The Nature Of with Willow Defebaugh
Drag Queen Pattie Gonia: Nature Isn’t Binary, and Neither Are We
28 Apr 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What does it mean to bridge divides through nature?
We all love nature. On the left, people might call it climate. On the right, people might call it conservation. It is the same thing, babe. We have the potential via nature to actually, I think, bridge what people view as the unbridgeable right now. I think that's going to be hard, but I think it starts in realizing everyone has a piece of nature that is really important to them.
Speaking of bridging worlds, you might not think that climate activist and drag queen belong in the same sentence, but Patti Gonia does it all. She has hiked a hundred miles in drag, she's bungee jumped in drag, and even rappelled off of the face of a cliff with Imogen Heap for their latest musical collaboration. Patti is a force of nature, and she's here to remind us to take the work seriously,
but not ourselves.
Chapter 2: How did Pattie Gonia's drag persona evolve?
I think a lot of people look at what I do with drag as an activist and see me as a joke. And I'm like, thank you so much. That's the highest compliment you could ever give me because the joy that I can give people and that then they can give each other is the strategic way through. Joy is a strategy. Joy is an inside job. And joy is what keeps people showing up time and time again.
I'm Willow Duffabaugh, and this is The Nature Of, where we look to the nature of our world for wisdom and ideas that change the way we live. 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.
Oh my gosh, you can hear the carabiner earrings.
Chapter 3: What role does joy play in activism and self-expression?
Yeah, can we have a little carabiner earring ASMR?
Mmm. Yeah, these are not climbing grade carabiners, but they do work functionally for keys. So lesbianism abound, you know? They're carrying their weight, I would say.
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?
Chapter 4: How can queerness redefine our understanding of nature?
I really feel like the story of Patti goes back to my childhood. I remember jumping off of a swing set when I was seven years old, performing musicals in my backyard, and I really think that's when Patti was born.
But I didn't claim her until about seven years ago when I went on this backpacking trip, and I decided to take this six-inch pair of high heels with me, and by accident birthed this drag persona. But really, what was behind it was so many years of...
Connection to the outdoors via expression and femininity and my queerness and so much of this inner child that I was so at peace with growing up and especially found in nature that then through middle school and through high school, through sports, through Boy Scouts, through being called a faggot every time I would play a sport outdoors, I really learned to disconnect myself from nature.
I really learned to disconnect myself from nature. this whole side of me that i loved and i'm so glad that patty brought that healing and inner child back into my life and brought a connection to nature with it and so much my work is rooted in wanting that same connection for other people
like i really think that so much of the problems in our world today are because we are so disconnected from nature and we're so disconnected from ourselves and that's why i really think that if we can heal ourselves we can heal the world that's why i think that self-love and coming to terms with who you are is such a gift to give this world and that's what patty's here to do
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.
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Chapter 5: What are the connections between identity and environmentalism?
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.
I feel like for me...
Chapter 6: How does music serve as a form of activism?
Now in adulthood where I'm at, I know that queerness is nothing but natural. Queerness is in every ecosystem, on every continent, on planet Earth. And the one thing that's unnatural is hate. The one thing that fuels the destruction of not only this planet, but people on it, is hatred, is division.
And it's almost like why people in power hate queer people is because we are living proof of what it looks like to not divide a world, but instead to collaborate to give and to get and to play our role in nature. You know, nature's one goal isn't just to reproduce. It's also to support the collective whole. It's to see where we can collaborate, how we can play a role.
And that's what I think we need more of.
Chapter 7: What lessons can we learn from the intersection of drag and climate activism?
You know, we don't need more survival. We need more thrival. I think queerness offers that.
You referenced that queerness flowers in every continent. What is your favorite example of what we would call queerness in nature?
Okay, this answer is a little untraditional. But I want to advocate for a definition of queerness in nature that's beyond what a species has sex with. I want to think about queerness as a way of being. And in that way, I think we all can remember the power of queerness, no matter who we are, whether we're straight, bi, queer, trans.
There's an ability with queerness to adapt in creative ways against all odds.
Chapter 8: How can we heal ourselves to heal the world?
And I see that everywhere in nature. I see that in the dandelion growing up in the middle of the concrete sidewalk in New York City. I see that in a way that a tree twists one way and another to find light and then, oh damn, half the tree got chopped off and it still finds a way to survive against all odds. Like that is queerness to me. And that's queerness in nature.
And the more I see queerness in nature, the more I see it in myself. The more I remember that queerness is nothing but natural. And the more I remember that queerness can teach us all something. The power of survival, the power of creativity.
And that is the story of nature.
That is the story of nature.
Life in transition, one might say.
I constantly feel like I am transitioning and I feel like the biggest gift that queerness has given me is this ability to reinvent myself, discover new sides of myself. Realize that who I am today is not who I was yesterday and what a gift we can give ourselves of that reinvention I think that's something that queerness has to offer all of us. I mean, how has that been for you transitioning?
I'm curious to hear I mean I was just writing yesterday about one of my favorite evolutionary phenomena, which is mimicry and I was writing about the mimic octopus and which literally has evolved to have this advanced neurological control over its skin color, texture, shape, movement, and it will hide in the sand and then just have two limbs above the sand to mimic sea snakes.
It will become striped so that it looks like a venomous lionfish. It does all of this depending on who it's interacting with, and so its identity is like fluid and relational. And I think that, you know, for me, my journey has always been about getting closer to what feels true to me and authentic.
And I always say that transitioning was not about getting from point A to point B. It was about going from a place of dissociation to a place of enlivenment or embodiment. You know, it's like... Putting on glasses, not realizing that I needed them my whole life. You know, dissociation, when you feel really disconnected from yourself, it's like you're in a haze.
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