won.
Speaker 1: Our system should spread across the world, because if every
Speaker 1: day but he did American style capitalist democracy, we would
Speaker 1: enter this weird and randy in utopia. Yeah yeah, well
Speaker 1: into history, but on a conservative side. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: That's exactly what it was. And but the problems is
Speaker 1: two thousand one, particularly here, pushed it over. It went
Speaker 1: from like, okay, maybe two we're actually going to try
Speaker 1: to push this on other countries. And really what I
Speaker 1: called the right or the conservative right now they got
Speaker 1: bit by the utopian bug, which is if everybody is
Speaker 1: armed to the teeth, if everybody lives the way that
Speaker 1: they dictate they should live, which is some weird and
Speaker 1: randy in version of life and morality, then we'll enter utopia.
Speaker 1: And so if anybody stands against you as that prophet,
Speaker 1: you are the enemy. So that can be that's why
Speaker 1: the right now turns on themselves all the time, is
Speaker 1: anybody stands against them is the enemy. A liberal stops utopia,
Speaker 1: is there deffinite? Anybody that stops utopia, you have to
Speaker 1: go through this is liberal or communist, you know. And
Speaker 1: I think if you look at it in that lens,
Speaker 1: the world makes a lot more sense. I don't see
Speaker 1: very much utopianism at all on the left anymore, whereas
Speaker 1: on the right it's everywhere. So it's one of those
Speaker 1: weird political things that's flopped the other direction now, just
Speaker 1: in different words, different ways. Utopianism is on the right now,
Speaker 1: they also need to have some type of conflict. They
Speaker 1: need to have a purging episode. You have to purge
Speaker 1: everybody that's on the other side to enter utopia. And
Speaker 1: that that's why Christians are really into it. They read
Speaker 1: the book or Revelation. We have to have the civil
Speaker 1: where we have to purge all the leftists because on
Speaker 1: the other side we enter the Kingdom of God. It's
Speaker 1: the exactly, it's absolute millinari is um. And that's what
Speaker 1: we're facing here. If I was a summit up, that's
Speaker 1: how it says, it's definitely millinari is um. In the
Speaker 1: local forum. If we are going to look at the
Speaker 1: tenacious Unicorn ranch story as a microcosm of transphobic violence.
Speaker 1: Then I think it should also be seen as a
Speaker 1: case of study of the invaluable role solidarity and community
Speaker 1: have in resisting the concerted effort to harm queer people
Speaker 1: back when the siege was just starting. Simply feeling able
Speaker 1: to go to sleep because people were willing to show
Speaker 1: up for you is just one example from this story.
Speaker 1: That's a powerful display of the values many people claim
Speaker 1: to have but seldom implement. We were exhausted, and so
Speaker 1: to have people show up and be like you, like you,
Speaker 1: you will be safe tonight, lay down, gets sleep and
Speaker 1: trusted enough to sleep like because it was incredible. It
Speaker 1: was incredible. As the unicorns continue to make connections and
Speaker 1: become a known staple of the larger local community, it's
Speaker 1: made organizing any harassment against them more difficult. I bet
Speaker 1: a bunch of those people who hate us have tested
Speaker 1: the waters with their friends, like all those unicorns, and
Speaker 1: they're like what, they're cool, and oh, yeah, that's what
Speaker 1: that's That's why I meant because um, but that's been
Speaker 1: our ongoing precautions because it hasn't the animosity from that
Speaker 1: group hasn't gone away, and it does resurface every once
Speaker 1: in a while, like some people threatened to kill our
Speaker 1: dogs a little while back and things like that. So
Speaker 1: the same people, we're not sure possibly confirming nowadays, some
Speaker 1: security measures have been integrated into their everyday lives thanks
Speaker 1: to support they've gotten from strangers. We definitely we have cameras,
Speaker 1: so we had to go fund me where people amazingly
Speaker 1: kind of like through a large amount of money at us,
Speaker 1: which afforded a better fence and cameras everywhere on property,
Speaker 1: so that in things like gear, yeah, better gear and
Speaker 1: upgrades and stuff like that. So um, we kind of
Speaker 1: earned an ongoing keep us safe mode. But like cameras
Speaker 1: and guns, that's how we do it. And I do,
Speaker 1: I really do think like we showed the shitty people
Speaker 1: of this town like don't mess with that. We we
Speaker 1: showed what well, what we showed was that community matters
Speaker 1: and if you weren't a ship hell, community will show
Speaker 1: up for you. The day after the club queue shooting,
Speaker 1: once again, the ranch posted a tweet asking for people
Speaker 1: to come. This time, they didn't need help. They wanted
Speaker 1: to offer it. Only an hour or so away from
Speaker 1: Colorado Springs, and they wanted to offer their home as
Speaker 1: a place to heal, to talk, and to begin moving
Speaker 1: forward as a part of the community struck by violence
Speaker 1: and hate. In addition to a home for the ranchers
Speaker 1: and the animals, the ranch also provides emergency housing for
Speaker 1: queer people who aren't safe wherever they currently are. There
Speaker 1: have been lots of residents at the ranch in the
Speaker 1: four years deep when operating. Some of them come briefly
Speaker 1: and use the stability to get set up with a
Speaker 1: fresh start in some place. Some others intend to stay
Speaker 1: but find the country life isn't for them, and some
Speaker 1: like Jay, become permanent fixtures on the ranch. The term
Speaker 1: you've kind of used a lot to describe this place
Speaker 1: is like a queer haven. And the past year, definitely
Speaker 1: there's been a pretty volatile increase in transphobia and queer phobia,
Speaker 1: even like a resurgence of homophobia. So as this type
Speaker 1: of stuff is happening, as we're seeing more kind of
Speaker 1: rhetoric around, like a queer genocide or queer exterminationism, how
Speaker 1: do you see this place and you know, possible places
Speaker 1: like it fitting into kind of how how the world
Speaker 1: seems to be going. Yeah, so what we've seen aside
Speaker 1: from people wanting to come up here and live permanently
Speaker 1: that we're we've put that on hold right now because
Speaker 1: we're just kind of, yeah, we don't have the space
Speaker 1: to like facilitate. But what we have found is something
Speaker 1: that we are as a haven. What the thing that
Speaker 1: we do that's most important is groups of queer people
Speaker 1: will come here for a recharge and to feel like
Speaker 1: it is recharging to spend a week up here in
Speaker 1: community with other queer people with no burden from the
Speaker 1: outside and just being yourself bus network, yeah, and like
Speaker 1: kind of reigniting your fire for revolution and for you're
Speaker 1: in kind of I don't know, like I don't know,
Speaker 1: like touching base and realizing that like the community is
Speaker 1: still big, it is still growing, people are still standing strong.
Speaker 1: Being able to come up here and really in vibe
Speaker 1: that for a week or two has been from the
Speaker 1: letters I get really important to people. And so that
Speaker 1: that is what we like deliver routinely. Um. We do
Speaker 1: also like emergency like save people when we can, Like
Speaker 1: if you're just got kicked out on the street, you
Speaker 1: don't know what to do, but you can kind of
Speaker 1: like you have somewhere to go, but you can't get
Speaker 1: there yet. We are a really good way station for
Speaker 1: people in that position. You come up, uh you know,
Speaker 1: touch grass for a week and then go back out
Speaker 1: into the world like and given you know, climate collapse
Speaker 1: and encroaching fascism um, which if you don't get then
Speaker 1: you need to probably study your history. Listen to this
Speaker 1: podcast more often. Probably probably uh there there. You know
Speaker 1: there's gonna be rainbow railroads. Um, there's going to be
Speaker 1: a lot of bad things happening, and it's gonna happen quickly. Well,
Speaker 1: we'll still be here. We're trying to grow to a
Speaker 1: size that can help people more directly. Well, but also
Speaker 1: we are already still here. Yeah, worst we didn't grow,
Speaker 1: we'd still be here and you could count on us,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. But the networks that are
Speaker 1: set up, um, like being able to quickly get people
Speaker 1: out of the country, being able to quickly get people
Speaker 1: to safety from anywhere in the country. That's what we
Speaker 1: have been focusing on. What watching much like we started
Speaker 1: in response to the violence that was that was ratcheting
Speaker 1: because of the Trump administration. We haven't lessened that right
Speaker 1: like we are we're setting up networks and possibilities to
Speaker 1: get people safe from very unsafe situations in this country,
Speaker 1: and that's kind of where it's going fucking everywhere right now.
Speaker 1: So that kind of networking has we've found not only
Speaker 1: bolstered people, but is really important. The need for places
Speaker 1: like these is growing just as quickly as the manufactured
Speaker 1: panic around drag shows. In response, the Unicorns have decided
Speaker 1: to expand to another property in the valley and one
Speaker 1: in Boulder County. These properties will allow them to serve
Speaker 1: a larger community, to grow crops, have horses, and increase
Speaker 1: the amount of emergency housing they can provide. The Unicorns
Speaker 1: have launched a new go fund meat to help cover
Speaker 1: some of the starting costs to get the new locations
Speaker 1: up and running and begin farming operations. The additions would
Speaker 1: not only be providing more housing and income, but also
Speaker 1: add the ability to offer support groups and host queer
Speaker 1: events that are safe and accessible to focus in and
Speaker 1: around Boulder County, Colorado. You know, we've had some really
Speaker 1: intimate conversations with some queer people that are like, you know,
Speaker 1: like what you're doing is kind of keeping me going.
Speaker 1: So it's it's pretty seriously because it's why we weigh
Speaker 1: everything so heavily because it's like, look, we can't fail.
Speaker 1: Like where people people put that much faith and like
Speaker 1: belief in what you're doing, you can't you can't let
Speaker 1: them down. Like we've said from the beginning, like this
Speaker 1: project isn't about us, like this project is about the
Speaker 1: community and giving giving us a stronghold of just fucking hope.
Speaker 1: Instead of walking away from this series thinking, oh, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go move to the ranch because I guarantee there's
Speaker 1: not enough room for everybody listening, even with the ongoing expansion.
Speaker 1: But people should take what we've learned from the Tenacious
Speaker 1: Unicorn Ranch and apply it elsewhere wherever you are. You
Speaker 1: can lie this example, with all of its ups and downs,
Speaker 1: to prospective havens across the continent, whether in cities or
Speaker 1: in the country. Building queer zones doesn't need to take
Speaker 1: form as a completely isolated, closed off commune as we've
Speaker 1: seen here. Having connections and fostering community with those around
Speaker 1: you is a crucial part of maintaining a livelihood beyond
Speaker 1: just mere survival. While this has been a story about
Speaker 1: the Internet and how it provides both positive connections and
Speaker 1: a medium for some of the worst beginned hatred and
Speaker 1: of story about guns, both how they have been used
Speaker 1: as a tool to protect trans people and rule Colorado,
Speaker 1: as well as being part of the original threat to
Speaker 1: translives and now a seemingly increasing one. But if there's
Speaker 1: one thing that I hope people can take away from
Speaker 1: this story, it's how all of these positive aspects are
Speaker 1: meaningless unless people are willing to demonstrate solidarity and work
Speaker 1: towards building a community that's capable of ensuring a queer
Speaker 1: haven like the Tenacious Unicorn Ranch is able to continue
Speaker 1: despite threats from queer exterminationists. If you want to keep
Speaker 1: up with the ranch, you can find them at Tenacious
Speaker 1: Unicorn Ranch dot com, where you can also find their
Speaker 1: Patreon and the go fund me page for their expansion.
Speaker 1: You can find James at James Stout and you can
Speaker 1: find me at Hungry About I See you on the
Speaker 1: other side. It Could Happen Here is a production of
Speaker 1: cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media,
Speaker 1: visit our website cool zone media dot com, or check
Speaker 1: us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources
Speaker 1: for It Could happen here, updated monthly at cool Zone
Speaker 1: media dot com, slash sources, Thanks for listening.