Patagonia Sues Drag Queen "Pattie Gonia" for Trademark Infringement
“This is how corporations bully individuals who cannot match their resources,” said the artist and activist.
Activists and LGBTQ+ advocates are voicing public outrage against the outerwear brand Patagonia after it sued the drag queen Pattie Gonia for trademark infringement.
Pattie Gonia, the drag persona of Oregon-based LGBTQ+ and environmental activist Wyn Wiley, took to Instagram this week to accuse the company of attempting to “erase an activist” when it sued her in January for the meager sum of $1 plus attorneys' fees. Those fees would add up to around $1 million, according to Pattie Gonia.
The drag queen claims to have raised nearly $5 million for nonprofits that expand outdoor opportunities for LGBTQ+ and BIPOC individuals.
“This is how corporations bully individuals who cannot match their resources,” Pattie Gonia said in a video shared with her 1.8 million Instagram followers. The artist called for the company to drop the suit, prompting activist accounts on the platform to call for a boycott of the brand.
The $3 billion clothing brand announced it was suing the activist in late January after she filed a trademark application for her parody brand “Pattie Gonia.” The activist had previously sought to trademark her name, merchandise, and “motivational speaking services in support of environmental sustainability,” according to the lawsuit.
In papers filed in US Federal Court in Los Angeles, the company claimed that Pattie Gonia violated a prior agreement she had with the company by attempting to commercialize her drag name. In her first public remarks about the lawsuit this week, Pattie Gonia expressly denied Patagonia’s claims, defending her drag persona and related merchandise as part of performance art’s long history of “parody, puns, and jokes.”
She also denied the existence of a formal agreement with the company, beyond a one-time agreement to some of the company's terms for a particular project.
“This [lawsuit] would take away not only my activism and my career, but also the livelihoods of the team I employ,” Pattie Gonia said in her video. “This is a betrayal of Patagonia’s core mission. Because if they’re in business to save the home planet, why are they suing a climate activist?”
If Patagonia succeeds in court, Pattie Gonia’s trademark application for her persona and activism could be thrown out, erasing a venue she said could protect her from the fate of fellow drag queen “Lexi Love,” whose social media accounts and gigs disappeared amid a trademark dispute.
A spokesperson for Patagonia told Hyperallergic in a statement that the lawsuit was “part of protecting the ability of this company to continue doing that work in the future.”
“This matter is not about seeking financial gain, nor is it about challenging anyone’s identity or right to advocacy, protest, or creative expression,” the statement said. “The last thing we wanted was a legal fight with someone who shares our values, but we must protect our business and employees.”
Patagonia’s lawsuit likened Pattie Gonia’s attempts to trademark her brand to the copycats “Fratagonia” and “Petagonia,” which visibly ripped off the company’s logo. The brand claimed that it had to enforce its trademark regardless of the political values of the alleged violator.
Pattie Gonia’s for-sale merchandise, now removed from her website, appears markedly different from Patagonia’s blue-and-purple rectangular logo. The artist and activist claims the company “cherry-picked” social media posts in which she holds fan art that mimicked the logo as evidence for their lawsuit.
“This lawsuit serves no good purpose,” Pattie Gonia said to her followers. “Let’s make peace and get back to our common love of the planet, including our namesake region in South America named Patagonia.”
