Pattie Gonia, the environmental activist and drag queen, is an eagle scout
She leverages her sizable Instagram following to advocate for inclusion in the outdoors.
I’m willing to bet that more than a few of you have heard of Pattie Gonia. No, not the outdoor brand of a similar name, but the fierce drag queen and environmental activist who’s been known to strut down a hiking trail in six-inch heels. Pattie Gonia.
But did you know that Pattie is an eagle scout?
I’ve been following her on Instagram for a quite a while—as do 500,000 others—but it wasn’t until recently that I stumbled upon this fact. It was in a profile of her in Outside magazine, where Wyn Wiley (the person behind the drag persona) said his experience working his way to eagle scout gave him “some of his first powerful experiences in nature.”
When I dug a little more, I found an earlier profile from 2018, published in The Guardian, that made Wiley’s eagle scout status the entire lead of the story.
I don’t know about you, but I love discovering that someone I admire shares that fundamental Scouting experience. And it makes me proud to see what Wiley has done with the skills and values he learned in the program.
After first trying drag in 2018 and posting some of her looks on Instagram, Pattie gained about 30,000 followers, attracted no doubt by her beautiful mix of queer joy and outdoor adventure. “I think Pattie is the voice inside telling people they should just go for it. Live unapologetically,” she told one reporter.
In the years since, her following has grown by the hundreds of thousands, and Wiley has used the platform to advocate for inclusion in the outdoors—especially for the LGBTQ+ community and people of color—as well as action on climate change. But he has a somewhat complicated relationship with the idea of being an “influencer.” Per the Outside magazine piece:
“He’s also wary of using Pattie’s platform for personal attention. Instead, he often steers the conversation toward activists he admires, like Jenny Bruso of Unlikely Hikers or Jaylyn Gough of Native Womens Wilderness. He wants to highlight people doing hard work for equity, inclusion, or the environment. ‘For every one of me, there are tons of people fighting for diversity in the outdoors, in courtrooms, in companies,’ he says. ‘Those are the real forces. What would it look like to have sponsored advocates?’”
More recently, Wiley co-founded the Outdoorist Oath, which has developed “an educational model that wraps up in an action-based commitment for planet, inclusion, and adventure.”
I would encourage you to spend some more time learning about Pattie, her story and the work she represents. You can read more…
And, of course, you can follow Pattie on Instagram here.
