Come out, come out, wherever you are
Legendary drag queen Pattie Gonia is blazing trails – literally! – for queer people in the climate movement
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Wyn Wiley is a delightful and hilarious guy who lives in Oregon. But when he steps into the signature six-inch heels of his drag character, Pattie Gonia, she becomes a fearless, colourful, vibrant leader of a movement to get more queer and marginalized people into the great outdoors together. Wyn has built a formidable community both in the woods and online, offering outdoor education, leading group hikes and backpacking trips, and creating digital tools like Everywhere Is Queer, an interactive map that helps people find queer outdoor community groups all over the world. We had a blast talking to Wyn about being out, proud…and outside.
Hiking in heels??? HOW??? WHY?! We’re in awe.
Listen, it's ridiculous, but I love it so much. My cheeky, campy answer is: strong heels, a lot of overconfidence, and running away from homophobia. That’s motivating! I feel empowered in them and it gives the outdoors an added level of adventure.
Why do you think the outdoors is still so synonymous with outdated notions of masculinity?
This goes back to colonization and to Whiteness, and to toxic masculinity, and the need to conquer, and control, and take.
When I think about the way that other people – BIPOC people, queer people – see the outdoors, it's living with nature rather than on nature. It's being in reciprocity with land rather than extracting from it. White, straight, cis-, colonizing men really control the outdoors, and obviously we know the devastation that they've made and continue to make. However, I think honestly now, the new leaders in the outdoor space especially are women, queer people, and BIPOC people – they're the ones making community in the outdoors. They're the ones redefining what it means to be outdoorsy.
There's still a lot of work to do there, especially around making spaces for people where they're not the only Black person on the trails. And skills, too – there’s inequality in who learns how to be in the outdoors as kids, right? But it's changing.
As a queer person, what are the biggest mental health challenges you experience as the climate crisis escalates?
I have my good days and my bad days. Capitalism, colonization, the forces that be, want me to believe that I cannot make a change. They want me to give in and give up. That's how they win. They also want me to just be paralyzed into not taking action.
But inaction is an active choice – doing nothing is actually doing something. When I think about mental health, if I look at headlines, if I look at scale, writ large, I lose a lot of hope. But when I honour the Indigenous wisdom of being where my feet are, when I'm collaborating with other people, when I'm seeing the community spaces that I've built where hundreds of thousands of people show up for those spaces every year – that’s when I gain hope back.
But also, just getting the fuck outside. That helps my mental state. Now, obviously, let’s talk about how green spaces are completely disproportionate to White people. Let's talk about access in other ways. But however you can get outside, however that looks for you, do it. Can I have a meal outside in my backyard? Can I go for a walk on a Zoom meeting? We're asking a lot of people to care right now about the climate, and most people are more disconnected than ever from it. If you get outdoors, if you fall in love with the thing, well, you're gonna fight for it way more. Because we fight for what we love.
How did you make the decision to pair drag with outdoor activism?
The traditional narrative of queer people is to run to big cities for acceptance. That's the place you're going to find survival and community and you're going to be able to have a future. But I think now more than ever, there are more queer people running into the wilderness to find their voice and their people and to connect to nature.
Pattie was born out of a quarter-life crisis. I basically went on this backpacking trip and packed these six-inch heels. And, as the kids do these days, I made some videos with it and posted a video, it went viral, la la la. But what was actually happening on the backend were hundreds of queer people reaching out to me and being like, “hey, I'm a queer park ranger in Denali National Park, and we've never had a Pride parade here. How can I throw a Pride for the employees there?” Or “Hey. I'm a queer climber, and I really want to start a community group of queer climbers in the Bay Area. What can I do to get some support?” It's been a true ecosystem building since the beginning. And I've been really grateful. It just goes to show that really, if you build it in the environmental movement, people will come.
How do we make the climate movement a more inclusive and diverse space?
On a very practical level, there's nothing like the power of an invitation. “Hey, come with me to this climate march. Hey, come outdoors with me. I love to cycle and I would love to teach you cycling.” I think so many people are waiting at the sidelines, just waiting to get an opportunity to jump in, but it really takes a friend. An invitation is $free-99, baby, and especially with people who might come from different backgrounds than you or people you might think would say no.
Right now we have a lot of people who are trying to use fear as a motivator. But the thing is, fear works really well once – and then it never works again. Whereas joy and solution and collaboration, those keep people coming back. And I think that's what we need.
Also, what we have right now in the climate movement is still so much internalized capitalism of seeing nature as a resource rather than a relative. This is something I've learned from Indigenous people. We separate ourselves as humans and nature, rather than seeing ourselves as a part of nature. It’s rather convenient that we do that, because when we see something as “other”, we can extract from it. But if we see it as a relative, it becomes way harder to extract from it.
The message of doom causes a lot of people to shut down and tune out – but you’ve chosen this activism that’s fun and colourful and joyful.
I get shit on all the time for doing what I do. People are like, “the world is burning and you're just over there, dancing with gay clowns???” And I'm like, you're right, I am! And people are showing the fuck up. If my nervous system is in crisis mode all the time, I don't do good work. So I'm here to be motivated, but I'm not here to be so fearful that I don't take any action. I have a fire under my ass, but that fire under my ass is making me take action and dance.
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Making Waves
Be a part of the movement calling for a national Youth Climate Corps in Canada, a new job training and placement program to help us rapidly decarbonize and build climate resilience in our communities. Similarly in the US, President Biden just launched the American Climate Corps – a workforce training and service initiative that will ensure more young people have access to careers in the clean energy and climate resilience economy, with a focus on equity and environmental justice. If actualized, the Canadian Youth Climate Corps would provide tens of thousands of climate jobs with thriving wages for anyone under 35 who wants one. Imagine a national jobs program that empowers young people to take the lead in addressing our climate crisis while receiving a free education and countless for the future. This is the vision we are working tirelessly to bring to life, and we need your support.
Here’s how: Customize this mock cover letter for a climate job that doesn’t yet exist and young people fighting for a YCC in Toronto will hand deliver it to politicians on your behalf to demand action now. Share and get all of your friends under the age of 35 to fill it out, too. Let’s flood the desks of policymakers with our demands! #YouthClimateCorpsNow
We are beyond delighted to share that our own Britt Wray is being honoured with the 2023 Canadian Eco-hero award! Eco-hero awards are presented each year at the Planet in Focus Environmental Film Festival to Canadian and International individuals whose work has had significant impact on raising awareness of environmental issues through artistic expression. Past recipients of this award include Margaret Atwood, Roberta Bondar, and David Suzuki. Join us for a special screening of The Climate Baby Dilemma on Thursday, October 19th at 7 PM ET at the Paradise Theatre, featuring the live Eco-Hero presentation with Britt Wray and panel discussion following the screening with filmmaker Vicki Lean and youth climate activist participants in the film.
Join the University of Toronto’s School of Environment and Youth Climate Action in Toronto on Thursday, Oct 26th 5:30-7:30pm for an evening of leaning into meaning, purpose, and community in the face of climate anxiety. You’re invited to a screening of “The Climate Baby Dilemma,” featuring young people publicly wrestling with the ethics of whether and how to bring a child into this rapidly-changing world. Gen Dread’s Britt Wray is the documentary’s host and she will be speaking at the screening and discussion as she launches the paperback version of Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Eco-Anxiety.
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‘Till next time!
Wyn&Pattie
Great your being so confronting and connecting at the same time. Love it as much as I love your authenticity and your originality in your name Pattie Gonia 😊👍
And the way you are able to transform the pain of being different in an action and awareness of our Nature connectednes. Big Thank you.
Gerwine
Inane.