Drag doesn't change who you are, it just unlocks different sides of you," said drag queen Pattie Gonia, who stands at the intersection of the queer rights movement and environmental activism, often sporting outfits employing only upcycled materials — like the one that graces this week's Source Weekly cover.
With a slew of recognition under her belt, including being named Time Magazine's 2023 Next Gen Leader, Pattie acknowledges, "I lived a lot of my life to make other people happy, and now I feel like I live life to make myself happy, and to make space for other people who really were never given a fair chance at love or community or acceptance."
On a whim with no agenda, Wyn (his name, when out of drag) packed 6-inch heels alongside backpacking gear and set off on Colorado's Continental Divide Trail in the fall of 2018. What came next was a personal music video boasting high heels and hiking gear, set to the tune of Fergie's "London Bridge." That was her first post to what she believed at the time was a joke Instagram account, under the alias Pattie Gonia. The video went viral.
Feeling confident and safe to be herself, especially outside, didn't come easy, and it continues to come at a cost to queer individuals around the world.
Pattie's first safe place to be queer was nature, she told the Source Weekly.
"Some of my first memories of my life were outdoors from my backyard performing 'Cats' the musical for an audience of nobody." Middle and high school only lent adversity in spaces like sports and Boy Scouts, she said, "where my queerness wasn't accepted or celebrated or embraced at all," only encouraging her to retreat back into herself and conform.
The circumstances can be horrific, she says.
"The realities are so real that people are being killed for being queer all the time in rural spaces, and especially in outdoor spaces."
Pattie Gonia's slogan, "Make Nature Gay Again" colors all of her outdoor community-building efforts, including queer group hikes, sponsoring queer summer backpacking course scholarships and, five years in the making — after receiving hundreds of messages from queer Yosemite National Park staff from around the world — hosting Yosemite's Pride last year, bringing together more than 1,000 queer park employees. Pattie, of course, was donning her park-ranger-inspired drag outfit.
This year, after the National Park Service released a memo that banned park employees from attending non-NPS Pride events in uniform, widespread backlash — including a statement by Pattie — garnered a reversal in favor of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community.
"Reversing this decision is the bare minimum," Pattie said.
"This is not some magical Pattie thing. It's the power of community and it's the power of visibility and it's the power of making space and how that inspires more space. So, there's nothing that I've done that I've done alone, and it's a very collaborative effort, a very collective effort," she said of the colossal queer and environmental campaign she's charging.
Queer Nature
The very gay nature of nature is backed by scientific research, and Pattie's on a mission to share how more than 1,000 species, like clown fish, frogs and trees, have the ability to transition between sexes. Partnering with fire experts, she also busts myths about forest fires. And she collaborates on projects like "Everything to Lose," her upcoming docuseries with Bonnie Wright (yes, Ginny Weasley from Harry Potter) and the drag show "Save Her!" — all advocacy efforts supporting queer and environmental allyship.
"Drag is a queer art form that has always been rooted in activism and advocacy...born throughout the queer rights movement as an act of protest, and it still is," declares the artist.
Dressed for the part in literal trash, she pushed the Global Plastics Treaty petition, advocating to stop worldwide plastic production. Made from oil byproducts — and profiting the big oil and gas industry behemoths — plastics rarely get recycled (only 9% worldwide), end up in our oceans and on our lands, harming wildlife. Microplastics have even been found in humans' food and water, blood, lungs, placentas, breastmilk and semen.
When it comes to doing our part, Pattie proposes that advocacy and allyship are verbs, not titles, stating, "It's one thing to say it, it's a whole other thing to live it out."
On the environmental front, she said, "I don't need everyone to stop what they're doing and start being an activist or advocate full time. What I need is for someone who's a lawyer to say, 'oh, I have a unique skill set as a lawyer, maybe I can take on some pro bono clients that are environmental nonprofits local to Bend and I can make a difference that way.' Or maybe, I own this space and I wanna give this certain percentage of [it] to different community things, or, you know what, I'm just a really great amateur baker and I'm gonna bring cookies to the next climate rally. Do that." But most and first of all, she says, "get the hell outside and connect to nature so we know what we're fighting for."
A Nebraska transplant, Pattie feels pride in calling Bend home, describing it as "a really beautiful spot to be fertile soil for a lot of growth." About how Bend could improve, she says more diversity is needed here.
Taking action as a queer ally can be as easy as eating at queer-owned restaurants, buying from queer artists, attending drag shows, hiring and helping queer staff, voting for laws and leaders supporting queer rights and affordable housing. Basically, eliminating barriers that queer people face daily.
In its most primal form, allyship is kindness and recognizing that, as Pattie knows firsthand, "conditional love is not love."
When she's not jamming to favorite Pride songs like Abba's "Dancing Queen," Pattie's dreaming up more music collaborations, complementing past projects with the likes of Yo-Yo Ma, her ambition only rising as she hopes to partner with artist Imogen Heap. After all, she says, "Drag's a playground where anything is possible."
Visit Pattie Gonia's website and Instagram for details on her 2024 Pride Tour, free Queer Outdoor and Environmental Job Board, Outdoorist Oath nonprofit, original music and groundbreaking film projects.
