Hello Everyone. One of the things that I’ve struggled with over the years of doing various posts here and elsewhere is that I, quite frankly, am not an expert on anything. This makes me very self-conscious about my posting because I feel like I’m misleading people into making mistakes in their own thoughts and arguments. So, I’m going to try this new approach of calling my posts “conversation starter” with the hope that if I am wrong, or by shock and chance hit the mark a bit, readers can feel free to add opinion or correct me.
Any of us may be wrong by a long stretch or just a little bit, and I think we hold our opinions for fear of being made to look foolish or naïve. I would like to preface this with the reminder that these are my opinions, and much like assholes…., yeah. So… here goes.
One of the current position points for the GOP, and I’ve seen this especially in Indiana, Ohio and Florida, is the idea that property taxes are an unfair burden upon property owners (https://auditor.bcohio.gov/news_detail_T2_R36.php). I’ve heard them use the analogy that it is paramount to buying a meal from the resturant, paying for the meal, and then being required to return yearly to pay more for that original meal purchase. The human mind is going to immediately gravitate to the idea that the removal of a tax is a good thing. This, of course, is the MAGA and GOP mode of operations: appeal to the unthinking and immature mental reflex of their base towards their own ends. What the less wealthy MAGA likely hasn’t done, is recognize that this turns a tax burden upon the less wealthy, again. Here is my thinking:
If a wealthy person buys land, say, measuring 100 acres for his own home. Conceivably, a similar 100 acres would house 300-400 middle-class homes, or more if we consider apartments. In a simple math, because I know it doesn’t quite work this way but give me some latitude here, those two 100-acre portions of land would pay give-or-take the same tax. That means, by my simple measure, one family is paying the same tax as 300-400. Now, that doesn’t really seem very fair, and so the GOP/MAGA support the end of that tax. But, as we all know, the bills never stop. The money for roads, schools, parks, police and fire, etc., has to come from somewhere. A great deal of that comes from property tax. If it doesn’t come from the property tax, where will it come from? I would guess an increase in sales taxes, gas taxes, payroll state taxes. In this case, now the food, gas, entertainment, police and fire and whatever else, is going to be payed by that 3-400 middle-class families at a similar rate as the 1-wealthy family — meaning the tax burden has shifted to the middle-class families. Further, the wealthy person is going to have an even better financial position, which he will likely use to buy more land.
Under a single spotlight, a tall figure in a hooded robe strutted onto the stage, their back to the audience. After a suspenseful beat, three words in large bolded lettering lit up the screen behind them: “NATURE IS GAY.”
With a twirl to the crowd, Pattie Gonia unveiled their ginger-red hair and matching mustache, dancing in an earthy blue-and-green crop top and skirt barely covering their chiseled body. The crowd of over a thousand broke into roaring applause.A 2019 video of Bill Nye the Science Guy, pulled from his appearance on John Oliver’s “Last Week Tonight,” punctuated the dramatic reveal. “By the end of the century, if emissions keep rising, the average temperature on Earth could go up another 4 to 8 degrees,” Nye said. “What I’m saying is, the planet’s on fucking fire.”
These are just the first few seconds of environmental activist and drag queen Pattie Gonia’s “Save Her” tour, a one-of-a-kind show that calls for the protection of the dolls — and the planet. The drag queens and kings who created and star on the tour aim to counter the exclusion of their communities by promoting the inclusion of everyone.
For eight years, Pattie Gonia, who goes by Wyn Wiley out of drag, has amassed an impressive following of over 2 million people across their social channels and through their environmental activism on and off the stage. They’ve pushed boundaries, set records and earned accolades, including being featured as one of TIME’s most influential creators in 2025, named as one of National Geographic’s 33 “agents of change” and invited to speak at TED Talk. They have also raised millions of dollars for environmental and social justice non-profits, co-founded the environmental equity organization Outdoorist Oath and a job board to help the queer community and allies find work in the environmental sector.
Last year, Pattie Gonia completed a 100-mile trek from Point Reyes National Seashore to San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge in full drag — hair, heels and all — to raise $1 million for non-profit environmental and social justice organizations.
Pattie Gonia performs at the “Save Her! Environmental Drag Show” during Climate Week, Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2024, in Brooklyn, New York. (Alyssa Goodman/AP Photo)
Last month, they did it again, completing a five-day hike at Yosemite.
As show attendee and D.C. drag king Lionel Bitchie said, “She’s not one of the most followed drag queens for no reason.”
But they haven’t done all this work without ruffling a few orange-tinted feathers — and sparking division even among their own fans. During the 2024 presidential campaign season, they were targeted in a Trump campaign ad. Most recently, Pattie Gonia has been in the news for getting sued by the clothing brand Patagonia.
The lawsuit arose after Pattie Gonia filed a trademark application for exclusive rights to use the Pattie Gonia brand on commercial products and events, a move that Patagonia claims would compromise its brand identity. The drag queen responded on social media, posting that suing a climate activist is a “betrayal” of Patagonia’s core mission. Patagonia, for its part, acknowledged their shared goal of caring for the planet and the outdoors, but has held firm on the conditions to end the litigation.
Online, people in Pattie Gonia’s own fanbase have expressed conflict. While some view the lawsuit as harmful to the queer community and stopped using Patagonia’s products as a result, others disagree the clothing brand unfairly sued the drag artist.
Pattie Gonia said the timing of the lawsuit, filed on January 21, hits especially hard because it has come at a time when marginalized communities have been under fire. Several climate, gender and equity-related terms have been erased and banned from federal agencies. The Trump administration has rolled back key protections and visibility for LGBTQ+ communities, including limiting access to gender affirming care, removing mentions of LGBTQ+ history in national parks and banning transgender service members in the military. It also has slashed environmental safeguards for clean air and water, gutted funding for national parks and public lands, and expanded the use of polluting fossil fuel industries.
All the while, Pattie Gonia has embraced their own form of protest in the national “Save Her” tour, focusing it on climate activism and partnering with local drag queens at each of the tour’s stops, in more than 20 cities. At the 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C. — a historically inclusive space for Black performers steps from U Street’s former Black Broadway and a 20-minute drive from the White House — artists and attendees weren’t afraid to get political.
“A lot of time drag can be escapist, and not confronting the reality of dealing with fascism and climate decline, so I like drag that is a call to action and inspiring,” local drag artist and attendee Brooke N. Hymen said. “Pride month can be a celebration and it should be, but it should also be resistance against the forces that want to see us eliminated. And I feel like climate activism goes hand in hand with trans and queer activism.”
“Drag is political, so in a way this is like a rally,” Lionel Bitchie added.
One by one, each act gave their own climate-themed performance, with the majority of them stripping down to their “Fuck Donald Trump” pasties and underwear. Between acts, a parodied Smokey the Bear logo on stage read: “Only you can prevent fascist liars.”
Drag artists Brooke N. Hymen (left) and Lionel Bitchie (right) attended Pattie Gonia’s 9:30 Club show. “Drag is political, so in a way this is like a rally,” Bitchie said. (Jenae Barnes for The 19th)
“It’s a fantastic outlet for joy and rage all in one,” said attendee Kirby Callaway, who works in the environmental space. She said when she saw Pattie Gonia perform at a previous drag show, her “cheeks were hurting because I was smiling so much.”
“It’s so unique, [and] so much of the way that I interact with it in the real world is very doom and gloom,” Callaway said. “I don’t feel like a lot of places get to celebrate and find joy and laugh at these issues.”
Co-headliner and drag queen Sequoia (yes, like the tree) donned an upcycled outfit made of clothing relics from their closeted past and did a performance about the gender fluidity of plants and animals. The screen behind them displayed the words, “Nature is queer, and so am I.”
Going for a wildly humorous take on the issue, drag king Uncle Freak shuffled on stage to perform a striptease as a geriatric man, complete with a fake white mustache and a receding hairline that even NASA couldn’t find on the Hubble telescope. The environmental theme? How climate change worsens the effects of aging.
“Climate change accelerates biological aging in older adults by increasing vulnerability to extreme heat, dehydration and air pollution,” read the screen they pointed at with their cane on the stage.
But the show wasn’t all fun, games and nipple tassels. D.C. drag royalty King Molasses performed to Phil Collins’ ‘80’s hit “In the Air Tonight,” using the tune’s famous crescendo of intensity to parallel the “rising tension” of the climate crisis.
“In the Air felt very correct, in the sense of this urgency that we are now as a people finding ourselves in when it comes to saving the planet. By saving, I mean the impact of technology, of data centers, the climate skewing hotter, the ice caps melting, storms getting more severe,” the inaugural winner of the “King of Drag” reality TV show told The 19th. “There are so many things that are becoming more and more pressing at an alarming rate. And there will be a point where the consequences of our actions will be impossible to ignore.”
King Molasses performs to Phil Collins’ ‘80’s hit “In the Air Tonight.” (Maya Lopez)
Pattie Gonia came on and sang a heartfelt “bird song” about resilience and visibility in times of hardship. “No one can erase us, we’re here and we’re staying, we sing cause we made it, we made it through the night,” they sang as the crowd softened during the piano-accompanied tune and several people melted with tears and hugs.
Co-headliners Sequoia and Vera! joined Pattie at the climax of the show to perform a piece on social justice in front of the backdrop of an American flag. Written on each stripe, a different call to action: “Eat the rich. Protect the dolls. Free Palestine. Black lives still matter. No one is illegal on stolen land.”
Amid rampant erasure, censorship and oppression of the queer community and environmental advocates, the tour is more than a late-night rendezvous; it’s a rallying cry, Molasses said.
“The opportunity that this tour gives all of us artists is that drag allows us to play and show something that feels like entertainment,” Molasses said. “But if we can do it in a particular way, we are able to not only entertain but are able to call our community to action.”
It’s a big help to see things like this; it helps to understand why things are happening that don’t make sense. The other night, we had so much rain, my backyard was a shallow pond. Not a swamp, or rice paddies or whatever, but a literal pond. That hasn’t happened in years, for one thing, but I was mostly looking out and hoping it wasn’t going to turn into a brown ocean (which I learned of in another weather video on this site.)
