Willow Defebaugh

This week, I'm sitting down with my best-dressed guest, Patti Gonia, to talk about her career blending climate activism and drag, how the outdoors can bring us all together, and the story behind some of her most iconic looks.

Patagonia, welcome to the nature of... Hello everybody.

Yeah, can we have a little carabiner earring ASMR?

You should be an author.

Oh, thanks.

Note taken.

Okay, I want to get into the origin of Patagonia.

How did you come to be hitting the trail in heels?

I mean, you took the words right out of my mouth because when you said that you were disconnected from the natural world through all of that bullying, those experiences as a kid, it's like we talk so much about how we get disconnected from ourselves, I think, as queer people when we have those kinds of upbringings.

But we don't often talk about what happens at the same time, which is a disconnect from the world around us.

And queer people are so often told that we're unnatural or that we don't fit into the world.

And it comes at the same time.

And what a, like, I'm thinking about Joanna Macy's world as lover, world as self.

Like, to be disconnected from the self and the world is...

And to be queer is to reclaim that.

When people ask me, what does queerness mean to me?

I'm like, it just means wild.

It means just letting a thing grow into itself as it was always meant to be or as what feels natural to it.

Yeah, I relate to that so much.

You referenced that queerness flowers in every continent.