Remy Tumin
Patagonia is taking Pattie Gonia to court.
The outdoor apparel company is suing the US drag queen and environmental activist for trademark infringement, arguing that Pattie Gonia moved away from “discrete use of a persona to engage in activism” and “transformed into a commercial enterprise”.
In doing so, Pattie Gonia is causing irreparable harm to Patagonia, the company said in a lawsuit filed in California in January.
Gonia, speaking publicly on social media last week for the first time since the lawsuit was filed, said the company was trying to take away their name permanently and “erase an activist,” and called on Patagonia to drop the lawsuit.
The lawsuit will hinge on the role of First Amendment rights and parody in a dispute over a brand name and services, said Nancy J. Mertzel, a trademark lawyer who is not affiliated with the case.
“Even though Patagonia is a very public benefit-minded corporation, they need to protect their assets,” she said. “I think there’s a lot at stake, certainly for Pattie — as a spokesperson, and as an environmental activist.”
Pattie Gonia, who was created by Wyn Wiley, said she started out in 2018 when she put on a pair of heels during a backpacking trip, naming the drag persona after the region in South America known for its natural beauty.
Since then, Gonia has built an online community around a mission of connecting queer people, people of colour and lower-income communities with the outdoors, putting on climate-inspired drag shows across the United States. She has more than 1.8 million followers on Instagram and nearly 900,000 on TikTok.
Wiley also cofounded the Oath, an organisation that promotes climate solutions and inclusion.
According to Patagonia’s lawsuit, filed in January in the US District Court for the Central District of California, the company met Gonia in 2022, and she agreed to restrict her use of the “Pattie Gonia” name on fonts or designs that mimic Patagonia’s.
In 2025, the drag queen started selling Pattie Gonia-branded apparel online. Patagonia asked her to stop, the lawsuit said, citing the 2022 agreement. Several months later, Gonia filed a trademark application, seeking to register the name for clothing, marketing and events.
In a statement posted after several online statements from Gonia, Patagonia said they had hoped to avoid a lawsuit.
“We want to acknowledge any hurt it has caused, especially in the LGBTQ+ community,” the company wrote. “Importantly, we continue to want to resolve this.”
The company said “we can do that” if Gonia agreed to three things: removing the trademark applications, ceasing use of the mountain landscape logo and stopping the sale and promotion of apparel and other products as “Pattie Gonia”.
“If we can agree on this, we can work out everything else, and Pattie Gonia could continue as a performer and activist,” the company wrote. “We share common ground with them, including the goal of saving our home planet and creating a more inclusive outdoors.”
Gonia denied ever using the Patagonia brand, logo or font on her merchandise website, and instead argued that “the lawsuit cherry-picks a few examples of playful parody and fan art and tries to spin those into some kind of vast use of their logo”.
“That wasn’t a broad agreement about my future,” she said in a recorded social media post last week, referring to Patagonia’s claims about a 2022 agreement.
“Drag is built on parody, puns and jokes, but I’m willing to never parody their logo ever again,” she said.
Gonia said she filed to trademark the name “not to compete with a multibillion-dollar corporation” but because of a trademark dispute facing another drag queen, Lexi Love.
‘You don’t need proof of actual confusion; the test is likelihood of confusion.’
Trademark lawyer Nancy J. Mertzel
Gonia said the timing of Patagonia’s lawsuit, “at the height of anti-LGBTQ politics and attacks”, was purposeful. “They looked at this political moment and thought they could pull this off without a pushback,” she said.
In a response to Patagonia’s filing, Gonia denied the allegations and asked for a full jury trial. Lawyers for the drag queen did not respond to a request for comment.
Mertzel said she was not surprised that Patagonia had moved forward with the lawsuit.
“There’s a common saying in the trademark world that trademark owners need to actively police and enforce their marks,” she said, adding that trademarks “become weaker” if they aren’t enforced.
She noted the additional examples of others appropriating Patagonia’s name, including for oil and paramilitary organisations.
There are two fundamental issues underlying the legal claims, Mertzel said. First is whether “Pattie Gonia” is likely to cause confusion or dilute Patagonia’s brand. The second is whether “Pattie Gonia” should be entitled to a trademark registration.
“You don’t need proof of actual confusion; the test is likelihood of confusion,” Mertzel said. “The question is, really, is anyone going to think that Patagonia, the company, has endorsed or sponsored or approved Pattie’s goods and services.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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