Making the Great Outdoors For Everyone With EMA Activist Board Member Pattie Gonia

As environmentalists, we all share a common affection for the great outdoors. Unfortunately, what most consider nature (i.e., national parks and recreation areas), hasn't felt accessible or welcoming to all communities. Enter Pattie Gonia! Pattie is an environmentalist drag queen on a mission to make the outdoors and what popular culture depicts as an outdoorist inclusive and accessible to ALL people. 

Out of drag, Pattie is Wyn Wiley, an avid outdoorist and professional photographer. We are beyond thrilled to have them join our EMA Activist Board, and we look forward to amplifying and assisting the fantastic work of Pattie and the nonprofit she co-founded, The Outdoorist Oath. 

Please enjoy our interview with the incomparable Pattie Gonia. 

We always start from the beginning. What inspired your environmental activism and love of nature?

Queerness! Growing up, people told me that my queerness was "unnatural" and wrong, so I never spent much time outdoors connecting to nature. Through my drag, activism, and meeting with scientists who study queerness worldwide, I now know that my queerness is nothing but natural. So, I go outdoors to reclaim much lost time that the little queer me never got to live.

You're a Co-Founder of The Outdoorist Oath. What motivated you to start the nonprofit, and how is it going?

The future of outdoor culture and environmental movement will be built on actions of allyship for people and the planet. So, I co-founded the Outdoorist Oath to educate and organize allies, BIPOC, and Queer people to get outdoors and fight for planet, inclusion, and adventure.

What is your advice to anyone who has felt marginalized by the outdoor and environmental communities, and what can organizations such as EMA do to make everyone feel included?

I advise finding people you feel safe and seen with, even if it's only a few. Life and the trails are better when experienced together. My advice to EMA is to prioritize relationships with people from different identities. Without connections, we have tokenization; with relationships, we have trust and can take action to build a better future.

You partner with many impressive brands. Why is it important to include conscious companies in the climate conversation? 

Every brand I work with has allies and environmental advocates working within to make a change from the inside out, and I'm excited to partner with brands who recognize my work to make a change from the outside in and to do work together.

We are so excited to have you at this year's EMA Awards! Is there a particular movie/documentary that changed your outlook on environmentalism? 

I am SO excited to attend the EMA Awards! I will arrive in a special drag look inspired by queerness in an animal species! And yes, I have a documentary that changed my outlook on environmentalism in POWERFUL ways. It's called - UYRA, and the film follows Uýra, a trans-Indigenous artist who travels through the Amazon on a journey of self-discovery using performance art to teach Indigenous youth that they are the guardians of ancestral messages of the Amazon Forest. In a country that kills the highest number of trans, Indigenous, and environmentalist youth worldwide, Uýra leads a rising movement through arts and education while fostering unity and providing inspiration for the LGBTQIA+ and environmental movements in the heart of the Amazon Forest.