Patagonia’s trademark lawsuit against drag queen and climate activist Pattie Gonia has sparked a wave of debate about what happens when brand protection collides with queer culture and environmental advocacy.
While the case will play out in court, fans and fellow performers are already weighing in on what it says about power, parody and who gets to use which name.
What’s actually going on?
Patagonia filed a trademark infringement lawsuit in a Los Angeles federal court in January, arguing that drag queen and climate activist Pattie Gonia (aka Wyn Wiley) could “irreparably harm” its brand by registering and using the name on clothing, events and environmental advocacy work. The company says her trademark application would overlap with its own trademarks for apparel, “motivational speaking services promoting sustainability” and “organising, arranging and conducting trail and hiking events”.
The outdoor label is only asking for US$1 (AUD 1.40) in damages plus legal fees, but wants an injunction stopping “Pattie Gonia” being registered as a trademark and blocking any allegedly infringing merch. Patagonia insists this isn’t about identity or politics, saying “the last thing we wanted was a legal fight with someone who shares our values”, but that it has to protect its business and employees after years of trying to resolve things privately.
Pattie Gonia says this is about erasure
In a video on TikTok and Instagram, Pattie Gonia told followers Patagonia is “trying to erase an activist”, accusing the brand of using trademark law to strip away her name and saddle her with more than US$1 million (AUD 1.4 million) in potential legal fees. “This is not a brand conflict. This is a corporation trying to erase an activist. And this is how corporations bully individuals who cannot match their resources,” they said, arguing the case threatens her activism, career and the livelihoods of her team.
They pointed out they’ve spent eight years building a community of more than three million people, a nonprofit teaching allyship outdoors, and drag tours focused on climate solutions, raising about US$3.7 million (AUD 5.1 million) for environmental organisations in the process. Pattie also rejected Patagonia’s claims around “irreparable harm”, saying they has never used the company’s logo or font on her merch site and that the lawsuit is cherry‑picking “a few examples of playful parody and fan art”.
“Drag is built on parody, puns, and jokes,” they added, saying they are willing to never parody the logo again: “aka never give them free PR ever again.”
@pattiegonia breaking my silence. today i’m speaking publicly for the first time about the lawsuit patagonia inc. has filed against me pattie gonia, a climate activist, in federal court. this is not a joke. this is happening.
♬ original sound – pattiegonia
Lazy Susan: ‘They went after the wrong diva’
Speaking to PEDESTRIAN.TV, Drag Race Down Under winner Lazy Susan said her first instinct was pure solidarity.
“My first response is always like, for the drag queens, I’m like, ‘get them’. I’m so glad that she’s not lying down on this one. It’s really fabulous that she’s not going to be bullied out of her name,” she told P.TV, pointing to a long history of drag performers being forced to change or lose their names in clashes with big platforms and companies.
“I remember when Facebook wouldn’t allow drag queens to have their names on the platform and be there as performers. And people just were like, ‘Let me just live my life and work as an entertainer, why are you making this into such a hassle?'”
Lazy Susan argues that while Patagonia may well have a technically strong legal case on paper, the brand move is wildly out of touch.
“It seems like Patagonia, the company, likely has a pretty solid case, likely because they have an incredible legal team, but I do think for them this is a terrible idea. This is like [Barbara] Streisand effect moment,” she said. “They’re drawing a lot of negative press, it’s going to cost them more and do more harm to their brand in the long run.”
She’s particularly scathing about the strategy. Calling it “a terrible, terrible decision”, Susan said it feels less like carefully balancing trademark rights and more like “making a mountain out of a molehill”. In her view, “it’s a pretty unsavvy move for a giant corporation to go after a single individual” who she claims has “only ever done right by them”.
The reaction has definitely turned into backlash against Patagonia, while some do understand the brand’s position.
Could this have gone a different way?
Environmental educator and TikToker Leah Thomas has been using her platform to spell out just how differently this could have gone. In a video about the case, she explained that “a lot of brands have no idea about drag culture, or that most drag names are like a play on words”, and pointed to JanSport as an example of a company that eventually got it.
She noted that drag queen Jan Sport initially tweaked her name “to avoid any like copyright trademark issues,” but that in 2024 “JanSport actually said, ‘Hmm, maybe this is an opportunity to reach new audiences. Maybe this is an opportunity to uplift an artist,’ and decided to partner with Jan Sport”, allowing the queen to restore her original drag name and front a collection.
“Maybe the brand initially didn’t really know and was maybe ignorant,” Thomas said, “but then they got hip because they investigated. They had cultural competency. Someone on their marketing team was like, ‘Oh, this is actually an opportunity for us.’” She contrasted that with Patagonia’s approach, asking why a company that raises millions for environmental groups wouldn’t work with “a drag queen — an outdoor drag queen at that — that’s raised over $3 million for environmental organisations”.
‘We are tolerated’: the message to queer activists
For Lazy Susan, the cultural stakes go way beyond fonts and filings. She believes the lawsuit sends a chilling message from corporations to queer communities: “It sends this message that we are tolerated… that they can just decide when we’re going to exist and when we’re not going to exist,” she said, calling that idea “foolish” and “nearsighted”.
She also flagged how devastating legal costs could be, saying Patagonia could effectively force a drag artist “who’s out there trying to fight for the climate” to pay legal fees “in excess of a million US dollars”, which she described as “obscene”.
Asked what she’d want Patagonia executives to understand about drag names, Lazy Susan said they function more like superhero identities than product labels. She noted that Pattie herself has talked about the name as a way to build “an identity and a space and a community” that lets her be more than she was out of drag, giving people “an idea to rally around”. In Susan’s words, that’s “not about Patagonia the outdoor brand, that’s about this kind of almost superhero”, and drag names give performers “the power to do things that maybe we don’t have the courage or the ability to do out of drag.”
She also warned that going after a drag queen in this political moment is definitely a choice. Drag and cabaret performers, she said, are always among the first targeted “during any lean towards conservatism” and also the first “out on the front lines”, partly because “it’s really hard to attack a clown or a jester”.
She suggests that taking aim at Pattie just makes Patagonia look ridiculous.
“There’s no value in attacking the court jester, except it makes you look foolish.”
Now what?
Patagonia has spent years marketing itself as the rare mega‑brand that genuinely puts the planet first, from suing the Trump administration over public lands to founder Yvon Chouinard handing the company into a trust so “Earth is our only shareholder”. Now, as Pattie Gonia puts it, the company is funnelling time and money into federal court filings aimed at taking a drag queen’s name, while anti‑LGBTQ+ politics and climate crises rage around them.
“‘You are what you do, not what you say you are,’ Chouinard once said.
Right now, plenty of queer fans and fellow drag queens are watching to see what that actually means to Patagonia in this moment.
The post Drag, Trademarks And Fleece: Why Patagonia Is Suing Drag Queen & Climate Activist Pattie Gonia appeared first on PEDESTRIAN.TV .
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