Patagonia Is Suing a Drag Queen Named Pattie Gonia in a Messy Trademark Dispute

At the start of Pride Month, Patagonia got back to Wiley with terms.

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Both sides now say they want the dispute to end. Wiley offered to drop the trademark filing. Patagonia wants Pattie Gonia to withdraw all trademark applications, stop using its logos, and stop selling and promoting apparel and other products under the Pattie Gonia name.

If Patagonia prevails, Pattie Gonia’s trademark application could be thrown out — erasing a protection Wiley says guards against losing the name. Wiley has framed the stakes bluntly: “This is not a brand conflict. This is a corporation trying to erase an activist.” They’ve also disputed the company’s preferred number. “Patagonia told the media they’re only suing me for $1,” Wiley wrote on Instagram. “What they’re actually trying to do is take away my name permanently and threaten me with more than $1 million dollars in legal fees.”

How it got here

The persona is a pun. Wiley has built Pattie Gonia into one of the outdoors’ most visible queer climate voices since 2018. Patagonia says that, in 2024, Pattie Gonia began selling merchandise featuring versions of its logo, then filed in September 2025 to trademark the name for clothing, marketing services, and to promote environmental activism. Patagonia sued in January, in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, seeking $1 in damages plus legal fees.

Patagonia has worked hard to frame this as principle, not politics. “We’re not against art, creative expression, or commentary about our brand,” the company wrote in a January statement, adding that it cannot “selectively choose to enforce our rights based on whether we agree with a particular point of view.”

The statement ended with a link to their legal filing and the conclusion: “For these reasons Pattie Gonia’s use of a near-copy of our name commercially – including as a brand for environmental advocacy – and her trademark application seeking to obtain the exclusive right to use that name going forward, pose long-term threats to Patagonia’s brand and our activism.”

Patagonia says a prior agreement existed and that Pattie Gonia. Wiley denies any agreement, denies using the logo, and says the lawsuit cherry-picked “a few examples of playful parody and fan art.” They also say Patagonia never raised the trademark filing before suing — that the first word came “four months later when their internal lawyer emailed to say that Patagonia had filed the lawsuit.”

Wiley has gotten more vocal on Instagram as the lawsuit threat continues. A scheduling conference in the case is set for June 8.