Who is Pattie Gonia? Drag queen featured in anti-trans ad mulls legal action against Donald Trump

Drag queen and environmental activist Pattie Gonia, whose real name is Wyn Wiley, shared on social media that they are considering legal action against presidential candidate Donald Trump. This comes after Trump used a video of them in a campaign advertisement that was anti-trans. At the time of writing this article, the video had not been taken down by the Republican candidate’s team.

Donald Trump’s advertisement, released last week, included a moment where Vice President Kamala Harris posed alongside Pattie Gonia at a 2022 Pride Month event. In the video, Harris was heard saying she would support giving trans inmates access to gender-affirming care from a 2020 campaign stop. In the advertisement, a narrator then said:

“Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you.”

Since then, Pattie Gonia has taken to Instagram to condemn the political campaign, dressing up as the Statue of Liberty. They said:

“Is this seriously the best they’ve got? No, the Trump campaign did not have my permission to use my name or likeness. Yes, we are reviewing our legal options, and yes, I’m going to do what queer people always do, turn our pain into something positive.”

For those uninitiated, Pattie Gonia is best known in the queer community for advocating for inclusivity and “diversity in the outdoors,” as per their official website.

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More about Pattie Gonia as they mull over taking legal action against Donald Trump

Pattie Gonia, who also goes by the pronouns 'she' and ‘he,’ had amassed nearly 700,000 followers on Instagram at the time of writing this article. According to their bio on the social networking site, TIME Magazine had referred to them as a “Next Gen Leader.”

Based on their official website, Gonia is the founder of the Outdoorist Oath, a non-profit organization that encouraged femmes, BIPOC, and LGBTQ+ members to step into the outdoors and get involved in community activities. Additionally, Gonia is the founder of the Queer Outdoor and Environmental Job Board, a tool that assists queer people to get hired in various fields.

According to their website, Gonia has raised $1.5 million for environmental, BIPOC, and LGBTQ+ non-profits. It also states:

“Pattie’s drag itself is a personal journey of self identity, sustainability, and queuing traditional masculine outdoor narratives to explore the natural world.”

Following the release of Trump’s anti-trans ad, Gonia shared that the former was attempting to divide the nation and “wage war against gender-affirming care.”

Gonia has since directed followers to the link in their Instagram bio that was raising funds to support “trans and gender-affirming healthcare” through organizations like "Trans Lifeline and Point of Pride.”

The fundraisers were closed at the time of writing this article.

Harris' beliefs on gender-affirming care came to light during last month’s debate with former POTUS Donald Trump, who claimed that she wanted “to do transgender operations on illegal aliens who are in prison.” Harris did not further comment on the same during the debate.

Neither Trump nor Harris had publicly commented on the matter following Gonia’s address of the controversy at the time of writing this article.