March 17, 2021 • 33 mins
We interview members of the Tenacious Unicorn Ranch, an alpaca farm and trans haven that has come under assault from an alliance of far right militias.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Worst Year Ever, A production of My Heart
Radio Well together everything, So don't don't do Cody's hair
(00:23):
isn't real, it's all Why would you tell everybody the
truth about that? Well, now we can't, can't take it back.
Tody's believable. We're here to speak truth power. I'm a
Coway's beard truther. I wake up four hours earlier than
I should every day to make it look like I
(00:44):
have a luscious beard. And you've gone and ruined it.
Is that why it's impossible to reach you before noon?
I wake up four hours before I'm supposed to and
by the beard and then I fall back asleep. Roberts
same question. Oh, I just wake up at like noon,
fair day, every day, totally unrelated to There's there's no
(01:07):
excuse for it. I even go to bed at tens
some nights. Fuck itt. Um, so this is the worst
year ever. That was not an introduction for the show.
I was just remembering what a trash year it is. Um.
We had a couple We have a great interview. Yeah,
we have a great interview with the some of the
members of the Tenacious Unicorn Alpaca Ranch and Transhaven uh
(01:30):
in Southern Colorado coming up talking about their fighting with
well not thankfully not yet fighting, but their conflict with
a bunch of local HUDs and the community support that
they've received. All right, let's talk about an alpaca ranch now,
Well together, you want to introduce yourselves first, um, and
(02:00):
so kind of how you'd how you'd prefer to be
referred to? Sure, Um, I'm Bunny second man here, Yeah,
I'm j Uh I guess she they I'm the permaculturalists,
and I'm Penny. Um. I just kind of run this
ship show, are you she her? Awesome? Um? Well, so
(02:24):
y'all are running an alpaca ranch slash commune in southern Colorado.
Would that be a good way to kind of describe
it in broad strokes? Yeah? I mean why it is
a commune? So yeah, totally. We we call it a transhaven.
But yeah, the the alpaca are really the important part.
Could you walk us through kind of how things got
(02:46):
started and what the what the original vision was. Um,
it was about two years into Trump's presidency and I
looking around at just kind of the tatters that was
the trans community, after fighting, uh to not lose um
the ground that we were losing. Um, I just wanted
to kind of to like a I wanted to get away.
(03:09):
And so we threw through some more ideas around about
how we could just kind of like escape um capitalism
and kind of the world. Um. And eventually, like a
plot of land became available to rent and livermore Colorado
and um and and so we started there and it
grew from there. And what what is kind of the
(03:33):
current Like when you say a haven, what do you
mean by a haven? Um, it's a place for trans
people to come, um, shut the gate and block out
the CIS world, to be safe and respected and thrive
like um. It is. What we strive to do is
(03:54):
create an environment in which trans people can just be
fucking normal people. I don't know, you know, And uh,
that's a wonderful goal. Um. And I think unfortunately, I'm
gonna guess the Internet had something to do with this. Um.
The chuds became aware of y'all and what you were doing. Yeah,
(04:14):
I mean we're we're definitely not quiet. Um. And you
know we all have uh you know, we all voice
our opinions on Twitter. And I think that's probably where
they found us to begin with, was Twitter. Um. And
that's branched out to everywhere. Um, you know, the typical
list of fucking websites that just say horrible things about
(04:36):
trans people, and then um and and then over the
course of the last uh year, that's actually just kind
of elevated into real life here in rural Colorado weirdly enough,
Like they were always, um, I think that some of
the more prominent websites were always like a little bit
more leery of actually translating that to real world anything. Um.
(04:58):
And we turned a corner this year, and um, this
kind of harassment campaign. Could you, um, could you just
sort of walk us through when you first became aware
that you you had become something of a fixation, um
for your local I mean, for for starters. We should
I should open this by noting that southern Colorado is
(05:18):
a stronghold of the militia community. There are a lot
of right wing militia types out in that part of
the country. Um, and they are are some ornery folks.
So I'm curious, like how you came became aware that
you had you had hit their radar? So, um, what
really kicked it off? Like I can lock down a
date it was, uh they so the town, Yeah, um, sorry,
(05:48):
I can't lock down and dated apparently, uh, but the
town had actually canceled their Fourth of July fraide, and
a group of city sen's a gathering of citizens, decided
that the right thing to do was to hold a
protest rally um, an armed protest rally on the fourth
(06:12):
of July, and dress it up like a Fourth of
July parade um and then yeah, and then pretend like
that was like normal and not fashion at all. And
so when we stumbled into it, like we've gotten kind
of a heads up, and we were like okay, like
as queer people were going to avoid this unfortunate event, um,
And so we we ducked into town early to get coffee,
(06:34):
but happened to just hit it because we heard protests
and we were like, well, it's gonna be an evening thing, yeah,
afternoon maybe, but they apparently decided to just completely replace
the parade with this event. So we rolled into town
thinking we were gonna get there too early for the protests,
and all of a sudden, we're in the middle of
(06:55):
this ridiculous parade. Yeah, and there was in the lead
of the parade, there was a three percenter flag and
a Confederate flag and that and armed white people, you know,
like that that was the startling beginning to the parade. UM.
And so we you know, we just kind of ducked
out of town as quick as we could. And then
(07:16):
we went back. Um and obviously, like you know, we
went to our social media and we're just like wow,
like Nazis on parade in Westcliffe, you know, like heads
up everybody, um, And from those couple of tweets grew
a hatred that just never fucking ended. We've never let
them think that, you know, we we have changed our
(07:38):
mind and anyway, so we've never apologized, and I'd like
to just saying fuck you. We've never walked any of
our staff's back. We tried to be a little more cordial,
to try to actually have conversations with some of the
more reasonable people. But like it's we've never stopped saying
that they're they're bullshit. Is Nazi ship? Yeah, but they
got yeah right, thank you? Yeah. Um, but it was
(08:04):
but that's where like that was literally where it started. Um.
And then right then it was very online focused and
then trying to isolate us as like outsiders from the
community and stuff like that. Um, whereas we're not, you know,
like individualistic, like we're we're fucking you know, we're in Amarcust,
(08:25):
so we're all about building communities. So like we're in
the community a lot. So it's really hard to like
to pretend that we're like some weird element that's outside
of the community. You know, we started picking up doing
handy work, so we are directly involved with a lot
of individuals within the community. And these people, uh, you know,
(08:46):
the the opposition, who you could say is very intent
that their ideology is the one consistent thing throughout the
entire county. But this county is diverse. Yeah, there's people
of all different kinds of walks and backgrounds, and and
they're all mixed here. They all have different opinions about stuff.
(09:08):
And that's great and I love it. And I love
meeting people who don't think like me, who are willing
to talk and listen to me. Yeah, and they and
but that's not the Custer County that they want to
put forward or that they wanted to be, honestly, that
they wanted to be, I guess. And what is like
(09:28):
when you when you're talking about kind of the ideology
that you gleaned these people had from their march. What
is it that you saw on display that day? It
was I mean trump is UM is definitely hard is
a huge part of that Q. And on Christian white nationalism, Yeah,
(09:49):
Christian white nationalism UM, the the code of the militia,
you know, especially like the I I don't know, like
anything free per se is just so some of it.
And that's you know, like it was blatantly on display.
So when did this kind of go from what started
(10:11):
out as sort of an online beef to something that
was happening on the ground around you, like it kind
of intersecting with your actual UM, with your lives and
in the place where you lived. So we've been getting
UM an increasing amount of warnings over the last like
three months. UM, and had just been kind of UM
(10:35):
kind of paying closer attention and kind of beefing up
our security here on the ranch UM or trying to
like we're we're ranchers, like beating up security on a
forty acre lot with animals, Like it's difficult to do that.
We were just kind of walking more patrols UM. And
then we started noticing that we were getting followed, UM,
we were getting tagged in town and coming off of
(10:57):
our road. And then we got a bevy of dire
warnings from townspeople who like like us, Um, that ship
was really really gonna like the harassment campaign was going
to start. Um and literally, So that night, Um, we
we had somebody from out of town that volunteered to
(11:20):
help us with security. UM. He came in, was was
aggressively followed down our road to the point of they tried.
It was an eighty mile per hour chase down our
dirt road. Um and he had to like draw a
gun to get them to back off. Then he came
onto our property to help us secure and we caught
(11:40):
multiple people armed on the property that night. Um. And
that was two weeks ago now, and we've been we've
been at that level of harassment since then. Could you
tell me how you responded to, um, to finding them
on your property that first time? So uh, he he
(12:01):
commanded them to turn around and walk off our property
and if they turned back towards him, they were going
to die um and now. And they ran and left
a pale a trailer piste down my fucking driveway through
their rifles and jumped our fucking gate. Um. And that
was that was the engagement old orl Uh threw his
(12:24):
gun so hard. Uh. It was described as being about
halfway across the road from our fence line. So you know,
we're we're dealing with well entitled people who have no
training or understanding of what they're really doing trying to
intimidate people so far. Yeah, yeah, we are our our
(12:48):
main concern as if they actually find someone competent who's
willing to attack an our packer ranch. I mean, yeah,
it's uh, it's it's definitely it was. It was shocking. Look,
it's shocking. I don't here how in after like they
were shocked in the moment that somebody like confronted them
in an aggressive manner and and they took off, and
(13:08):
they took off readily because I don't they they thought
we were a soft target, like they thought we didn't
have community back, and then I wouldn't point a gun
at them, you know. Yeah I really feel that that. Yeah,
I really feel that they thought we were going to
lay down. The threat was and we're going to burn
(13:30):
us out like that was the threat that that showed
up across many many boards, was that they were going
to burn our house down. Uh, to get us out
of the county and take our guns. Um. And that
was you know, uh, that they met more opposition than
they thought they were going to meet. You know, like
(13:51):
that's just and I mean a lot that their reaction
says a number of things to me, chief among it
that they entered that situation without having an exit plan,
which makes me, yeah, what what what you said? They
did not expect any kind of resistance, Otherwise they would
have had a plan for getting out other than throwing
their weapons over a fence. I hope Earl hears this.
(14:14):
By the way I'm coming. I mean, it's one of
those things, you know, I um, I think about this
with our local chud's up here in the Northwest, where
they do a lot of silly stupid ship That kind
of reinforces the fact that they aren't they aren't nearly
as harder as prepared as they want to be. But
also every encounter like this, there's a chance some of
(14:36):
them will at least learn from it, learned, Okay, we
need an exit plan next to him, Okay, we need
to be prepared for resistance. It's the same thing. You
see a lot of them run away when they get maced,
but then the next time they get mace, maybe they
don't run away, or they come with a mask or
something like. It is this process of that's not going
to be the case for all of them, but some
of them will get smarter and harder as a result
of some of this. And I guess, um, the good
(14:57):
news is that so will y'all. Although that's I don't know,
calling it good news seems a little bit odd. Yeah,
that that's what we're actually finding is they're getting ever
since that first encounter, that they're getting more um forming
themselves more, and they're taking it slower, and they're coming
up with plans, lots of observation, lots of yeah, lots
(15:20):
of overwatch, lots of checking us and probing as opposed
to boldly stepping onto the property, which I don't know
what's better, you know what I mean? Like, I certainly
haven't slept for twenty four hours now, I've been on guard. Like, um,
it was like not to say we've had a huge
outpouring of support. We just happened to have two days
(15:40):
here where we don't have anybody else to guard, so
you know, like me and Jay, you know, we're also
running a full time ram so I, me and Jay
stay up and guard at night, and then everybody else
has to do like all the chores and get the
food and everything else like during the day. So it's
it really, you know, like they're they're they're learning, and
that's that's the terrifying half of it, you know. And
(16:03):
what would you go into the tail a bit more
about the kind of support you've seen from the community
once you you sort of started talking more openly about
what you were facing. Oh my god, yeah, I like, uh,
the only thing that I can say is like we
were humbled in such a way that like I like,
definitely I'm a crier, but like I was definitely crying.
(16:23):
Like people have shown up. Um from day one, the
are are now head of kind of security out here,
showed up kind of blind. He just heard that we
were in trouble, and he showed up from from two
and a half hours three hours away. And UM, from
then forward, we have had a contingent of uh people
(16:46):
UM doing just community support, like showing up here, armed
in plate willing to risk their lives for us, like
I literally willing to list risk their lives for us. UM.
Every every day they show up and do this um,
and there is no there is no thank you big
(17:07):
enough for something like that, I mean, And and then
also like our go fund me is blowing up, which
is going to allow us to put up fence and
cameras and and really protect ourselves long term, because that's
this isn't going away this month, you know. Um. The
community support has been everything everything, UM. And it's not shocking,
(17:30):
you know, like we know all these lovely people, UM,
but it is deeply humbling. Yeah. I think one of
the things that's been most impressive to me is kind
of watching this very organic apparatus with kind of this
organic boutique manufacturing apparatus fire up to support y'all. A
lot of stuff that kind of got it start during
(17:50):
the protests last year. But groups like earth Side Manufacturing
I know, has is sending you some rifle plates, which
are they're making like rifle resistant plates, And in just
this guy's um, this guy's workshop and Conquest of Threat
is putting together plate carriers and I believe I fax
um individual first aid kits. And it's been really interesting
to see this this kind of budding infrastructure of of
(18:15):
resistance that's based around kind of small scale manufacturing um,
but like of of necessary defensive tools. That's been really
interesting to watch happen because I think this is kind
of it started a lot of that stuff again started
during the uprisings the protest last year, but it's really
starting to um come into its own now. And this
(18:39):
is the first time I've really watched it kind of
swivel um to meet a challenge. Yeah, it gives us
hope in like defeating fascism. I I mean in really
defeating uh what has become like uh these overwhelming odds, right,
Like it's like really just people helping people with the
(18:59):
skills that they have, and uh, yeah, it's snapped into
place immediately. We put out the call um for armor
and it was like answered immediately by people who know
what they're doing, and they just sent it to us
like it wasn't there wasn't questions, there wasn't you know. Um,
it was amazing, right, Like I don't think we've gotten
(19:23):
all kinds of supplies as well. We've been sent cameras,
like really nice ones. Uh, we're getting solar panels now
too as well. Uh, where people drove from out of
state to do drops for us of medical supplies uh, um,
other other perishable goods um and Uh, I don't I
(19:44):
don't know if we're allowed to say m oh, but
like um and all kinds of just amazing things uh
people have. U. Yeah, I I agree with what you're saying.
Like we've got this down like a real world example
of our mutually. It is truly re Yeah, it's it's
so interesting to me to watch this happen, in part
(20:06):
because one of the things that's had me, I don't know,
to to steal a term from their side, A little
black pilled was becoming increasingly aware from about fifteen on
of how large and well equipped the militia movement and
generally the right wing and surgent movements were, how organized
they were, how many guys there were out there with
with calm setups, UM, with with armor and heavy weapons
(20:27):
and even armored vehicles. UM. Seeing some of that in
in the Pacific Northwest, and realizing that, especially after the
sixth right you know, UM for that Okay, the state
will not take the necessary steps to deal with this,
And I think the only thing that that will deal
(20:49):
with this effectively is these guys knowing that they're not
they're not unopposed right, because that's kind of what all
of their all of their operation plans are predicated on,
is the idea that we're the only ones prepared. Yeah,
I think that you're hitting the nail on the head there, right,
is Like that's why you know, like we we had
(21:09):
a really long talk on the ranch of are we
gonna make this public? Are we going to Like there
was never a talk of like are we going to
give in? But it was like how public are we
gonna be with this? What are we going to frame this? Like?
You know, just it took us a month to move
out here. I'm not moving again. Um, there was no
(21:31):
chance they were going to get us off of this
this land. But like, um, but you know, it was
like we decided like no, Like they they're wrong, Like
they're wrong. They keep saying that they are the power
that they have, like we've been preparing for Bara bar Bra,
But the reality is, you know what, Like they're just
fucking people like we are. And when people stand together
(21:54):
as opposed to individual individualistically, it's stronger. It just fucking is.
And we put a lot of faith in that idea
because we live it every day and so we could
like we were prepared to put a lot of faith
in that idea. It is the thesis behind what we
do out right, and so it did not We were
(22:15):
we weren't startled by the fact that UM, the community
stepped up. We were just startled about how amazingly the
community stepped up, UM, and how just fucking wrong Chudd's
really are about their infinite power myth and there's a
silent majority or the silent majority myth is a big one,
(22:36):
and I think it. You know, the the advantage, the
advantage they have is that a lot of them have
been preparing, and because most of them tend to have
come from a position of more financial privilege, UM, they've
been able to afford to prepare. The disadvantage they have
is that their preparation is generally quite selfish. And you
see that in the way they act on the street
as well. They're they're preparing, not as much to actually
(22:59):
be be for disaster, but preparing because they think the
stuff is cool and because it's UM. It's about collecting,
you know, neat things to them, and you you see that,
and like that story of that UM, that survivalist compound
in Texas that didn't have a non electric can open
or when the power UM. However true that is, I've
(23:19):
known a couple of people who were that kind of
quote unquote survivalist UM. And I think again, one of
the things we saw in Portland last year, especially when
we had that big Trump caravan where three thousand vehicles
drove through and they were mazing and shooting people with
paintball guns and assaulting people, is they they're very scary
when they're not kind of opposed in any sort of
(23:42):
organized way. And I think that's what they're betting on.
And I think our best chance to actually avoid violence
UM is for is shows of community support. Like this
is not just like oh we're we're going to donate
money or we're gonna get angry on Twitter, but like, no,
people are going to like defensive equipment UM, and send
cameras and and raise money for and like and come
(24:05):
over and volunteer time UM. And that kind of makes
the point to these guys, UM, not only like are
you not the only ones who have preparations for this
kind of stuff, but you're you're outnumbered. UM. Yeah, you're
selfish about it, and we're over here building community while
you're stroking your own individual ego and racism and racism like, yeah,
(24:29):
you're preparing to shoot minorities while we're actually like preparing
communities that involve everybody on every level. Like it's it's
different and fucking you're about to learn why? Yeah, I uh,
I don't. I think I think it's rad as hell,
not that you guys are being um, you know, harassed
(24:50):
and threatened with assault, but that the community has rallied
to um to protect y'all um. I think that's that's
been very inspe hiring to watch because when the story
first kind of bubbled up into my media feed, you know,
a couple of people messaged me saying, uh, these folks
are you know, being harassed and threatened and could you
please highlight some stuff? And I was like, oh god,
(25:11):
this is going to be one of those situations where
like the just nothing is done and a bunch of
sheds are allowed to harass and maybe even physically harm people.
And that does not appear to be the case. And
I'm very happy to see that kind of a wide
variety of people have rallied to to to to y'all's defense, UM,
(25:33):
and to enable your own self defense. Yeah, it's beautiful.
It's a beautiful story of yeah, of mutual aid, of
community rising to the occasion. But also, I mean, you
started this off by telling us you wanted to create
a home place where you're accepted and you know, can
live a normal life. And while this isn't normal, what's
happening right now, it feels like what you're describing is
(25:55):
that you have succeeded in this, you know, within yourself,
but also within the community. And I think that's really
really beautiful. And for how dark this story is, there's
a lot there's a lot of very positive takeaways. Yeah,
we couldn't feel more protected, uh, in these moments of
(26:18):
of you know, obvious like security, risk and danger. Um,
the community has really really covered us with their hands
and you know, just made it real, like you know
what I mean, Like we all it's what we all want,
it's what we're all kind of here for and pushing for.
And to see it coalesced like this is I mean,
(26:40):
it's it's validating, you know what I mean. Like it
it's validating on so many levels, um, and like makes
us want to push forward with our mission, Like far
from being beaten and down rotten, it's you know like
we're we're we're only gonna get fucking louder like and
it means you're doing something right. Yeah, they're really Yeah,
(27:05):
like we expect the Chuds to not like this, and
so yeah, fuck you, h Cody, Katie, You got any
any more to ask? You're kind of get into here,
you coming on talking about it? Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Yeah,
Just I think it's an inspirational thing for people to
(27:26):
hear about and know that in in these kind of
situations that um, you know you're right and they're wrong.
That's nice and yeah, exactly. Yeah, and this year, god
damn this year, and you're right a lot of Robert
pointed out correctly that a lot of this, a lot
(27:49):
of organizing occurred during the best year, especially during the uprising,
the protest movements, and I'm just I'm so proud of everybody.
I mean, not everybody, but for many, definite. So many
people have learned viscerally how the government can't be relied upon,
(28:16):
and how that we need how we need to look
out for each other. And I see it in my community.
I love hearing it about how this has affected your community,
and it's something that I know we will take with
us moving forward. I've been thinking a lot about that,
like what will I take from this time going forward?
And this is this is one of the big ones,
(28:37):
you know, and you don't need to call it, like
I think a big one for us was like holding
that line of like you know, everybody, like we had
like twenty comments a day like why didn't you call
the police? Is the fold and we're just like the
funk you're talking about, like you like and so like
validation on that end too, of like you know, you
(28:57):
can just stand standard by your prince bulls and like
you don't have to compromise them, like the cops are
gonna make ship worse, Like just deal with it, like
don't talk for people to call the police, Like I
don't know, Like yeah, I mean there's a decent community support.
Yeah totally. Yeah, I mean it's also like building these
(29:18):
relationshipships and building these connections and mutual aid or programs.
This is how we fight through all the crisis is
heading our way, whether it's climate change or eco fascism
or government repression, all of these things, Like we have
the community to deal with those things and that's how
we get through that stuff. So yeah, it's beautiful. Well,
(29:42):
thank you again for for sharing this with us. Yeah, yeah,
thank you for having us. Yeah, no, this has been wonderful. Yeah,
quick quick question. One of all posted a picture of
a of a of a bolt action rifle. I think
earlier today was that like a three thirty eight or
six point five I couldn't really identity and a wind
magin meg thank you? What was the what was the
(30:03):
model on that? That's a Ruger precision rifle. I like that. Yeah,
I just was curious about your rifle. It's over four
ft long. Everyone, every guard who's been up here has
just been like, damn, yeah, I love the muzzle on that. Yeah,
it's it's quite nice. Um. I've been into three oh eight,
(30:23):
getting really into the A R ten lately and and
kind of dialing in scopes on that. But I'm I'm
looking at going forward moving up to either like six
point five or three mag or Lapla. I'm not really
sure what I'm gonna do next, but I like those.
I like those big ones. Yeah. It's hard to find. Yeah,
I found everything I couldn't. I couldn't even source a
(30:46):
rug precision in Lapula, so I I figured three and
wind Mag's enough that'll lettle funk up an engine. So yeah, yeah,
well I have one last question. What's the status of
your go fund me? You it's still going right, so people,
we are incredibly close to the goal, which is just
(31:09):
fucking amazing. Were it's actually like yeah, I mean well
you can read on there like the plans of expanding
to like we're actually going to get into an earth
ship this year, um and really really like turn that
corner into full sustainability. Um. And it's we couldn't be
like more absolutely just on our ass about how amazing
(31:32):
the community has been with feeling that go fund me like,
it's been incredible. These assholes wanted us to move out
and instead we're expanding. Absolutely well, I uh, we have
the go fund me up on our Twitter account. It
should still be up there. Probably bump it again, so
(31:54):
hopefully we can help tip you guys towards finishing. Yeah no,
thank you, Yeah incredible, Yeah, thank you. We together everything,
So don't don't do all right, that does it for
(32:16):
us today? At worst, you're ever thank you guys for listening.
Check out the go fund me, uh, check us out online.
At worst, your pod on Instagram and Twitter, all the things. Yeah,
check out that podcast the Amazon too, that's right, and
(32:36):
I don't know, check out You're how you're doing, and
then yeah, and then check you out here look because
you're you're good. Because yeah. Katie always manages to straddle
that fine line between complimenting and sections, which I do regularly.
(32:57):
Um So I just gotta be just. I'm subtle with it.
Everything so dull, everything, so dumb man, Start again. I tried. Daniel.
Worst Year Ever is a production of I Heart Radio.
For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the I
(33:18):
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Welcome to Worst Year Ever, A production of My Heart
Radio Well together everything, So don't don't do Cody's hair
(00:23):
isn't real, it's all Why would you tell everybody the
truth about that? Well, now we can't, can't take it back.
Tody's believable. We're here to speak truth power. I'm a
Coway's beard truther. I wake up four hours earlier than
I should every day to make it look like I
(00:44):
have a luscious beard. And you've gone and ruined it.
Is that why it's impossible to reach you before noon?
I wake up four hours before I'm supposed to and
by the beard and then I fall back asleep. Roberts
same question. Oh, I just wake up at like noon,
fair day, every day, totally unrelated to There's there's no
(01:07):
excuse for it. I even go to bed at tens
some nights. Fuck itt. Um, so this is the worst
year ever. That was not an introduction for the show.
I was just remembering what a trash year it is. Um.
We had a couple We have a great interview. Yeah,
we have a great interview with the some of the
members of the Tenacious Unicorn Alpaca Ranch and Transhaven uh
(01:30):
in Southern Colorado coming up talking about their fighting with
well not thankfully not yet fighting, but their conflict with
a bunch of local HUDs and the community support that
they've received. All right, let's talk about an alpaca ranch now,
Well together, you want to introduce yourselves first, um, and
(02:00):
so kind of how you'd how you'd prefer to be
referred to? Sure, Um, I'm Bunny second man here, Yeah,
I'm j Uh I guess she they I'm the permaculturalists,
and I'm Penny. Um. I just kind of run this
ship show, are you she her? Awesome? Um? Well, so
(02:24):
y'all are running an alpaca ranch slash commune in southern Colorado.
Would that be a good way to kind of describe
it in broad strokes? Yeah? I mean why it is
a commune? So yeah, totally. We we call it a transhaven.
But yeah, the the alpaca are really the important part.
Could you walk us through kind of how things got
(02:46):
started and what the what the original vision was. Um,
it was about two years into Trump's presidency and I
looking around at just kind of the tatters that was
the trans community, after fighting, uh to not lose um
the ground that we were losing. Um, I just wanted
to kind of to like a I wanted to get away.
(03:09):
And so we threw through some more ideas around about
how we could just kind of like escape um capitalism
and kind of the world. Um. And eventually, like a
plot of land became available to rent and livermore Colorado
and um and and so we started there and it
grew from there. And what what is kind of the
(03:33):
current Like when you say a haven, what do you
mean by a haven? Um, it's a place for trans
people to come, um, shut the gate and block out
the CIS world, to be safe and respected and thrive
like um. It is. What we strive to do is
(03:54):
create an environment in which trans people can just be
fucking normal people. I don't know, you know, And uh,
that's a wonderful goal. Um. And I think unfortunately, I'm
gonna guess the Internet had something to do with this. Um.
The chuds became aware of y'all and what you were doing. Yeah,
(04:14):
I mean we're we're definitely not quiet. Um. And you
know we all have uh you know, we all voice
our opinions on Twitter. And I think that's probably where
they found us to begin with, was Twitter. Um. And
that's branched out to everywhere. Um, you know, the typical
list of fucking websites that just say horrible things about
(04:36):
trans people, and then um and and then over the
course of the last uh year, that's actually just kind
of elevated into real life here in rural Colorado weirdly enough,
Like they were always, um, I think that some of
the more prominent websites were always like a little bit
more leery of actually translating that to real world anything. Um.
(04:58):
And we turned a corner this year, and um, this
kind of harassment campaign. Could you, um, could you just
sort of walk us through when you first became aware
that you you had become something of a fixation, um
for your local I mean, for for starters. We should
I should open this by noting that southern Colorado is
(05:18):
a stronghold of the militia community. There are a lot
of right wing militia types out in that part of
the country. Um, and they are are some ornery folks.
So I'm curious, like how you came became aware that
you had you had hit their radar? So, um, what
really kicked it off? Like I can lock down a
date it was, uh they so the town, Yeah, um, sorry,
(05:48):
I can't lock down and dated apparently, uh, but the
town had actually canceled their Fourth of July fraide, and
a group of city sen's a gathering of citizens, decided
that the right thing to do was to hold a
protest rally um, an armed protest rally on the fourth
(06:12):
of July, and dress it up like a Fourth of
July parade um and then yeah, and then pretend like
that was like normal and not fashion at all. And
so when we stumbled into it, like we've gotten kind
of a heads up, and we were like okay, like
as queer people were going to avoid this unfortunate event, um,
And so we we ducked into town early to get coffee,
(06:34):
but happened to just hit it because we heard protests
and we were like, well, it's gonna be an evening thing, yeah,
afternoon maybe, but they apparently decided to just completely replace
the parade with this event. So we rolled into town
thinking we were gonna get there too early for the protests,
and all of a sudden, we're in the middle of
(06:55):
this ridiculous parade. Yeah, and there was in the lead
of the parade, there was a three percenter flag and
a Confederate flag and that and armed white people, you know,
like that that was the startling beginning to the parade. UM.
And so we you know, we just kind of ducked
out of town as quick as we could. And then
(07:16):
we went back. Um and obviously, like you know, we
went to our social media and we're just like wow,
like Nazis on parade in Westcliffe, you know, like heads
up everybody, um, And from those couple of tweets grew
a hatred that just never fucking ended. We've never let
them think that, you know, we we have changed our
(07:38):
mind and anyway, so we've never apologized, and I'd like
to just saying fuck you. We've never walked any of
our staff's back. We tried to be a little more cordial,
to try to actually have conversations with some of the
more reasonable people. But like it's we've never stopped saying
that they're they're bullshit. Is Nazi ship? Yeah, but they
got yeah right, thank you? Yeah. Um, but it was
(08:04):
but that's where like that was literally where it started. Um.
And then right then it was very online focused and
then trying to isolate us as like outsiders from the
community and stuff like that. Um, whereas we're not, you know,
like individualistic, like we're we're fucking you know, we're in Amarcust,
(08:25):
so we're all about building communities. So like we're in
the community a lot. So it's really hard to like
to pretend that we're like some weird element that's outside
of the community. You know, we started picking up doing
handy work, so we are directly involved with a lot
of individuals within the community. And these people, uh, you know,
(08:46):
the the opposition, who you could say is very intent
that their ideology is the one consistent thing throughout the
entire county. But this county is diverse. Yeah, there's people
of all different kinds of walks and backgrounds, and and
they're all mixed here. They all have different opinions about stuff.
(09:08):
And that's great and I love it. And I love
meeting people who don't think like me, who are willing
to talk and listen to me. Yeah, and they and
but that's not the Custer County that they want to
put forward or that they wanted to be, honestly, that
they wanted to be, I guess. And what is like
(09:28):
when you when you're talking about kind of the ideology
that you gleaned these people had from their march. What
is it that you saw on display that day? It
was I mean trump is UM is definitely hard is
a huge part of that Q. And on Christian white nationalism, Yeah,
(09:49):
Christian white nationalism UM, the the code of the militia,
you know, especially like the I I don't know, like
anything free per se is just so some of it.
And that's you know, like it was blatantly on display.
So when did this kind of go from what started
(10:11):
out as sort of an online beef to something that
was happening on the ground around you, like it kind
of intersecting with your actual UM, with your lives and
in the place where you lived. So we've been getting
UM an increasing amount of warnings over the last like
three months. UM, and had just been kind of UM
(10:35):
kind of paying closer attention and kind of beefing up
our security here on the ranch UM or trying to
like we're we're ranchers, like beating up security on a
forty acre lot with animals, Like it's difficult to do that.
We were just kind of walking more patrols UM. And
then we started noticing that we were getting followed, UM,
we were getting tagged in town and coming off of
(10:57):
our road. And then we got a bevy of dire
warnings from townspeople who like like us, Um, that ship
was really really gonna like the harassment campaign was going
to start. Um and literally, So that night, Um, we
we had somebody from out of town that volunteered to
(11:20):
help us with security. UM. He came in, was was
aggressively followed down our road to the point of they tried.
It was an eighty mile per hour chase down our
dirt road. Um and he had to like draw a
gun to get them to back off. Then he came
onto our property to help us secure and we caught
(11:40):
multiple people armed on the property that night. Um. And
that was two weeks ago now, and we've been we've
been at that level of harassment since then. Could you
tell me how you responded to, um, to finding them
on your property that first time? So uh, he he
(12:01):
commanded them to turn around and walk off our property
and if they turned back towards him, they were going
to die um and now. And they ran and left
a pale a trailer piste down my fucking driveway through
their rifles and jumped our fucking gate. Um. And that
was that was the engagement old orl Uh threw his
(12:24):
gun so hard. Uh. It was described as being about
halfway across the road from our fence line. So you know,
we're we're dealing with well entitled people who have no
training or understanding of what they're really doing trying to
intimidate people so far. Yeah, yeah, we are our our
(12:48):
main concern as if they actually find someone competent who's
willing to attack an our packer ranch. I mean, yeah,
it's uh, it's it's definitely it was. It was shocking. Look,
it's shocking. I don't here how in after like they
were shocked in the moment that somebody like confronted them
in an aggressive manner and and they took off, and
(13:08):
they took off readily because I don't they they thought
we were a soft target, like they thought we didn't
have community back, and then I wouldn't point a gun
at them, you know. Yeah I really feel that that. Yeah,
I really feel that they thought we were going to
lay down. The threat was and we're going to burn
(13:30):
us out like that was the threat that that showed
up across many many boards, was that they were going
to burn our house down. Uh, to get us out
of the county and take our guns. Um. And that
was you know, uh, that they met more opposition than
they thought they were going to meet. You know, like
(13:51):
that's just and I mean a lot that their reaction
says a number of things to me, chief among it
that they entered that situation without having an exit plan,
which makes me, yeah, what what what you said? They
did not expect any kind of resistance, Otherwise they would
have had a plan for getting out other than throwing
their weapons over a fence. I hope Earl hears this.
(14:14):
By the way I'm coming. I mean, it's one of
those things, you know, I um, I think about this
with our local chud's up here in the Northwest, where
they do a lot of silly stupid ship That kind
of reinforces the fact that they aren't they aren't nearly
as harder as prepared as they want to be. But
also every encounter like this, there's a chance some of
(14:36):
them will at least learn from it, learned, Okay, we
need an exit plan next to him, Okay, we need
to be prepared for resistance. It's the same thing. You
see a lot of them run away when they get maced,
but then the next time they get mace, maybe they
don't run away, or they come with a mask or
something like. It is this process of that's not going
to be the case for all of them, but some
of them will get smarter and harder as a result
of some of this. And I guess, um, the good
(14:57):
news is that so will y'all. Although that's I don't know,
calling it good news seems a little bit odd. Yeah,
that that's what we're actually finding is they're getting ever
since that first encounter, that they're getting more um forming
themselves more, and they're taking it slower, and they're coming
up with plans, lots of observation, lots of yeah, lots
(15:20):
of overwatch, lots of checking us and probing as opposed
to boldly stepping onto the property, which I don't know
what's better, you know what I mean? Like, I certainly
haven't slept for twenty four hours now, I've been on guard. Like, um,
it was like not to say we've had a huge
outpouring of support. We just happened to have two days
(15:40):
here where we don't have anybody else to guard, so
you know, like me and Jay, you know, we're also
running a full time ram so I, me and Jay
stay up and guard at night, and then everybody else
has to do like all the chores and get the
food and everything else like during the day. So it's
it really, you know, like they're they're they're learning, and
that's that's the terrifying half of it, you know. And
(16:03):
what would you go into the tail a bit more
about the kind of support you've seen from the community
once you you sort of started talking more openly about
what you were facing. Oh my god, yeah, I like, uh,
the only thing that I can say is like we
were humbled in such a way that like I like,
definitely I'm a crier, but like I was definitely crying.
(16:23):
Like people have shown up. Um from day one, the
are are now head of kind of security out here,
showed up kind of blind. He just heard that we
were in trouble, and he showed up from from two
and a half hours three hours away. And UM, from
then forward, we have had a contingent of uh people
(16:46):
UM doing just community support, like showing up here, armed
in plate willing to risk their lives for us, like
I literally willing to list risk their lives for us. UM.
Every every day they show up and do this um,
and there is no there is no thank you big
(17:07):
enough for something like that, I mean, And and then
also like our go fund me is blowing up, which
is going to allow us to put up fence and
cameras and and really protect ourselves long term, because that's
this isn't going away this month, you know. Um. The
community support has been everything everything, UM. And it's not shocking,
(17:30):
you know, like we know all these lovely people, UM,
but it is deeply humbling. Yeah. I think one of
the things that's been most impressive to me is kind
of watching this very organic apparatus with kind of this
organic boutique manufacturing apparatus fire up to support y'all. A
lot of stuff that kind of got it start during
(17:50):
the protests last year. But groups like earth Side Manufacturing
I know, has is sending you some rifle plates, which
are they're making like rifle resistant plates, And in just
this guy's um, this guy's workshop and Conquest of Threat
is putting together plate carriers and I believe I fax
um individual first aid kits. And it's been really interesting
to see this this kind of budding infrastructure of of
(18:15):
resistance that's based around kind of small scale manufacturing um,
but like of of necessary defensive tools. That's been really
interesting to watch happen because I think this is kind
of it started a lot of that stuff again started
during the uprisings the protest last year, but it's really
starting to um come into its own now. And this
(18:39):
is the first time I've really watched it kind of
swivel um to meet a challenge. Yeah, it gives us
hope in like defeating fascism. I I mean in really
defeating uh what has become like uh these overwhelming odds, right,
Like it's like really just people helping people with the
(18:59):
skills that they have, and uh, yeah, it's snapped into
place immediately. We put out the call um for armor
and it was like answered immediately by people who know
what they're doing, and they just sent it to us
like it wasn't there wasn't questions, there wasn't you know. Um,
it was amazing, right, Like I don't think we've gotten
(19:23):
all kinds of supplies as well. We've been sent cameras,
like really nice ones. Uh, we're getting solar panels now
too as well. Uh, where people drove from out of
state to do drops for us of medical supplies uh, um,
other other perishable goods um and Uh, I don't I
(19:44):
don't know if we're allowed to say m oh, but
like um and all kinds of just amazing things uh
people have. U. Yeah, I I agree with what you're saying.
Like we've got this down like a real world example
of our mutually. It is truly re Yeah, it's it's
so interesting to me to watch this happen, in part
(20:06):
because one of the things that's had me, I don't know,
to to steal a term from their side, A little
black pilled was becoming increasingly aware from about fifteen on
of how large and well equipped the militia movement and
generally the right wing and surgent movements were, how organized
they were, how many guys there were out there with
with calm setups, UM, with with armor and heavy weapons
(20:27):
and even armored vehicles. UM. Seeing some of that in
in the Pacific Northwest, and realizing that, especially after the
sixth right you know, UM for that Okay, the state
will not take the necessary steps to deal with this,
And I think the only thing that that will deal
(20:49):
with this effectively is these guys knowing that they're not
they're not unopposed right, because that's kind of what all
of their all of their operation plans are predicated on,
is the idea that we're the only ones prepared. Yeah,
I think that you're hitting the nail on the head there, right,
is Like that's why you know, like we we had
(21:09):
a really long talk on the ranch of are we
gonna make this public? Are we going to Like there
was never a talk of like are we going to
give in? But it was like how public are we
gonna be with this? What are we going to frame this? Like?
You know, just it took us a month to move
out here. I'm not moving again. Um, there was no
(21:31):
chance they were going to get us off of this
this land. But like, um, but you know, it was
like we decided like no, Like they they're wrong, Like
they're wrong. They keep saying that they are the power
that they have, like we've been preparing for Bara bar Bra,
But the reality is, you know what, Like they're just
fucking people like we are. And when people stand together
(21:54):
as opposed to individual individualistically, it's stronger. It just fucking is.
And we put a lot of faith in that idea
because we live it every day and so we could
like we were prepared to put a lot of faith
in that idea. It is the thesis behind what we
do out right, and so it did not We were
(22:15):
we weren't startled by the fact that UM, the community
stepped up. We were just startled about how amazingly the
community stepped up, UM, and how just fucking wrong Chudd's
really are about their infinite power myth and there's a
silent majority or the silent majority myth is a big one,
(22:36):
and I think it. You know, the the advantage, the
advantage they have is that a lot of them have
been preparing, and because most of them tend to have
come from a position of more financial privilege, UM, they've
been able to afford to prepare. The disadvantage they have
is that their preparation is generally quite selfish. And you
see that in the way they act on the street
as well. They're they're preparing, not as much to actually
(22:59):
be be for disaster, but preparing because they think the
stuff is cool and because it's UM. It's about collecting,
you know, neat things to them, and you you see that,
and like that story of that UM, that survivalist compound
in Texas that didn't have a non electric can open
or when the power UM. However true that is, I've
(23:19):
known a couple of people who were that kind of
quote unquote survivalist UM. And I think again, one of
the things we saw in Portland last year, especially when
we had that big Trump caravan where three thousand vehicles
drove through and they were mazing and shooting people with
paintball guns and assaulting people, is they they're very scary
when they're not kind of opposed in any sort of
(23:42):
organized way. And I think that's what they're betting on.
And I think our best chance to actually avoid violence
UM is for is shows of community support. Like this
is not just like oh we're we're going to donate
money or we're gonna get angry on Twitter, but like, no,
people are going to like defensive equipment UM, and send
cameras and and raise money for and like and come
(24:05):
over and volunteer time UM. And that kind of makes
the point to these guys, UM, not only like are
you not the only ones who have preparations for this
kind of stuff, but you're you're outnumbered. UM. Yeah, you're
selfish about it, and we're over here building community while
you're stroking your own individual ego and racism and racism like, yeah,
(24:29):
you're preparing to shoot minorities while we're actually like preparing
communities that involve everybody on every level. Like it's it's
different and fucking you're about to learn why? Yeah, I uh,
I don't. I think I think it's rad as hell,
not that you guys are being um, you know, harassed
(24:50):
and threatened with assault, but that the community has rallied
to um to protect y'all um. I think that's that's
been very inspe hiring to watch because when the story
first kind of bubbled up into my media feed, you know,
a couple of people messaged me saying, uh, these folks
are you know, being harassed and threatened and could you
please highlight some stuff? And I was like, oh god,
(25:11):
this is going to be one of those situations where
like the just nothing is done and a bunch of
sheds are allowed to harass and maybe even physically harm people.
And that does not appear to be the case. And
I'm very happy to see that kind of a wide
variety of people have rallied to to to to y'all's defense, UM,
(25:33):
and to enable your own self defense. Yeah, it's beautiful.
It's a beautiful story of yeah, of mutual aid, of
community rising to the occasion. But also, I mean, you
started this off by telling us you wanted to create
a home place where you're accepted and you know, can
live a normal life. And while this isn't normal, what's
happening right now, it feels like what you're describing is
(25:55):
that you have succeeded in this, you know, within yourself,
but also within the community. And I think that's really
really beautiful. And for how dark this story is, there's
a lot there's a lot of very positive takeaways. Yeah,
we couldn't feel more protected, uh, in these moments of
(26:18):
of you know, obvious like security, risk and danger. Um,
the community has really really covered us with their hands
and you know, just made it real, like you know
what I mean, Like we all it's what we all want,
it's what we're all kind of here for and pushing for.
And to see it coalesced like this is I mean,
(26:40):
it's it's validating, you know what I mean. Like it
it's validating on so many levels, um, and like makes
us want to push forward with our mission, Like far
from being beaten and down rotten, it's you know like
we're we're we're only gonna get fucking louder like and
it means you're doing something right. Yeah, they're really Yeah,
(27:05):
like we expect the Chuds to not like this, and
so yeah, fuck you, h Cody, Katie, You got any
any more to ask? You're kind of get into here,
you coming on talking about it? Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Yeah,
Just I think it's an inspirational thing for people to
(27:26):
hear about and know that in in these kind of
situations that um, you know you're right and they're wrong.
That's nice and yeah, exactly. Yeah, and this year, god
damn this year, and you're right a lot of Robert
pointed out correctly that a lot of this, a lot
(27:49):
of organizing occurred during the best year, especially during the uprising,
the protest movements, and I'm just I'm so proud of everybody.
I mean, not everybody, but for many, definite. So many
people have learned viscerally how the government can't be relied upon,
(28:16):
and how that we need how we need to look
out for each other. And I see it in my community.
I love hearing it about how this has affected your community,
and it's something that I know we will take with
us moving forward. I've been thinking a lot about that,
like what will I take from this time going forward?
And this is this is one of the big ones,
(28:37):
you know, and you don't need to call it, like
I think a big one for us was like holding
that line of like you know, everybody, like we had
like twenty comments a day like why didn't you call
the police? Is the fold and we're just like the
funk you're talking about, like you like and so like
validation on that end too, of like you know, you
(28:57):
can just stand standard by your prince bulls and like
you don't have to compromise them, like the cops are
gonna make ship worse, Like just deal with it, like
don't talk for people to call the police, Like I
don't know, Like yeah, I mean there's a decent community support.
Yeah totally. Yeah, I mean it's also like building these
(29:18):
relationshipships and building these connections and mutual aid or programs.
This is how we fight through all the crisis is
heading our way, whether it's climate change or eco fascism
or government repression, all of these things, Like we have
the community to deal with those things and that's how
we get through that stuff. So yeah, it's beautiful. Well,
(29:42):
thank you again for for sharing this with us. Yeah, yeah,
thank you for having us. Yeah, no, this has been wonderful. Yeah,
quick quick question. One of all posted a picture of
a of a of a bolt action rifle. I think
earlier today was that like a three thirty eight or
six point five I couldn't really identity and a wind
magin meg thank you? What was the what was the
(30:03):
model on that? That's a Ruger precision rifle. I like that. Yeah,
I just was curious about your rifle. It's over four
ft long. Everyone, every guard who's been up here has
just been like, damn, yeah, I love the muzzle on that. Yeah,
it's it's quite nice. Um. I've been into three oh eight,
(30:23):
getting really into the A R ten lately and and
kind of dialing in scopes on that. But I'm I'm
looking at going forward moving up to either like six
point five or three mag or Lapla. I'm not really
sure what I'm gonna do next, but I like those.
I like those big ones. Yeah. It's hard to find. Yeah,
I found everything I couldn't. I couldn't even source a
(30:46):
rug precision in Lapula, so I I figured three and
wind Mag's enough that'll lettle funk up an engine. So yeah, yeah,
well I have one last question. What's the status of
your go fund me? You it's still going right, so people,
we are incredibly close to the goal, which is just
(31:09):
fucking amazing. Were it's actually like yeah, I mean well
you can read on there like the plans of expanding
to like we're actually going to get into an earth
ship this year, um and really really like turn that
corner into full sustainability. Um. And it's we couldn't be
like more absolutely just on our ass about how amazing
(31:32):
the community has been with feeling that go fund me like,
it's been incredible. These assholes wanted us to move out
and instead we're expanding. Absolutely well, I uh, we have
the go fund me up on our Twitter account. It
should still be up there. Probably bump it again, so
(31:54):
hopefully we can help tip you guys towards finishing. Yeah no,
thank you, Yeah incredible, Yeah, thank you. We together everything,
So don't don't do all right, that does it for
(32:16):
us today? At worst, you're ever thank you guys for listening.
Check out the go fund me, uh, check us out online.
At worst, your pod on Instagram and Twitter, all the things. Yeah,
check out that podcast the Amazon too, that's right, and
(32:36):
I don't know, check out You're how you're doing, and
then yeah, and then check you out here look because
you're you're good. Because yeah. Katie always manages to straddle
that fine line between complimenting and sections, which I do regularly.
(32:57):
Um So I just gotta be just. I'm subtle with it.
Everything so dull, everything, so dumb man, Start again. I tried. Daniel.
Worst Year Ever is a production of I Heart Radio.
For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the I
(33:18):
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