"A year ago, transgender rancher Penny Logue found the dome. Fed up with a hostile landlord in the city and fearful for their safety amid record-high deaths in the transgender community nationwide, Logue and her business partner, Bonnie Nelson, sought refuge in the rural, open rangelands."
Just, right away. Didn't even mention the family-owned ranch they were on. Which I think was almost for a year on its own.
"The geodesic dome perched on sprawling acreage in the remote Wet Mountain Valley on the eastern flank of the Sangre de Cristo Mountain Range, near the rural ranching hamlet of Westcliffe, Colorado. They were intrigued. “Domes are funky and cool and a bit against the status quo — and they help the planet,” Logue told me. So they bought it."
Also no. Penny and Bonnie are already on record in that podcast episode as saying they bought the dome because Star Wars. Trying to age the toy fetish out of it for the adults? Also, dome houses are basically flat pack. How fucking counterculture.
"While they already knew the financial, physical, and emotional challenges of operating a successful ranch, they had no idea that the Wet Mountain Valley had become a cauldron of right-wing conservatism — home to militias, vigilantes, Three Percenters — anathema to the ranch’s gender-inclusive, anti-racist, ecological politics.
But rather than retreat, the unique LGBTQ+ community, around a dozen strong, asserted its right to exist. They armed up and began speaking out, quickly developing a local reputation that galvanized other local rural progressives. In the process, they’ve showed how queer communities can flourish. “We belong here,” Logue told me this past November. “Queers are reclaiming country spaces.”
I do not find one word of this to be true. The ranch isn't particularly successful on its own, Penny references money all the time. Their own evidence of work around the entire area proves they aren't hated in their own community. We know their HOA doesn't give a fuck about them. We know nobody has ever fucked with their farm or land or animals or anything...except for the troon October Evans, who prompted a gun threat from Penny. The transphobia is coming from inside the house! Oh, also. remember the "successful ranch" line for the end paragraph.
"The ranch exists at a philosophical intersection that is immediately evident inside the dome, where a wall displays prized firearms — Bonnie’s sniper, a Springfield AR-15, two 12-gauge shotguns and a 22-rifle — and flags for The Iron Front, the anti-Nazi symbol used by 1930s paramilitary groups, which now symbolizes anti-fascism and intersectional Pride. Pride flags with colorful stripes — pink, rose, yellow, green, pewter, black, white — bedeck the wall, celebrating asexuality, agender identity, lesbianism and nonbinary gender identities."
Eric Segel deepthroat me bitch
“We’re a haven. We offer work, we offer shelter, we offer peace,” says Logue, gesturing toward the expansive open space surrounding us. “There are a lot of people who visit for upwards of a week and just enjoy their time away from society,” Nelson added.
“And cry,” Logue said. “When that ranch gate shuts behind you, the cis world stays out there.”
Back to that refrain. But just wait for it. ohnonono.mp3
Logue and her cohort seek to challenge the patriotic myths — about Manifest Destiny, liberty and freedom — that their Wet Mountain Valley neighbors double-down on in The Sentinel. “The American frontier or ‘the American West’ wasn’t conquered with rugged individualism,” she said. “It was conquered by communities sticking together. … Nobody did that by themselves.” Their social mission — akin to that of mutual-aid networks and similar to anti-fascist groups like The Redneck Revolt as well as leftist pro-gun groups like the John Brown Gun Club or the Socialist Rifle Association — stems from their political commitments. “It isn’t through harsh words and violence that you defeat fascism,” Logue told me. “It’s through building community, but only if you can stay alive long enough to do it. That means you have to be armed — because fascists are armed, always.”
Kevin has spent more than $1000 this month on transformers alone
The ranchers watched from their front porch with a high-powered scope and sniper rifle — the Springfield AR-15 on the living room wall — staking out visitors loitering at the end of their driveway. The visits ceased. It’s rumored locally that militias unofficially “patrol” their surroundings to establish dominance. “In order to be treated as a human, you have to show you can defend yourself more than they can hurt you,” Logue said. “Then you can reach equality.”
What? Just...WHAT? ONE time there was ONE car, across the road. "It's rumored locally" fucking commit REACH EQUALITY. This is a lie, an actual lie couched in the trapping of hearsay. There's no source for this "rumor" because its not even a rumor. Nobody in the area gives a shit about them or their terrible workmanship. Fucking
rumored locally, un-fucking-believable.
"The ranchers had planned to avoid the protest downtown but got caught in the crowds during morning errands. “We saw them flying the Three Percenter flags front and center and everybody was armed. It was a fascist parade,” Logue told me. “So, we came back and started antifa accounts on Instagram. We called them out on being Nazis by tweeting about them, then on Facebook.”
Hmm, did we miss that, or did it not happen? Maybe the farm DOES need it's own thread.
"What happened next surprised them."
I want to die painfully.
“There was a real upsurge from the leftist community in the Valley,” said Logue. The outcry created an unexpected opening, as they unknowingly tapped into long-simmering sentiments. Meanwhile, they found another niche: Many residents began employing them in local handiwork and physical labor. The ranchers also provide recycling services at the county landfill. That has exponentially increased their visibility: “It’s really hard for people to paint you as ‘weird’ or whatever, if you’re just helping people,” Logue said.
And the name of that visibility? Albert Einstein. What I've seen here suggests that the community is not behind them, because it doesn't care about them. We've seen their work. It is
objectively of very poor quality. Everything is done incorrectly and ineptly. We have not yet seen the results of the recycling thing, but all signs point to it being a scam by virtue of them being incapable of doing the work the contract probably entails. Bonnie is literally praying for his actual dad to actually die so he can buy a truck for work they already committed themselves to do. That's not how that works.
“We’re queer. We get second-guessed all the time,” Logue said. “We’re always having to innovate and think ahead.” When they couldn’t get certain Department of Agriculture livestock loans, for example — alpacas are technically classified as pets — they acquired a few sheep. “There’s something inherently queer about how many alpaca we have. People don’t know what to do with us,” said Kathryn, one of Logue’s partners, who goes by her first name only. “Sure, we'll bring out some sheep, I guess that makes us ‘normal’ or whatever, but that’s the closest we’ll get to assimilation.”
"Teehee, we're so queer we don't even run a ranch because we were too retarded to buy actual ranch animals and too lazy to properly maintain them how KWEER and DARING" It's not even a ranch! They even fucked that up!
Also, Kevin: Forever "one of Logue's partners"
He's such a rancid undesirable that Penny is no longer willing to properly identify their relationship in public
Overall rating: Mark/What A Story
